Iran's army has deployed a suicide drone for the first time in massive military drills near the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

The army's chief commander of ground forces was quoted by Iranian state media as calling the unmanned aircraft "a mobile bomb". The drone has been designed to target aerial and ground targets as well as ships. The six-day military exercise is being carried out over 200,000 square miles in the northern part of the Indian Ocean and the eastern part of the Persian Gulf, through which one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes.