A U.S. official told CNN the current assessment is Iran could launch a three-stage rocket with a satellite on top “at any minute.”
It would be Iran’s first ever launch of this configuration, and like the North Korean test earlier this year, would give Iran further insights into intercontinental ballistic missile technology.
The assessment comes after Iran test-fired two ballistic missiles Wednesday, state media reported. The day before that, Iran conducted other missile tests that Washington suggests were in violation of a U.N. resolution.
The missiles, capable of reaching Iran’s archenemy Israel, were marked with a statement in Hebrew reading “Israel must be wiped off the Earth,” Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency reported.
The phrase originates from a remark made by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s Islamic revolution. CNN has not independently confirmed this report, and Iranian media have not shown photographs of the message.
The firings took place on the second and final day of a large-scale military drill, which marked the first time Tehran has fired ballistic missiles since signing a deal with world powers on its nuclear program in July.
U.S. officials said that the first tests did not violate the nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but were very likely in breach of a U.N. resolution calling on Iran not to undertake ballistic missile activity.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported Tuesday that the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps had said that the drill had Iran’s enemies “shivering from the roar” of the missiles.
The commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that since Israel — referred to as the “Zionist regime” — was within range of the missiles, it was “quite natural” it would be concerned, IRNA reported.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assured Israel that if Iran broke the terms of the nuclear deal, “we will act.”
“We are united in the belief that a nuclear-armed Iran is an absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, the region and the United States,” he said after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly opposed the nuclear agreement with Iran.
In a possible reference to Iran’s latest missile tests, Biden said: “All their conventional activity outside the deal, which is still beyond the deal, we will and are attempting to act wherever we can find it.”
In January, the U.S. Treasury Department levied sanctions against 11 entities and individuals it said were working on behalf of the ballistic missile program.
Iran’s development of the technology has raised concerns that it could equip the missiles with nuclear warheads, which Tehran insists it does not possess.
