Iran launches domestically overhauled submarine, new destroyer

TEHRAN,Sept.19(MNA) – During a ceremony in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Tuesday, the Iranian Navy officially launched a domestically overhauled Kilo class submarine, named the Tareq, and a domestically manufactured destroyer, named the Sahand. The Tareq submarine and the Sahand destroyer were launched by order of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei , which was issued from Noshahr, Mazandaran Province, where he attended a graduation ceremony for cadets of a number of military academies of the Iranian Armed Forces on Monday. In a project which took about 1,620,000 man-hours, Navy personnel overhauled the Taregh submarine, replacing 18,000 components including radar-evading cover, engine parts, propellers, and radar systems. Before undergoing the thorough overhaul, Tareq had taken part in the Velayat-90 naval war games, which were held in December 2011, and successfully fired electrically propelled torpedoes for the first time. On May 29, Rear Admiral Abbas Zamini, who was in charge of the project, said that the project had been one of the most important achievements of the country’s defense industries after designing and manufacturing the Jamaran destroyer. At the time, Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said repairing Tareq had been a great achievement because only a handful of countries in the world are capable of overhauling submarines.