Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired 16 surface to surface ballistic missiles at the close of five days of military drills that generals said were a warning to archenemy Israel.
The names of surface to surface ballistic missiles fired across the country’s south are Emad, Ghadr, Sejjil, Zalzal, Dezful, and Zolfaghar with their ranges varying between 350km and 2000 km some with enough distance to reach Israel according to the official IRNA news agency.
The surface-to-surface ballistic missiles successfully hit their intended targets at the same time as 10 drones simultaneously hit their targets.
“The exercses were designed to respond to threats made in recent days by the Zionist regime” Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major Gen. Mohammad Bagheri told the state television.
“Sixteen missiles aimed and annihilated the chosen target. In this exercise, part of the hundreds of Iranian missiles capable of destorying a country that dared to attack Iran was deployed” he added.
Iran carried out military drills called Payambar-e-Azam or Great Prophet on Monday in Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Khuzestan provinces, each of which touch the Gulf.
During the military exercise, IRGC chief Major GEN. Hossein Salami warned, “make the slightest mistake, we will cut off their hand”.
The drills were conducted at a time when U.S national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett on wednesday amid Israel’s opposition to efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Bennett has accused Iran of nuclear blackmail and charged that revenue relief would be used to acquire weapons to harm Israelis.
Iran denies wanting to produce nuclear weapons and says it only wants to develop a civil nuclear program but western powers led by the U.S say its stocks of enriched uranium could be used to develop a nuclear weapon.
Former U.S president Donald pulled the US out of the nuclear deal and reimposed crushing sanctions on Iran in 2018.
After the US pulled out of the deal, Iran started enriching uranium up to 60% purity- ashort technical step from the 90% needed to make an atomic bomb.
