Iran Unveils New Missile, Drone With 4,000 km Range Amid Seething Regional Tensions

Iran Unveils New Missile, Drone With 4,000 km Range Amid Seething Regional Tensions

Sputnik

Mideast tensions are on a knife's edge, reaching a fever pitch this week after a suspected Mossad attack targeting thousands of pagers and other communication and household electronic devices in Lebanon. The escalation comes as the bloody war in Gaza approaches its one-year anniversary.

Iran revealed a new solid-fueled ballistic missile dubbed the Jihad (‘Holy War’) at a military parade in Tehran on Saturday commemorating the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988.

Dubbed the Jihad (lit. ‘Holy War’) the missile has a reported range of up to 1,000 km, and was designed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aerospace division.

The missile one ofnearly two dozen Iranian-made long-range strike weapons appearing at the parade, among them the Kheibar Shekan (‘Castle Buster’ or ‘Fortress Buster’), which was fired at terror targets in Syria earlier this year, and the Khorramshahr, named after the Iranian city of the same name, which has a range up to 2,000 km and has a 1.8 ton warhead.

Also making its debut at Saturday’s parade was the Shahed-136B – the latest modification of Iran’s mainstay piston engine-powered Shahed-136 kamikaze drone. The upgraded drone touts a range of over 4,000 km – enough to reach anywhere in the Middle East and most of continental Europe.

Manufactured by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA) and Shahed Aviation Industries, hundreds of base model Shahed-136s were used to keep Israeli, US, French, British and Jordanian aircraft and air defenses busy while Iran slipped missiles past them to strike an aerodrome and intel base in April. The base 200 kg drones are equipped with a 50 kg warhead, and have a 2,500 km range.

The weight and warhead characteristics of the new, upgraded model have yet to be revealed, but based on its appearance, modifications are significant, with the new drone featuring a completely different wing configuration, and more bulbous fuselage.

Iran is a regional superpower in the development, production and fielding of drones, missiles, and other advanced weapons, possessing dozens of indigenous designs developed by local companies. The Islamic Republic's arms industry was grown from the ground up beginning in the 1980s after its traditional weapons sellers slapped the country with an embargo during Iraq's US-backed war of aggression, and got a major shot in the arm thanks to Iran's hard-earned status as one of the top scientific powers in the world.