(CNSNews.com) – Striking a defiant pose after being confronted by the West about more clandestine nuclear activity and just days before important international talks, Iran on Sunday began a series of fresh missile launches.
Sunday’s tests included the firing of medium-range rockets at targets up to 420 miles away, while on Monday morning the more sophisticated Shahab-3 missile was launched, Iranian media said.
State television said the surface-to-surface missiles hit their intended targets. They were fired as part of war games known as “Great Prophet IV,” a follow-up to “Great Prophet III” in July 2008.
“For greedy countries that seek to intimidate us, the message [being sent by the military exercise] is that we are capable of a prompt and crushing response,” Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Air Force, said Sunday.
The Fars news agency said the Shahabs are capable of carrying multiple warheads, designed to hit several targets simultaneously.
Developed with North Korean assistance and first tested in July 1998, the Shahab-3’s later variant is believed to have a range of up to 1,200 miles.
Depending on the location of a launch site in Iran, a missile with a range of 600-700 miles could reach Israeli territory. A 1,200-mile capability would bring the Gulf states, Turkey and parts of Egypt, Central Asia and south-eastern Europe within range.
President Obama this month scrapped his predecessor’s proposals to deploy a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe to protect against a long-range Iranian missile threat, in favor of an alternative system designed to deal with short- and medium-range missiles.
The missile launches came two days after Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Iran of possessing a previously-undisclosed underground uranium-enrichment plant, near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.
The announcement, made at the opening of the G-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, drew a strong and angry response from Tehran, with officials accusing the West of launching a “propaganda campaign” aimed at galvanizing world opinion against Iran ahead of talks in Geneva on Thursday.
The meeting of Iran and the so-called P5+1 group – the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany – will be the first encounter with the Iranians since Obama came into office offering engagement.
The P5+1 in a statement last week said they expected a “serious response” at the meeting to unresolved questions about Iran’s nuclear program.
“They intend to impose something on Iran during the upcoming talks,” Ali Larijani, Iran’s influential parliamentary speaker and former nuclear negotiator, said Sunday.
The Mehr news agency quoted him as saying the West is well aware that Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful but worries that if it develops a civilian nuclear power capability this will enhance its regional and international stature.
“The Supreme Leader of the Revolution [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] has announced time and again that Iran does not regard nuclear weapons to be legal,” Larijani added.
Iranian officials informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), about the site near Qom. As Western intelligence agencies were aware of the facility’s existence, U.S. officials said the timing may have been an attempt to pre-empt imminent exposure.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the plant violates any international obligations, saying Iran is only required to inform the IAEA 18 months before operations there begin.
Hard to attack
Ali-Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, told the ISNA news agency that Friday’s announcement was part of a “plot,” and suggested the West was looking for a pretext to undermine the talks.
He said the site near Qom, where construction had begun a year ago, had a high security level, and it had been decided to transfer work to a location that was difficult to attack.
Iran has been seeking international support for a resolution at the IAEA prohibiting attacks on nuclear installations. Israel launched a preemptive strike against an Iraqi reactor in 1981 and against a suspect site in Syria in 2007.
Contrary to Salehi’s comments, Western officials believe the Qom site has been under development for several years, according to U.S. administration documents made available by the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
They say the clandestine nature of the work at the Qom site is part of a pattern of concealment by the Iranians over a number of years, and adds to doubts about its claims that the nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes.
“Iran may claim that this facility is for civilian nuclear fuel production,” the documents say. “The Iranian government continues to claim that it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Yet this facility is too small to be viable for production of fuel for a nuclear power reactor, but may be well-suited for a military purpose.”
Iran hid its nuclear program from the IAEA and broader international community for almost two decades, until exiled opponents of the regime exposed it in 2002, triggering the international dispute that remains unresolved seven years on.