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Iran tests missile with stealth capability

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.
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