Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that his country has test-fired the Sejil-2, an upgraded version of a surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 2,000 km., according to Iran’s IRNA news agency.
If the claims are true, the Sejil-2 would have the range needed to hit Israel as well as American bases in the Persian Gulf. The range is slightly shorter than that of another existing Iranian missile, Shahab-3. Ahmadinejad did not specifically mention Israel, however, at least in IRNA’s version of his statement.
The news agency reported that Ahmadinejad said, “The defense minister told me today that we launched a Sejil-2 missile, which is a two-stage missile and it has reached the intended target.”
“I was told that the missile is able to go beyond the atmosphere then come back and hit its target. It works on solid fuel,” Ahmadinejad told a cheering crowd in Semnan, northern Iran, where the launch reportedly took place.
Ahmadinejad insisted once again that Iran would not give in to any pressure over its nuclear program. “They [Western governments] said if you don’t stop, we will adopt [sanctions] resolutions... They thought we would retreat but that will not happen,” he said. “I told them you can adopt 100 sets of sanctions, but nothing will change.”
The Associated Press quoted an unnamed American government official who confirmed that Iran had carried out a launch and said the Pentagon was Washington was working to assess details such as the missile's range and trajectory.
Solid fuel
Experts said that the missile does not appear to be significantly different from an earlier version of the Sejil that Iran test-fired in November.
The Iranians claim that the new Sejil missiles use solid rather than liquid fuel, a feature that could make them more accurate. In November 2008, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar was quoted as saying the Sejil was “very fast,” and could be produced and stored in large amounts. Its launcher could be removed from the firing location immediately after firing the missile, he said.
Najar said Wednesday that the Sejil-2 “is equipped with a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors.”
'Extraordinary threat'
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the U.S. faces “daunting" challenges from a wide range of threats, including attempts by terrorists to obtain nuclear weapons. She said that if Iran obtained a nuclear capability, this would be an "extraordinary threat," and added that the administration’s goal is "to persuade the Iranian regime that they will actually be less secure if they proceed with their nuclear weapons program."
“A nuclear armed Iran with a deliverable weapon system is going to spark an arms race in the Middle East" and the greater region, she said. “That is not going to be in the interest of Iranian security," Clinton added. "At the same time, we see a growing recognition among a group of countries that they do not want to see this reality take place."
Meanwhile, the U.S. has agreed to fund the development of Phase Three of the Arrow missile, according to news website NRG.