Iran yesterday successfully test-fired a missile with the ability to avoid radar and hit several targets simultaneously, the air force chief of the elite Revolutionary Guards said.
"Today, a remarkable goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran's defense forces was realized with the successful test-firing of a new missile with greater technical and tactical capabilities than those previously produced," General Hossein Salami said on state-run television.
Salami said the Iranian-made missile was test-fired as large military maneuvers began in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.
"This missile can simultaneously hit several targets, has near stealth capabilities with a high maneuverability, pin point accuracy and radar avoidance features," Salami said.
The general said the range of the missile would depend on the weight of its warhead.
The television, however, described it as a "ballistic" missile, suggesting it was of comparable range to Iran's existing ballistic rocket, the Shahab-3, which can travel 2,000km and reach Israel and US bases in the Middle East.
The Shahab-3 is also capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
The new missile is called Fajr-3, state-run television reported, screening a brief clip of its launch. "Fajr" means victory in Farsi.
"It can avoid anti-missile missiles and strike the target," Salami said.
Salami said the missile would carry a multiple warhead, and each warhead would be capable of hitting its target precisely.
Last year, former defense minister Ali Shamkhani said that Iran had successfully tested a solid fuel motor for the Shahab-3, a technological breakthrough in Iran's military industries.
Iran launched an arms development program during its 1980-1988 war with Iraq to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane.
The military maneuvers are scheduled to last a week and will involve 17,000 members of the Revolutionary Guards as well as boats, fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
Iran on Thursday refused to comply with a UN Security Council demand to freeze uranium enrichment, defying a warning from major world powers which fear Tehran secretly wants an atomic bomb.
Foreign ministers of the UN Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany warned at talks in Berlin that Iran would find itself isolated if it pursued the standoff over its nuclear program.
It followed a non-binding statement approved unanimously by the world body late on Wednesday giving Iran 30 days to abandon uranium enrichment activities.
But the Islamic republic swiftly hit back.
"Iran's decision on enrichment, particularly research and development, is irreversible," said Aliasghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday that Tehran would not use oil as a weapon in the row over its nuclear program and that it was open to compromise.
But he stressed that Iran would not give up its right to develop nuclear energy for civilian use, which he said was enshrined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
"We're not going to use energy as a political leverage," Mottaki told reporters in Geneva, where he is on a two-day visit..
The standoff with the UN Security Council and the IAEA over its nuclear program has raised fears that Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, might retaliate by cutting off its oil supply.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion