Land-to-sea Iran missile to 700 km

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A TV grab taken on Sept 23, 2017 from the Iranian Republic Islamic Broadcasting (IRIB) shows a Khoramshahr missile being launched from an undisclosed location, a day after the said missile was first displayed at a high-profile military parade in the capital Tehran. Iran said on Saturday, that it had successfully tested the new medium-range missile in defiance of warnings from Washington that such activities were grounds for abandoning their landmark nuclear deal. (AFP)

LONDON, Oct 16, (RTRS): Iran has extended the range of its land-to-sea ballistic missiles to 700 km (435 miles), a senior Iranian military official said on Tuesday amid rising tensions with the United States over Tehran’s missile programme.

US President Donald Trump pulled out of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme in May and reimposed sanctions on Tehran, saying the deal was flawed because it did not include curbs on Iran’s development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran, which says its missile programme is purely defensive, has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the United States tries to strangle Iranian oil exports.

“We have managed to make land-to-sea ballistic, not cruise, missiles that can hit any vessel or ship from 700 km,” Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ air space division, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

Hajizadeh said the Guards focused on extending the land-to-sea missile’s range after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked the military a decade ago about the possibility of “hitting ships” with ballistic projectiles. He did not give details on the previous range of the missiles.

In 2008, Iran displayed a ground-to-sea missile that it said could travel about 290 km (180 miles). On Monday, the US special envoy on Iran, Brian Hook, said that Tehran’s ballistic missile programme was exacerbating tensions in Yemen, Iraq and Syria. “We are accumulating risk of regional conflict if we do not do more to deter Iran’s missile proliferation in the Middle East,” Hook said. The Islamic Republic’s government has ruled out negotiations with Washington over its military capabilities and dismissed US assertions that its activities in the Middle East are destabilising.

Hajizadeh said some short-range Iranian missiles had been used over the past two years in Syria’s civil war, in which Iranian forces have fought in support of President Bashar al-Assad against rebels and militants. He also said Iranian drones had carried out 700 attacks on Islamic State militant positions in Syria. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help shore up Assad during the more than seven-year-long conflict there.

The US Treasury on Tuesday announced fresh sanctions on Iran, targeting Bank Mellat and Mehr Eqtesad Bank. The United States is also imposing sanctions on Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company, Esfehan’s Mobarakeh Steel Company, and other companies linked to investment, commodities and engineering, according to an announcement on Treasury’s website.

The US Treasury also imposed sanctions on a multibillion-dollar financial network that supports an Iranian paramilitary force that recruits and trains child soldiers for the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Bonyad Taavon Basij network supports a volunteer paramilitary group, the Basij Resistance Force, which works with the IRGC, Treasury said in a statement.

“This vast network provides financial infrastructure to the Basij’s efforts to recruit, train, and indoctrinate child soldiers who are coerced into combat under the IRGC’s direction,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Trump cannot bring oil prices down by “bullying” other nations, Iran’s oil minister said on Tuesday, adding that the market was suffering from short supply. US sanctions on Iranian oil exports are due to kick in on Nov 4. The US administration has been pushing its allies to cut Iranian oil imports and encouraging Saudi Arabia, other OPEC states and Russia to pump more oil to meet any shortfall.

“The oil market is suffering from short supply and this cannot be resolved by words. Trump thinks he can bring the oil prices down by bullying,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said, according to the semi-official news agency ILNA. Benchmark Brent crude has been trading above $80 a barrel. Zanganeh said the rise of oil prices was a “self-inflicted pain” caused by US sanctions against Iranian energy exports, and could be resolved by lifting the measures. “Everyone is worried and Trump has failed to reassure them. That’s why the market is in turmoil,” he said.

Zanganeh also said the United States “has done most of the things it could do, and there is not much left to do against Iran,” according to comments reported by Iran’s ISNA agency. Washington said this month it would consider waivers for Iranian oil buyers such as India, although it said they would eventually have to halt imports from Iran, the third biggest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. The United States announced new sanctions after withdrawing from a nuclear deal with Iran in May.

Under the 2015 nuclear pact, most international sanctions against Tehran were lifted in 2016 in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear programme. At least 10 Iranian security personnel including Revolutionary Guards were kidnapped on the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, state media reported, and a separatist group that claimed responsibility described the act as revenge for oppression of Sunni Muslims.

The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s top security force, said in a statement carried on state television that some of its members had been abducted by a militant group at a border post in the city of Mirjaveh in Sistan-Baluchestan province.

The Guards did not say how many were kidnapped, but state news agency IRNA quoted an unnamed official as saying 14 people had been kidnapped around 4:00 am or 5:00 am. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday they had killed the “mastermind” behind an attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz last month which left 25 people dead.

The Guards said in a statement published on state media its forces had killed a man named Abu Zaha and four other militants in Diyala province in Iraq. One news website run by Iran’s state television said Abu Zaha was a member of Islamic State.

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