Iran is to build a statue of the US sailors it captured in its territorial waters earlier this year as a tourist attraction, a senior Revolutionary Guard officer has said.

The news is likely to cause outrage in the US and play into the hands of Republicans who opposed President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran and lifting of US sanctions in January. Commander Ali Fadavi, the head of the Guard’s naval forces, said the monument would capture the moment the Americans surrendered to Iranian forces.

‘There are very many photographs of the major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval monuments,’ he told Iran’s Defense Press news agency. It is expected the statue will be built on Kharg, a small Iranian island in the Persian Gulf close to where the servicemen were captured, the Telegraph reported. The planned monument could feature on the Rahian-e-Nour, a pro-regime pilgrimage, which promotes the country’s military and takes in historical points from the Iran-Iraq war.

The 10 American sailors were accused of ‘snooping’ on Iran and surrendered to the revolutionary guard on January 12 before being taken into custody and then released 16 hours hours later. One of the two small patrol boats reportedly suffered mechanical issues and drifted into Iranian waters and the sailors and boats were seized. The detainees spent the night at an Iranian base on Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf and were transferred to a US ship in the region. Leading General Ali Fadavi said the American boats showed ‘unprofessional acts’ for 40 minutes before being picked up by Iranian forces in the country’s territorial waters.

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