WarSclerotic

Iran fires 14 missiles in 2nd day of war games | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards tested 14 missiles on Tuesday, the second day of war games intended a show of strength to the Islamic Republic’s enemies in Israel and Washington.

The Iranian-made surface-to-surface missiles, with a maximum range of 2,000 km (1,250 miles), were fired simultaneously at a single target, the official IRNA news agency reported

The head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division emphasised Iran’s preparedness to strike Israel and U.S. interests in the event of any attack on Iran.

“The range of our missiles has been designed based on American bases in the region as well as the Zionist regime,” Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh told the semi-official Fars news agency.

Washington and Israel have said they do not rule out military strikes on Iran if diplomatic means fail to stop it developing nuclear weapons. Tehran denies its nuclear programme is aimed at building bombs.

IRNA said the Guards fired nine Zelzal missiles, two Shahab-1s, two Shahab-2s and one upgraded Shahab-3 missile. Iranian officials have previously announced that the Shahab 3 can reach targets up to 2,000 km away, putting Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf within reach.

A long-time enemy of the United States, Iran has been emboldened by what it sees as U.S. military defeats in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries are still home to large troop numbers and Washington has other bases in the Gulf that Iran could choose to target.

“The Americans have reduced our labours,” Hajizadeh told Fars. “Their military bases in the region are in a range of 130, 250 and maximum 700 km in Afghanistan which we can hit with these missiles.”

The ‘Great Prophet 6’ war games, to be carried out on land and sea, are a “message of peace and friendship to countries of the region,” Hajizadeh said on Monday.

Asked whether Iranian missiles were a threat to Europe, Hajizadeh told IRNA that while Iran had the technological capacity to build longer-range missiles, the 2,000-km range had been chosen precisely with Israel and U.S. bases in mind.

“Except American and the Zionist regime, we do not feel a threat from any other country,” he said.

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Robin Pomero

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 27, 2011, 9:56 PM (GMT+02:00)

USS Enterprise and USS Bush cross paths in Bab al Mandeb Straits.

Iran’s big Great Prophet Mohammad War Games 6 was launched Monday, June 27, ahead of a Turkish operation against Syria’s Assad regime which is anticipated by its military and Revolutionary Guards chiefs.  debkafile reports Tehran expected the Turkish army to have US air and naval support in case of Iranian reprisals against them both. On Day One of the exercise, Iran unveiled its first underground missile silo immune to air strikes. It held what looked like a Shahab-3 ballistic missile.
Israel has responded to Iran’s military exercise and the spiraling regional tension by positioning one of its new Iron Dome rocket interceptor batteries in the northern city of Haifa.

Last week, Iranian warships and submarines deployed in the Red Sea tracked the movements of two big US aircraft carriers, the USS Enterprise and USS George H. W Bush, which crossed each other in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on June 21 heading in opposite directions through this strategic chokepoint between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.
The USS Enterprise, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was on its way from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean via the Red Sea and Suez Canal, while the USS George H.W. Bush, the US Navy’s newest carrier with the greatest fire power of any of its warships, left the Mediterranean and headed in the opposite direction for the Persian Gulf with a crew of 9,000 and 70 fighter bombers.
On the same day, Iranian naval surveillance picked up the arrival of the Los Angeles-class USS Bremerton nuclear-powered attack submarineoff Bahrain opposite Iran.

Strategists in Tehran see danger in these crisscross movements by US war fleets. According to our military sources, the Enterprise, which is older, slower and has less fire power than the Bush, was moved to the Mediterranean because there it is supported by American air bases scattered across western and central Europe, whereas the Bush was consigned to waters opposite Iranian shores because it is virtually a single-vessel fighting machine capable of operating without support.
The Iranian exercise has two primary objectives:

1. To spread Iran’s ballistic missiles to their maximum operational extent in support of Iran’s signals to Washington and Ankara in the past two weeks warning that an attack on Syria by a US-backed Turkish or NATO force would spark Iranian missile reprisals against Turkish and US military targets on Turkish soil and other parts of the Middle East.

2.  Iran has fanned its fighting forces out across the country, with the densest concentrations on its Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea coasts, ready to repel any American attack that might follow an Iranian missile assault on US, Turkish or allied targets.

The ground-air-naval exercise is scheduled to last 10 days – unusually long for a military drill – so that Iran stands ready for a decision in Washington and/or Ankara to attack Syria.
The announcement of the exercise by Revolutionary Guards Aerospace Force commander Gen. Amir-Ali Hajizadeh Sunday, June 26, made Tehran’s intentions clear: He said the exercise was being staged in response to the “growing US military presence in the region” and noted that the missiles practiced would include the Saijil and the Fateh 110.
He did not need to spell out the facts that the Saijil-2 has a range of 2,000 kilometers and can reach any point in the Middle East and further – up to the Black Sea region, for instance, where US air and naval units are posted; or that the improved Fateh 110 has been supplied to Syria and Hizballah for use against Israel.
Iran would expect to be joined by both in any military flare-up.

Iran reveals underground ballist… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

  Iran unveiled underground ballistic missile silos for the first time on Monday in a warning to the world of its ability to protect its missiles and secretly store them in hidden locations throughout the country.

State TV broadcast footage of several military officers touring an underground silo that was holding a Shahab 3 ballistic missile. The missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers, putting Israel within its reach, but is powered by liquid fuel, which means that it requires more considerable preparation immediately before launch than a solid rocket.

The unveiling of underground missile silos was confirmation of Israeli and American warnings in recent years that Iran was dispersing its missiles in silos, likely scattered throughout the country.

In the footage, a missile is shown being launched from inside one of the silos, which has large metal doors that open on the surface with the press of a button.

Tal Inbar, head of the Space Research Center at the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, said the decision to release the video was likely an Iranian attempt to boost its deterrence vis-à-vis Israel and the West.

“The silos look fairly sophisticated and by unveiling them, the Iranians are trying to show the world that their missiles are protected even if the country is attacked,” Inbar said. He added that other countries with missile silos used them strictly for missiles equipped with nuclear warheads and not for conventional ballistic missiles.

The missile silos could also be used to launch Iran’s longrange solid-fuel missile called Sajjil, which is expected to be test-fired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during the 10 days of war games that began on Monday under the name of “Great Prophet 6.”

Brig.-Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, was quoted in the Tehran Times as saying that Iran obtained missile silo technology 15 years ago and has since installed them throughout the country.