TEHRAN --The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Saturday military experts at his force are now developing and manufacturing supersonic cruise missiles and intercepting and tracking satellites.
“We are developing cruise missiles capable of travelling at supersonic or supersonic speeds,” General Hussein Salami said at a ceremony here.
Gen. Salami said the process throughout which a supersonic ballistic missile is guided to strike a moving target in the sea is a fairly complicated one, but Iran’s military specialists have mastered it.
“Today, we can intercept satellites with the help of radars positioned on the ground. Such great advances have been made by the Iranian youth. Young Iranian military forces can now hit any moving ship from a distance of thousands of kilometers, and can even define the exact point of strike to the extent that the crew of the target ship remains unharmed,” he added.
The IRGC chief said the Americans are aggressively seeking to win the hearts and minds of the Iranian nation, and cherish it as a strategic dream.
“They have opted for the campaign after realizing that they cannot prevail militarily. They have utilized all their strategic means against us,” the general said.
Gen. Salami touched on the expansion of Iran’s domain of action, saying the Islamic Republic is now present on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.
According to the IRGC chief, the only way to deal with the arrogant powers is the “language of force”, because the enemy is unfamiliar with the power of logic.
Head of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh advised Europe not to test the Islamic Republic, saying Iran has intentionally capped the range of its missiles “out of respect” for the continent.
“We are now capable of targeting American aircraft carriers at a 2,000-kilometer (1242-miles) distance,” he told a televised program on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
Europe has done its fair share of trying to antagonize Iran by closely aligning its policies concerning the Islamic Republic with those of the United States.
Following the U.S., European countries have taken a hostile stance on Iran’s defensive missile and peaceful nuclear energy programs. The EU has also challenged Tehran’s regional influence, and has cooperated with Washington’s illegal anti-Iran sanctions.
Last month, the European Parliament adopted an amendment calling on the European Union and its member states to include the IRGC on their “terror list”.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Germany later admitted that there were no legal grounds for taking the move.
The 27-nation bloc has also been slapping more sanctions of its own on Iran over what it calls the country’s approach towards foreign-backed riots that erupted in some Iranian cities in September.
In his remarks, Gen. Hajizadeh cautioned that “the United States’ benefit lies in creating regional insecurity.”
He said “the region sits on a security fault line,” citing the history of four decades of conflicts.
“If we fail to be strong, the enemy will bring the war inside Iran,” he said. “We should be very careful in order to be able to meet the security needs of our dear nation and country.”
The commander, however, hailed that the IRGC, saying the force has brought all U.S. military bases in the region within the range of its defensive firepower.
Washington’s bases in the region “have turned into the Americans’ weak point,” he said, adding the IRGC can strike the U.S. outposts “whenever the need arises.”
Gen. Hajizadeh unveiled a new cruise missile, named Paveh, with a range of 1,650 km. The hypersonic missile can travel at Mach 12-13 and is capable of exoatmospheric maneuvering.
The projectile, he said, is outfitted with an engine that starts within 500 kilometers (310 miles) or a shorter distance of the target’s location to enable its maneuverability.
The projectile cannot be destroyed by any of the enemy’s anti-missile systems, he said.
“I express confidently that the enemies will not be capable of developing a similar missile over many upcoming decades.”
He said Iran has managed to reduce the weight of its long-range missiles to one-fourth and the time needed for their preparation to a sixth.