Iran announced on Tuesday that long-range ballistic missiles had been launched from a warship for the first time, a new step in the development of its military program.
A ship from the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of power,
“launched ballistic missiles for the first time”
while it was in the Gulf of Oman in the Indian Ocean, said the state television by broadcasting images of the operation.
“The launch of a long-range ballistic missile from a ship was successfully carried out
,” said the commander of the Guards, Hossein Salami.
“Our ships can be present anywhere on the oceans.
There is no safe place for powers that want to threaten our security
,” he added.
State television said the two missiles launched from the Shahid Mahdavi ship had
“a range of at least 1,700 kilometers”
and that they had reached a desert location in central Iran.
An exercise simulating the attack on an Israeli base
The sustained development of Iran's missile arsenal worries many countries, first and foremost the United States and Israel, the latter fearing that its territory could be reached by Iran's weapons.
The Revolutionary Guards also announced Tuesday that they had conducted an exercise simulating an attack with surface-to-surface missiles on the Israeli Palmachim air base, south of Tel Aviv.
According to state television, Palmachim is
"the main base for the
Zionist regime's
F-35
jets . "
Iran, which does not recognize Israel, presents itself as one of the main supporters of Hamas since the start of the war in Gaza triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian movement in southern Israel.
Tehran also supports Yemen's Houthi rebels who have targeted transport ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November, triggering US and British retaliatory attacks.