Tehran: Iran said its armed forces had fired two more ballistic missiles on Wednesday as it continued tests in defiance of US warnings.
“Long-range Qadr-H and Qadr-F precision missiles were fired today… which destroyed targets” some 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) away, official media quoted the deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, as saying.
The tests were aimed at demonstrating Tehran’s “deterrent power” as the missiles “will bring security, peace, support and authority for all Islamic countries”, he said.
“We have massive stockpiles of ballistic missiles waiting for orders and ready to hit targets at any moment from various points across the country.”
State television broadcast video of two missiles being fired from a site in the Alborz mountain range in northern Iran.
Targets on land in the southeastern Makran area were destroyed, the Guards said.
The Islamic republic also carried out multiple ballistic missile tests on Tuesday, defying US sanctions imposed earlier this year aimed at disrupting its missile programme.
The missile sanctions were imposed a day after nuclear-related sanctions on Iran were lifted.
US State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday he could not confirm Tehran’s multiple tests, but warned that Washington might take unilateral or international action in response.
“The more our enemies increase the sanctions the more intense the Guards’ reaction” will be, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh who heads the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace wing said on Wednesday.
“Yesterday we saw missiles fired from silos and platforms and today the launches are taking place from the heart of our Islamic land,” he added.
“The reason we have designed these missiles with such a range — 2,000 kilometres — is to be able to hit our remote enemies, the Zionist regime,” Tasnim news agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying, referring to Israel.
“But there is no need to fire missiles to destroy the Zionist regime as it will gradually collapse. Our main enemy is the US and we believe in this enmity.”
The series of tests included short-, medium- and long-range precision guided missiles, with ranges of 300 kilometres, 500 kilometres, 800 kilometres and 2,000 kilometres, state media reported.
Fars and Tasnim, news agencies close to the Guards, said the phrase “Israel must be wiped off the face of earth” was inscribed on the missiles, recalling a famous quote by the late founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
However, no writing was visible on the missiles shown in video footage or pictures published by local media.
Agence France-Presse