Iran Missiles Ready For Shooting At
Any Place, Any Time: America And
Israel Perplexed
July 9, 2008
Iran's elite Revolutionary
Guards on Wednesday test fired a longer range Shahab-3 missile,
whose range is sufficient to put Israel within reach, Arabic
language state channel Al-Alam reported.
The channel said that the missile test fired was a "Shahab-3
with a conventional warhead weighing one ton and a 2,000
kilometer range."
The test firing, which also included the firing of several other
missiles, comes at a time of growing tensions over the Iranian
nuclear program, which the West claims could be aimed at making
an atomic bomb but Tehran insists it is for peaceful ends and it
is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend
the integrity of the Iranian nation," Al-Alam quoted
Revolutionary Guards air force commander Hossein Salami as
saying.
"Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time,
quickly and with accuracy. The enemy must not repeat its
mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance," he added.
In total nine missiles were tested, state-run English language
channel Press-TV reported. Along with the Shahab-3, the missiles
tested were the Zelzal, which has a range of up to 400
kilometers and the Fateh, which has a range of around 170
kilometers.
Press-TV showed pictures of the Shahab-3 being launched at an
undisclosed desert location inside Iran. "This a show of Iran's
military muscle in the region in the face of threats from
countries who said they would target Iran's nuclear facilities,"
the Press-TV announcer said.
The United States and its top regional ally Israel have never
ruled out attacking Iran over its nuclear drive. There has been
concern an attack against Iran could be imminent after it
emerged Israel had carried out maneuvers in Greece that were
effectively practice runs for a potential strike against Iranian
nuclear facilities.
The firing comes a day after an aide to supreme leader Ayatollah
Sayyed Ali Khamenei warned Iran would "set fire" to Israel and
the US navy in the Gulf as its first response to any US attack
over its nuclear program.
"The first US shot on Iran would set the United States' vital
interests in the world on fire," said Ali Shirazi, Imam
Khamenei’s representative to the naval forces of the elite
Revolutionary Guards. "Tel Aviv and the US fleet in the Persian
Gulf would be the targets that would be set on fire in Iran's
crushing response," he said, according to the Fars news agency.
The firing was part of The Great Prophet III war games by the
missile and naval sections of the Revolutionary Guards which are
aimed at "improving the combat capability" of the forces.
US and British warships on Tuesday also completed a five-day
exercise aimed at rehearsing protection of oil installations in
the Gulf, the Bahrain-based US 5th Fleet said.
Rice: Iran Missile Test Shows Threat Not
Imaginary
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that
Iran's latest missile test shows that the threat posed by the
Islamic republic is not "imaginary".
"It's evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one,"
Rice told journalists at a news conference in the Bulgarian
capital when asked about Iran's latest test of its Shahab-3
missile. "It's time for Iranians to stop violating their
Security Council obligations and start fulfilling them," Rice
said.
Earlier, Washington had already condemned Iran's test of a
missile that puts Israel within reach and warned the Islamic
republic to abandon its ballistic missile program "immediately."
Iran Missile Test ‘Reinforces’ Global Concerns: France
France warned on Wednesday that Iran's latest missile test would
heighten international concerns about Tehran's nuclear program.
"These missile tests can only reinforce the concerns of the
international community at a time when Iran is separately
developing a nuclear program," foreign ministry spokesman Eric
Chevallier told a press conference.
Britain Labels Iran Missile Test ‘Unwelcome’
Iran's test-firing of a missile which it claimed could reach
Israel is "unwelcome", Britain said Wednesday, calling on the
Islamic republic to comply with its international nuclear
obligations.
The statement from the Foreign Office came after Iranian state
television showed footage of the Shahab-3 and eight other
missiles being fired from a secret location in the Iranian
desert.
"These tests are unwelcome and only serve to reinforce our
concerns about Iranian intentions," the Foreign Office statement
said. "We have to question why does Iran need such long-range
missiles?"
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