Iran has inaugurated the mass production line of the domestically-developed, long-range
Sayyad (Hunter) 3 missile.
Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, and Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili,
the commander of the Iranian Army’s Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base, participated in
the inauguration ceremony on Saturday.
During the ceremony, some of the projectiles, which have been indigenously designed and
produced by experts at the Defense Ministry’s Aerospace Industries, were also handed over
to the Air Base.
The Iranian defense chief said the missile could fly as far as 120 kilometers, and reach
an altitude of 27 kilometers.
It has been designed to counter aerial threats within medium and long ranges, he added.
“Sayyad 3 missile has been designed based on the world’s latest technologies,” Dehqan
noted.
The missile, he said, “can engage different types of threats, such as radar evasive fighter
planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles, helicopters, as well as various types of modern
aircraft of high maneuvering capabilities and speed...
within the sphere of its operation.”
He said Sayyad 3 had been fitted with combined maneuvering capability, advanced surveillance
apparatuses, infrared capability, and state-of-the-art features against electronic warfare tactics.
Esmaili announced that the missile “joins the country’s Integrated Air Defense System
today.”
in past years, Iran announces new missile production line: state media.
Iran announced the launch of a new missile production line on Saturday, according to
state media, against a backdrop of tension between the United States and Tehran.
The Sayyad 3 missile can reach an altitude of 27 km (16 miles) and travel up to 120 km
(74 miles), Iranian defense minister Hossein Dehghan said at a ceremony.
The missile can target fighter planes, unmanned aerial vehicles, cruise missiles and helicopters,
Dehghan said.
Last week, the United States slapped new economic sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile
program, and said Tehran’s “malign activities” in the Middle East undercut any “positive
contributions” coming from a 2015 Iran nuclear accord.
The measures signaled that the administration of President Donald Trump was seeking to put
more pressure on Iran while keeping in place the agreement between Tehran and six world
powers to curb its nuclear program in return for lifting international oil and financial
sanctions.
The U.S. government said it was targeting 18 entities and people for supporting what
it said were “illicit Iranian actors or transnational criminal activity”.
Those sanctioned had backed Iran’s military or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps by
developing drones and military equipment, producing and maintaining boats, and procuring
electronic components, it said.
Others had “orchestrated the theft of U.S. and Western software programs” sold to Iran’s
government, the Treasury Department said.
On Monday, the Trump administration said Iran was complying with the nuclear agreement but
that it was in default of the spirit of the accord.
It was the second time Trump has certified Iranian compliance with the agreement since
he took office in January, despite having described it as “the worst deal ever”
during his 2016 presidential campaign, criticizing then-President Barack Obama, whose administration
negotiated the accord.
Dehghan said at the ceremony on Saturday that the recent $110 billion military deal between
the United States and Saudi Arabia, announced during Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, was
intended as a threat to Iran.
“We recently witnessed an immense purchase that some countries in the region paid as
a ransom to America and they intend to bring weapons into the region, and this purchase
was done with the goal of threatening Islamic Iran,” Dehghan said according to the website
for state TV.
Iran’s defiance of these efforts, which had redoubled since the July 2015 signing
of an agreement with US-led global powers to rein in its contentious nuclear programme
— which they claim is aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons — will undoubtedly intensify
the issue of Iran’s efforts to build up its military capabilities.
The latest outburst from Tehran has infuriated the US administration of President Donald
Trump, a vociferous critic of the clerical regime in Iran and whose administration has
tried to force the Iranians to abandon their high-profile military posture.
The Americans and their friends see Iran’s constant arms build-up as a serious threat
regionally — and further afield as its technology improves — which keeps the Middle East,
already beset by conflict, constantly on edge.
The latest injunction to Iran came days after French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
visited Tehran on March 5 and urged the hard-line regime on behalf of the Europeans to ditch
its drive for more powerful missiles capable of reaching the United States.