|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Iran: Tehran Has Tested Shahab 4 Missile, Opposition Group Says By Mike Nartker In May and August, Iran conducted flight tests of the Shahab 4, which has a range of 2,000 kilometers and can carry a 1.5-ton payload, at a test site located about 50 miles outside the city of Semnan, Soona Samsami, the U.S. representative for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said during a press conference in Washington. In late May, Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani reported a successful flight test of a Shahab 3 missile, which was actually a test of a Shahab 4 — a more advanced missile, Samsami said (see GSN, May 28). “When in May 2002 the regime’s defense minister, Shamkhani, was asked about the test, he referred to a Shahab 3 test to deceive the international community and deviate attention from the Shahab 4 project,” Samsami said. “In fact, it was a complete Shahab 4 test.” The National Council of Resistance of Iran was able to obtain information on the Shahab 4 tests by having people at the testing site, Samsami said. The council is a Marxist-influenced group, which has been linked to the deaths of several U.S. citizens in Iran during the 1970s, and advocates the violent overthrow of the Iranian government, according to a Federation of American Scientists fact sheet. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is believed to be one of the group’s primary supporters. The Shahab 4 has been developed at an industrial complex operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Samsami said. North Korea has provided components and technologies for the missile, which Iran later modified, she said (see GSN, July 10). Iran is also working to develop even more advanced version of its Shahab missile, Samsami said. Currently, Iran is working on the 4,000-kilometer range Shahab 5 and the Shahab 6 ICBM, also known as the Kowsar, she said. “It’s even more true regarding Shahab 5 and Shahab 6 that this could not take place without foreign assistance, both in the terms of the know-how and the equipment,” said the council’s Alireza Jafarzadeh. The Iranian Supreme National Security Council, headed by President Mohamed Khatami, has met in recent months to develop a military doctrine of asymmetrical warfare — including terrorism and weapons of mass destruction — to help balance the growing disparity between the Iranian armed forces and those of other nations, Samsami said (see GSN, Aug. 15). Iran’s increasing development of ballistic missiles is part of this strategy, she said. “This has always been the policy of the Iranian regime, the asymmetric doctrine, that in order to basically deter the world from focusing their attention on the Iranian regime’s outlaw behavior, they should rely even more on terrorism, even more on weapons of mass destruction,” Jafarzadeh said. “And regardless of what approach is being taken there, they are not going to abandon their policies ... in terms of putting aside terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Only if they see extreme decisiveness, because they only understand the language of force and decisiveness.” For further information, see: Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart
| ||||||||||
Back to top
