Iran has a target for their new cruise missile – former President Donald Trump.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Revolutionary Guards aerospace force spoke of Iran’s often repeated threat to avenge the US killing of a top Iranian commander, saying “We are looking to kill Trump.”
But the new technology also gives a deadly new weapon to sell to Russia in its war on Ukraine. Iran is already providing deadly drones to Putin which have been used across Ukraine, including its capital.
“Our cruise missile with a range of 1,650 kilometers has been added to the missile arsenal of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Brigadier-General Hajizadeh told state TV.
The station then broadcast what it said was the first footage showing the new Paveh cruise missile.
Brigadier-General Hajizadeh said Iran did not intend to kill “poor soldiers” when it launched a ballistic missile attack on US-led forces in Iraq in 2020, days after Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad.
“God willing, we are looking to kill Trump. [Former secretary of state Mike] Pompeo … and military commanders who issued the order [to kill General Soleimani] should be killed,” he said.
The range of the missile is too short, if fired from Iran, to be a threat to the mainland US and Trump but Iran has ballistic missile submarines that could easily ply the waters of the Atlantic. That would bring the Eastern Sea Board and Florida, all the way to St. Louis at risk.
The country has also expanded its missile program in 2021 but on Feb. 5 the Biden administration provided the country with a “sanctions waiver.” It is now focusing on its ballistic missiles, in defiance of opposition from the United States and expressions of concern by European countries.
Tehran says the program is purely defensive and of a deterrent nature.
In November, the Pentagon said the United States was skeptical of reports quoting Brigadier-General Hajizadeh as saying Iran had developed a hypersonic ballistic missile.
–Wire services