Iran has successfully test fired a new long-range surface-to-surface missile, state-run IRNA reported on Sunday.
The Emad (Pillar) missile, designed and built by Iranian experts, is the country’s first long-range missile that can be precision guided until it reaches its target, said Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, Iran’s defense minister.
“To follow our defense programs, we don’t ask permission from anyone,” he said, according to IRNA.
The new rocket was “capable of scrutinizing the targets and destroying them completely,” IRNA reported.
Improved accuracy
Anthony Cordesman, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in October last year that the Emad was a variant of Iran’s existing Shahab-3 long-range missile, “but with a maneuvering reentry vehicle to improve system accuracy and complicate missile defense.”
The liquid-propelled rocket had a range of 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) and was accurate to within 500 meters (547 yards) of the target.
The rocket could carry a 750 kg (1,653 pound) payload, and was scheduled for deployment some time after 2016, he wrote.
Cordesman’s report said Tehran, which had the largest inventory of missiles in the Middle East, has been steadily developing its missile technology, focusing in particular on improvements to guidance systems.
Its existing missiles systems were limited by “poor accuracy and uncertain reliability,” he wrote.
The improving missile inventory gave Tehran “a longer range strike capability that its aging air force largely lacks,” he wrote.
‘Dangerous threat’
Iran’s missile program is being closely watched around the world, with Washington leading international efforts to stymie the growth of Tehran’s missile stockpile.
When Tehran announced in February last year that it had successfully test-fired a laser-guided surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missile, and a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple warheads, the Pentagon spokesman at the time, Adm. John Kirby, described the missile program as “a dangerous threat to region.”
He noted that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929 prohibits Iran from undertaking any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.
Since 2003, concern over Iran’s nuclear program has grown as Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spar over Iran’s growing capability.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has insisted Iran is not building a bomb and says weapons of mass destruction are forbidden under Islam.
In July, negotiators from Iran, the United States, China, Germany, France, Britain and Russia reached a deal on Iran’s nuclear program, agreeing to reduce the number of Iranian centrifuges by two-thirds. The agreement bans enrichment at key facilities, and limits uranium research and development to the Natanz facility.
