Iranian warships sunk by U.S. and Israeli attacks litter naval harbors along the Persian Gulf coast, but what is sometimes called a “mosquito fleet” lurks in the shadows.

被美以联合袭击击沉的伊朗军舰残骸散落在波斯湾沿岸的各个海军港口，但一支被称为"蚊子舰队"的力量正潜伏在暗处。

It is a flotilla of small, fast, agile boats designed to harass shipping, and it forms the heart of the naval forces deployed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a force separate from Iran’s regular navy.

这是一支由小型、高速、机动性强的船只组成的舰队，专为袭扰航运设计，是伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队部署的海军力量的核心战力，革命卫队独立于伊朗常规海军。

These boats, and especially the missiles and drones that the Guards navy can launch from them, or from camouflaged sites onshore, have been the main threat stymying shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

这些快艇一直是阻碍霍尔木兹海峡航运通行的主要威胁，尤其是革命卫队海军能从艇上或岸上伪装阵地发射导弹和无人机。

Iran had vowed to keep the strait closed until there was a cease-fire in Lebanon. On Friday, senior Iranian officials made conflicting statements about whether that truce had prompted Iran to open the strait. On Saturday, Iran’s military said the waterway had “returned to its previous state” and was “under strict management and control of the armed forces.”

伊朗此前曾誓言，除非黎巴嫩实现停火，否则将持续封锁海峡。周五，伊朗高级官员就停火是否促使该国重新开放海峡发表了相互矛盾的声明。周六，伊朗军方表示，这条水道已“恢复至此前状态”，并“处于武装部队的严格管理和控制之下”。

Welcoming the initial Iranian announcement of the opening, President Trump pronounced the Hormuz situation “over,” while stressing on social media that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place until a peace deal was reached.

特朗普总统对伊朗最初宣布开放海峡的消息表示欢迎，宣称霍尔木兹局势"已经结束"，同时在社交媒体上强调，在达成和平协议之前，美国对伊朗港口的封锁将继续生效。

The task of keeping the strait closed would fall to the Guards navy.

封锁海峡的任务由革命卫队海军承担。

“The I.R.G.C. navy works more like a guerrilla force at sea,” said Saeid Golkar, an expert on the Guards and a political science professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

“伊朗革命卫队海军的运作方式更像是一支海上游击队，”研究革命卫队问题的专家、田纳西大学查塔努加分校政治学教授赛义德·戈尔卡尔说。

“It is focused on asymmetrical warfare, especially in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,” he added. “So instead of relying on big warships and classic naval battles, it depends on hit-and-run attacks.”

“它专注不对称作战，尤其是在波斯湾和霍尔木兹海峡地区，”他还说。“因此它不依赖大型战舰和传统海战，而是依靠打了就跑的袭扰战术。”

During the war, at least 20 vessels were attacked, according to the International Maritime Agency, a United Nations agency. The Guards navy rarely claimed the attacks, which analysts said were most likely carried out by drones fired from mobile launchers on land, which generate a faint footprint, difficult to trace.

据联合国下属机构国际海事局统计，战争期间至少有20艘船只遭到袭击。革命卫队海军极少宣称对这些袭击负责，分析人士称，这些袭击极有可能是由陆地机动发射架发射的无人机实施的，这种方式留下的痕迹极微，难以追踪。

On April 8, after a two-week cease-fire in the war was announced, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than 90 percent of the regular navy’s fleet, including its main warships, sat at the bottom of the ocean.

4月8日，在美伊为期两周的停火协议宣布后，美军参谋长联席会议主席丹·凯恩将军表示，包括其主力战舰，伊朗常规海军90%以上的舰队都已沉入海底。

An estimated half of the Guards navy’s fast attack boats were also sunk, General Caine said, but did not specify how many. Estimates of the overall number range from hundreds to thousands — it is difficult to count them.

凯恩将军称，革命卫队海军约一半的快速攻击艇也被击沉，但未透露具体数量。外界对其快艇总数的估计从数百艘到数千艘不等——这一数量很难精确统计。

The boats are often too small to appear on satellite images, and they are moored along piers within deep caves excavated along the rocky coastline, ready to be deployed in minutes, analysts said. Their arsenal poses a major threat to commercial ships in the gulf and the strait.

分析人士指出，这些快艇通常体积太小，无法在卫星图像上显示，它们停泊在沿岩石海岸线开凿的深邃洞穴内的码头边，随时可以在数分钟内部署出击。其武器库对海湾和海峡内的商船构成了重大威胁。

“It remains a disruptive force,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, a retired chief of U.S. Naval Operations. “You never quite knew what they were up to and what their intentions were.”

“它仍然是一支极具破坏性的力量，”美国前海军作战部长加里·拉夫黑德上将说。“你永远无法确切知道他们在做什么、有什么意图。”

Stepping in where the regular navy couldn’t

填补常规海军的战力空白

The Guards land forces were formed soon after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, did not trust the regular army to protect the new government.

革命卫队陆军成立于1979年伊斯兰革命后不久，因为革命领袖阿亚图拉鲁霍拉·霍梅尼不信任常规军队能够保护新生政权。

The Guards navy was added around 1986. The regular navy had proved reluctant during the Iran-Iraq war to attack oil tankers from Iraq’s financial backers, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, said Farzin Nadimi, a specialist on the Guards navy at the Washington Institute, a policy think tank in the U.S. capital.

革命卫队海军则于1986年前后成立。美国首都华盛顿的政策智库华盛顿研究所的革命卫队海军专家法尔津·纳迪米表示，在两伊战争期间，常规海军一度不愿袭击伊拉克的金主科威特和沙特阿拉伯的油轮。

Eventually those attacks ratcheted up, and the United States then deployed warships to escort tankers. One of them, the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts, almost sank after hitting an Iranian mine. In a subsequent battle, the U.S. Navy scuppered two Iranian frigates and a number of other naval vessels.

最终这些袭击愈演愈烈，美国随后部署战舰为油轮护航。其中塞缪尔·B·罗伯茨号护卫舰在触碰伊朗水雷后险些沉没。在随后的战斗中，美国海军击沉了两艘伊朗护卫舰和多艘其他军舰。

Three years later, the Iranians watched as the United States laid waste to the Iraqi military during the first Persian Gulf war.

三年后，伊朗人目睹了美国在第一次海湾战争中摧毁伊拉克军队的全过程。

That combination of events convinced Iran that it could never prevail in a direct confrontation with the U.S. military, so it developed a stealth force to harass ships in the gulf, Mr. Nadimi said.

纳迪米说，这一系列事件让伊朗确信，它永远无法在与美军的直接对抗中获胜，因此发展出了一支隐形力量来袭扰海湾地区的船只。

The Guards navy has an estimated 50,000 men, he said, and divides its forces into five sectors along the gulf, including some presence on many of the 38 gulf islands that Iran controls.

他表示，革命卫队海军约有5万名官兵，沿海湾划分为五个防区，在伊朗控制的38个海湾岛屿中的许多岛屿上设有驻军。

Overall, it has constructed at least 10 well-hidden, fortified bases for attack boats. One, Farur, is the center of operations for the naval special forces, whose equipment, even their sunglasses, are modeled on their U.S. counterparts.

总体而言，伊朗已为攻击艇建造了至少10个隐蔽性极强的加固基地。其中法鲁尔基地是海军特种部队的作战中心，其装备——甚至包括太阳镜——都模仿美军同行的样式。

“The I.R.G.C. navy has always believed that it is at the forefront of the confrontation with the Great Satan, and has been in constant friction with the Americans in the gulf,” Mr. Nadimi said.

“革命卫队海军一直认为自己站在对抗‘大撒旦’的最前线，并且在海湾地区与美国人不断发生摩擦，”纳迪米说。

An arsenal of small, nimble boats

小巧灵活的快艇武器库

Iran started by using recreational boats mounted with rocket-propelled grenades or machine guns, naval analysts said. Over the years, it built a range of specially designed small boats, as well as miniature submarines and marine drones. Iran claims that some of those boats can reach speeds of more than 100 knots, or 115 miles per hour, experts said.

海军分析人士称，伊朗最初使用的是加装火箭推进榴弹或机枪的休闲型船只。多年来，它又建造了一系列专门设计的小型船只，以及微型潜艇和海上无人机。专家表示，伊朗声称其中一些快艇的时速可达100节以上，约合185公里/小时。

The Guards navy also recently developed larger, more sophisticated warships, many of which were targeted in the war, said Alex Pape, the chief maritime expert at Janes, a defense analysis firm. Those damaged included its largest drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri, a converted container ship that could also launch anti-ship missiles.

防务分析公司简氏集团的首席海事专家亚历克斯·佩普说，革命卫队海军近期还研发了更大、更先进的战舰，其中许多在本轮战争中成为打击目标。受损的包括其最大的无人机母舰沙希德·巴格里号，该舰由集装箱船改装而成，还具备发射反舰导弹的能力。

2024年，伊朗一艘名为沙希德·巴格里号的无人机母舰停泊在伊朗阿巴斯港附近的卫星图像。

To counter a potential swarm of smaller boats, U.S. warships have high-caliber cannons and other weaponry, experts said. Commercial vessels, though, have no way to fend off such attacks.

专家表示，为了应对潜在的小型快艇群攻，美国战舰配备了大口径火炮和其他武器装备。然而，商船却没有任何抵御此类袭击的能力。

But the Iranians have never tested swarm attacks of small boats in combat, said Nicholas Carl, an Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington.

但华盛顿智库美国企业研究所的伊朗问题专家尼古拉斯·卡尔表示，伊朗从未在实战中测试过小型快艇的群攻战术。

Since Mr. Trump on Monday imposed a naval blockade on ships traveling from Iranian ports, even the most powerful U.S. warships are avoiding spending any time patrolling in the vicinity of the narrow Strait of Hormuz. There is little room to maneuver and almost no warning time to ward off a drone or a missile fired from nearby, experts said.

自特朗普周一宣布对驶离伊朗港口的船只实施海上封锁以来，即便是最强大的美国战舰也避免在狭窄的霍尔木兹海峡附近海域巡逻。专家指出，海峡内机动空间极小，对于从附近发射的无人机或导弹，几乎没有预警时间。

The U.S. warships enforcing the blockade are likely to remain outside the strait, in the Gulf of Oman or even farther, in the Arabian Sea, where they can monitor shipping traffic but are far more difficult for the Guards to attack, experts said. On Wednesday, Iran warned that it could expand operations into the Red Sea, another key shipping route in the region, through its proxy force in Yemen.

专家称，执行封锁任务的美国战舰很可能会留在海峡外的阿曼湾，甚至更远的阿拉伯海，在那里它们可以监控航运交通，同时大幅降低被革命卫队袭击的风险。周三，伊朗警告称，可能通过其在也门的代理人武装将行动范围扩大到该地区另一条重要航运通道红海。

A long history of confrontation

漫长的对抗史

The Guards navy has long played games of cat-and-mouse with the U.S. military inside the gulf. Admiral Roughead remembers that in the 1990s and 2000s, the small attack craft would approach American warships at high speeds and then veer off when they were half a mile away.

革命卫队海军长期以来一直在海湾地区与美军玩猫鼠游戏。拉夫黑德回忆说，在上世纪90年代和21世纪初，这些小型攻击艇会高速逼近美国战舰，然后在距离约800米处突然转向离开。

Drone warfare has amplified the danger level, he said. Drones are cheap and sometimes hard to detect, but they can inflict significant damage on a warship costing billions of dollars.

他说，无人机战进一步放大了危险程度。无人机价格低廉，有时难以被发现，但却能对造价数十亿美元的战舰造成重大损害。

Occasionally the Guards navy has fought directly with American or other forces. In early 2016, it captured two small U.S. naval boats. The 10 sailors, filmed on their knees, were later released unharmed. The episode caused an uproar in the United States.

革命卫队海军偶尔也会与美国或其他国家军队直接交火。2016年初，它扣押了两艘美国小型海军船只。10名水兵被拍到跪地的画面，他们后来全部获释且未受伤。这一事件在美国国内引发轩然大波。

2021年，一艘伊朗革命卫队海军的近岸快速攻击艇（一种配备机枪的快艇）接近正在穿越霍尔木兹海峡的美国海军舰艇。图像由美国海军提供。

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Nazeri, a founder of the Guards naval special forces, who led that attack, achieved cultlike status in Iran. He inspired a reality show on state television, “The Commander,” which ran for five seasons.

领导那次行动的革命卫队海军特种部队创始人穆罕默德·纳泽里准将在伊朗获得了偶像般的地位。他的事迹启发国家电视台制作了名为《指挥官》的真人秀节目，共播出了五季。

Each season, about 30 contestants competed for the chance to become a naval commando. They demonstrated their survival skills or feats of daring like jumping off cliffs into the gulf. After each round, viewers voted for their favorite “hero.”

每季约有30名参赛者争夺成为海军突击队员的机会。他们展示生存技能，或是从悬崖跳入海湾等惊险壮举。每轮比赛结束后，观众都会投票选出他们最喜爱的“英雄”。