The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran staged nationwide ballistic missile tests on Tuesday, Iranian state television reported, though the accounts did not specify whether the military had fired any intercontinental ballistic missiles, which would violate a United Nations resolution.
Missiles were fired from several silos in different regions of the country, state television reported, without naming the launch sites. It showed clips of underground silos with dozens of missiles, and a missile being prepared for launch from an underground silo.
One three-minute clip showed a missile silo at an enormous underground base with what seemed to be a midrange Qiam 1, a short range ballistic missile first tested in 2010. “This is a missile revolution,” the presenter said.
The head of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, and the commander of the Aerospace Force of the Corps, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, attended the exercises, state television reported.
General Hajizadeh said that the United States was “trying to turn off the lights of Iran’s missile program.”
“The Guards Corps doesn’t give into threats,” he said.
The segment ended with a shot of the presenter standing outside in the dark as a missile exploded out of the side of a mountain behind.
Under the terms of the nuclear accord signed last summer, Iran was “called upon” to refrain from testing missiles “designed to” deliver nuclear weapons. In October, the United States issued sanctions on some businesses and individuals after Iran tested an Emad missile in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929, which barred Iran from undertaking any work on nuclear-capable ballistic missiles.
Iranian officials say that, under the nuclear agreement, it is clear they do not have nuclear weapons, so the missile program is simply a part of its national defense abilities.
In a statement on its website, the Revolutionary Guard Corps said the test was intended to “demonstrate Iran’s deterrent power and the Islamic Republic’s ability to confront any threat against the revolution, the state and sovereignty of the country, under the auspices of empathy and compassion.”
Iran’s most advanced missiles have a range of around 1,860 miles, but its missiles have also been used to shoot satellites into orbit.
nytimes.com
