A day after large-scale military exercises across the nation, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson confirmed that Iran has successfully test-fired 10 short-range surface-to-surface Saegheh missiles.
The controversial military exercises in a tenuous region come as Israeli troops withdraw from Southern Lebanon and there is international scrutiny of Iran’s arms supply to the Hezbollah, which it denies. As the largest predominantly Shiite nation, Iran sympathizes with the Hezbollah but denies that supports them materially. Constantly at odds with Israel, Iran declared Hezbollah victorious. However, experts say that a terrorist summit in Damascus, Syria on November 15, 2005 and attended by who’s-who of the terrorist world including leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hezbollah, and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki inspired Hezbollah to start attacking Israel with its rockets.
Iran is concerned about the presence of US troops in neighboring Iraq and also a preemptive attack by Israel as it did on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 or the Egyptian Air Force in 1967. Iranian Army spokesperson Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashwini said “We have to be prepared against any threat.”
Predictably, the US has condemned Iran's “show of military force” saying that it only reminds the world “of the dangers of its nuclear ambitions.” Accusing Iran of sitting “at the nexus of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism,” the US says that it is sure that “Iran is producing and developing delivery systems that could threaten our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe and eventually the United States itself.”
Iranian media says that the Saegheh has a range of 80-240 kilometers but did not say whether it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran already has a nuclear capable missile in Shahab-3 which has a range of more than 2000 kilometers that could reach Israel and US bases in Europe.
