By Alan Cowell Published: July 9, 2008
PARIS: One day after threatening to strike Tel Aviv and United States interests if attacked, Iran's Revolutionary Guards were reported on Wednesday to have test-fired nine missiles, including one which Tehran claims has the range to reach Israel.
State-run media, quoted by Western news agencies, said the missiles were long- and medium-range projectiles, among them a new version of the Shahab-3 which Tehran maintains can hit targets 1,250 miles away from its firing position.
The reported tests coincide with increasingly tense negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, which Iran says is for civilian purposes but which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. At the same time, United States and British warships have been conducting naval maneuvers in the Gulf — apparently within range of the launching site of the missiles tested on Wednesday. Israel insisted it did not want war with Iran.
"Israel has no desire for conflict or hostilities with Iran," Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said. "But the Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program must be of grave concern to the entire international community."
The missile tests drew a sharp response from the United States. Gordon Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement at the Group of 8 meeting in Japan that Iran's development of ballistic missiles was a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
"The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity," Johndroe said.
He urged Iran to "refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world. The Iranians should stop the development of ballistic missiles which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon immediately." The missile tests were reported after the Group of 8 leaders urged Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. Moreover, Iran displayed its military capability just a day after the United States and the Czech Republic signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its contentious antiballistic missile shield, which Washington maintains is designed to protect in part against Iranian missiles.
Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam television and English-language Press-TV channel both reported the missile firings, Agence France-Presse reported.
Al-Alam said the missiles, fired from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert, included a "Shahab-3 with a conventional warhead weighing one ton and a 2,000 kilometer range," or about 1,250 miles. Iran was first known to have fired a Shahab-3 in November, 2006.
The other missiles in the tests were identified as the Zelzal, with a range of 250 miles and the Fateh, with a range of 110 miles, Agence France-Presse reported. The Press-TV channel showed what was said to be the Shahab-3 missile rising amid clouds of dust from the desert launch site.
Hossein Salami, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying: "The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation."
"Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy. The enemy must not repeat its mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance," he said.
The missile tests followed remarks by a senior Iranian official who was quoted Tuesday as warning the United States against attacking Iran.
"In case that they commit such foolishness, Tel Aviv and the U.S. fleet in the Gulf would be the first targets to burst into flames receiving Iran's crushing response," said Ali Shirazi, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, according to the Iranian news agency.
Like the missile tests, the bellicose rhetoric seemed part of an effort by Iran to couple offers of negotiation with warnings of military preparedness.
Negotiations between Iran and the West are scheduled to resume later this month and Iranian officials have sounded mounting alarms about speculation that the United States or Israel could attack Tehran's nuclear facilities. On a European tour last month, President George W. Bush repeated Washington's warning that no options had been ruled out.
"The Zionist regime is pushing the White House to get prepared for military attack," the news agency quoted Shirazi as saying.
Last weekend, Iran signaled that it would not comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring it to stop enriching uranium. During his European visit, Bush won pledges from some European leaders to tighten sanctions against Iran.
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said in a letter that Iran was prepared to open comprehensive negotiations with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the six world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — that have proposed a set of incentives to resolve the impasse over its nuclear program.
A senior European official involved in the negotiations said Saturday that Solana would meet with Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, later this month.
On Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said demands that Iran halt its enrichment program were illegitimate.
The semi-official Iranian news agency Fars has reported on recent military maneuvers by the Revolutionary Guards to improve its "combat capability."
However, the signals have not been universally hostile. Fars quoted Mottaki as saying that negotiations were in a "new environment." He held out the possibility of improved relations with the United States, which have been tense and acrimonious since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Myra Noveck contributed reporting from Jerusalem
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/...ran.php?page=2
Iran test-fires missiles, reports say 
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