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Iran issues Shahab-3 warning to the West
The Shahab 3 missile is believed to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
BY OUR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
November 3, 2006
The war games have begun, yet again. Putting on show its military might, Iran on Thursday fired a long-range missile feared to be capable of carrying nuclear warheads and striking Israel and US forces in the Middle East. The Shahab-3 missile fired has an estimated range of 1,240 miles.
The country tested the Shahab-3 missile at the start of 10 days of war games on Thursday. The Iranian act is seen by the international community as well thought out rebuke of the West. It may be recalled that the West had been clamouring for slapping of sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Though the UN Security Council’s permanent five members namely the United Sates, Britain, France, Russia and China, and also Germany, are continuing their deliberations over sanctions on Iran for having refused to suspend uranium enrichment, the current development is feared to invite more anger. The Western powers fear that Iran’s tactics are a part of its atomic weapons programme.
Thursday’s war games, codenamed Operation Great Prophet 2, came in retaliation for US-led moves earlier this week in the Gulf region. In an apparent rehearsal for an anti-Iranian embargo, allied warships practised surveillance of suspected illegal shipments of weapons parts. The US and Britain seek sanctions to include a ban on components that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.
However, Iran had pooh poohed the moves. And finally the war games came as a threat. According to the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, Iran’s response was not intended to threaten its neighbours, but as a powerful signal to its enemies. According to Saavi, the main goal is to demonstrate the power and national determination to defend the country against possible threat.
This is in fact the third set of war games Iran’s military has staged this year as it has stepped up activity in response to escalating tensions over the nuclear crisis.
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