Special to WorldTribune.com

NICOSIA — The United States has refused to confirm the presence of Iranian
warships in Syria. Officials said the ships patrolled the eastern
Mediterranean, but did not dock in any Syrian port.

“We have absolutely no indication whatsoever the Iranian ships ever
docked in Syrian ports,” Defense Department spokesman, George Little said.

Iran’s state-owned media said two Iranian naval vessels left Syria on Feb. 21. They said the visit by a destroyer and supply ship marked Iranian naval cooperation with the regime of President Bashar Assad.

“They were meant to provide maritime training to naval forces of Syria under an agreement signed between Teheran and Damascus a year ago,” Iran’s state-controlled Press TV said.

There were no details on the reported Iranian-Syrian naval exercise on Feb. 18, said to have been based from the Syrian port of Tartous.

In 2011, Teheran supplied at least two Ghadir-class submarines to the Syrian Navy to protect against incursions in its territorial waters.

The Syrian opposition asserted that the two Iranian warships docked in Tartous and employed jamming systems to disrupt communications by Sunni rebels. The opposition did not say how it learned of the Iranian jammers.

  Bashar Assad, Defense Department spokesman George Little, Ghadir-class submarines, Iran ships leave Syria; U.S. officials won’t confirm they ever arrived, Iran-Syria naval exercise, Iranian Navy, port of Tartous