A satellite image shown on Israel's Channel 2 news, January 21, 2015, said to show a new long-range Iranian missile on a launch pad outside Tehran. (Channel 2 screenshot) |
Iran has built a 27-meter-long
missile, capable of delivering a warhead “far beyond Europe,” and
placed it on a launch pad at a site close to Tehran, an Israeli
television report said Wednesday, showing what it said were the first
satellite images of the missile ever seen in the West.
It stressed that the missile could be used to launch spacecraft or satellites, but also to carry warheads.
The Channel 2 news report showed satellite
imagery documenting what it said was Iran’s “very rapid progress” on
long-range missile manufacture.
It showed one photograph of a site near
Tehran, which it said the West had known about for two years, where Iran
was working on engines for its long-range missiles.
It then showed a satellite photograph of a
second site, nearby, which featured a launch pad, with the 27-meter
missile on it — an Iranian missile “never seen before” by the West.
The missile is capable of taking a manned spacecraft or satellite into space, the TV report said.
It is also capable of carrying a conventional or non-conventional warhead “far beyond Europe,” the report added.
The TV report said the satellite images were
taken by the Eros B commercial Earth observation satellite, which was
designed and manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries, launched in
2006, and is owned by the Israeli firm Image Sat International.
Israel has long charged that Iran is working
toward a nuclear weapons capability, and has publicly opposed any
negotiated accommodation with Iran that would leave it with a uranium
enrichment capability for potential nuclear weapons use.
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