Video released Saturday shows the moment last month when an Iranian Navy ship fired unguided rockets in close proximity to an American aircraft carrier and an American destroyer.
The Dec. 26 incident prompted U.S. military commanders to criticize Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy for its "highly provocative" actions.
The footage — from the perspective of the viewfinder — reveals how the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRCGN) blasted several rockets near a cluster of coalition and commercial ships, according to U.S. Navy Central Command.
The ships, including the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Bulkeley, were crossing international waters in the Strait of Hormuz when the IRCGN conducted the live-fire exercise, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
The rockets landed about 1,500 yards away from the ships, according to the statement. The IRGCN vessels announced the exercise over maritime radio 23 minutes before it began, the statement added.
Nobody from Iran's foreign or defense ministries gave official comment immediately following the exercise, but the country's state-run news agency, Fars, said in a report about the event that no vessel was in danger.
"Firing weapons so close to passing coalition ships and commercial traffic within an internationally recognized maritime traffic lane is unsafe, unprofessional, and inconsistent with international maritime law," U.S. Central Command said in a previous statement.
