Sheikh Naim Qassem:

New Hezbollah Missiles a ‘Game-Changer’

Date: 23 November 2014 - 21:13

News ID: ۷۷۴۴

BEIRUT/TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- New missiles provided by Iran have changed the equation in Hezbollah’s fight against the occupying regime of Israel and has given the resistance an upper-hand, the party’s deputy head Sheikh Naim Qassem said Sunday.
"Such issue (missiles) is a trump card in the equation of war between the resistance forces and the Israeli enemy,” Qassem told Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
The comments came after news emerged that Tehran has equipped Hezbollah with a new grade of medium-range missiles, known as Fateh-class missiles.
An Iranian military commander earlier this month said the Fateh missiles "are able to attack all targets from southern to northern parts of the occupied territories".
Qassem said that the occupying regime of Israel is well aware of the fact that "Hezbollah possesses missiles with pinpoint accuracy”.
This enhanced arsenal, paired with Hezbollah’s readiness for any future war, would make a forthcoming confrontation "much tougher for Israelis”, he said.
According to Qassem, by supplying the missiles and providing Hezbollah with the necessary training on their construction and assembly, Iran has played a "fundamental and pivotal” role in boosting Hezbollah’s missile capabilities.
Improved missile capabilities however, do not only entail the quantity of Iranian missiles delivered to the resistance, but also includes the necessary data-x-items for missile launching and construction.
The deputy head noted that Iran has not only shipped missiles to Lebanon, but also trained Hezbollah’s forces in the preparation and launching of the projectiles.
Qassem dismissed reports that Iran’s missile power might pose a threat to regional Arab states.
The "unreasonable” claims, he said, overlook the fact that Iran’s arsenal benefits the region and contributes to regional security.
"Such missile capability supports, firstly, Iran’s government and Revolution, and secondly, serves the resistance in the face of the Israeli enemy and serves the regional governments as well,” he concluded.
Lieutenant commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s Aerospace Force Brigadier General Majid Moussavi told Qiam Sejjilha magazine earlier this month that Hezbollah had received the Fateh missiles.
"Based on what has been announced so far, their operational missile capability includes a fully vast, but of course hidden Fateh class missiles, and this missile capability can be used and has been organized," Moussavi said.
Moussavi also said that the late-commander and head of the IRGC Missile Research Center, Major General Tehrani Moqaddam, supported and helped Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance groups to develop missile capabilities.
According to a new report in the Fars news agency, Iran has supplied with missiles "that can reach Dimona”.
The report said the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps delivered a new class of missiles, "Fateh” with ranges of 250-350 kilometers and which can fit a 500kg warhead.
Brigadier General Moussavi told the news agency that the new missiles will allow Hezbollah to hit any place in Occupied Palestine, "including targets in the south of the occupied territory”.
The Zionist regime’s nuclear facility at "Dimona is an easy target”, he was quoted as saying.
"Considering the range of their missiles, they are able now to attack all targets from southern to northern parts of (Occupied Palestine),” Moussavi said last week.
Uzi Rubin, a missile expert and former war ministry official, told the Associated Press in May last year that Fateh-110 rockets would constitute a "game-changer” if they were to fall into the wrong hands.
Launched from Syria or south Lebanon, such missiles could reach almost anywhere in Occupied Palestine with high accuracy, he said.
"If fired from southern Lebanon, they can reach Tel Aviv and even (the southern city of) Beersheba,” Rubin said.
The rockets are five times more accurate than the Scud missiles that Hezbollah has fired in the past, according to Rubin.
"It is a game-changer because they are a threat to Israel’s infrastructure and military installations,” he said.