In a ceremony at Iran’s southern port city of Bandar Abbas, the “Sayyad Shirazi” and “Hassan Baqeri” military vessels, named after two martyred senior commanders, joined the fleet of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy.
The two stealth warships are the second and third models of Soleimani-class vessels, the first of which, unveiled on January 6, has been named after Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi commander of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) who was martyred alongside Iran’s Lt. General Qassem Soleimani in a US strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
The two new ocean-going catamarans are armed with various strike and air defense missile systems, including the ‘Navvab’ vertical launching system (VLS) for firing ‘Sayyad’ cruise missiles with a range of 700 km.
Each warship, weighing 600 tons, is powered by four propulsive engines and can carry a combat helicopter and three light corvettes.