TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran on Wednesday test fired a new generation of ground-to-ground missile, the semi-official Fars news agency quoted the defence minister as saying.
"The defence minister's experts ... succeeded in testing a new generation of ground-to-ground missile," Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted as saying.
State television showed footage of the launch of a missile which is similar in size to the medium-range Shahab 3.
"This is a two-stage missile carrying two engines with combined solid fuel," Najjar said, adding that the missile was named Sejil.
In the past, Iran has often boasted of developing new weapons systems only to be met with scepticism from Western defence analysts.
With an advertised range of 2,000 kilometres (1,350 miles), the Shahab-3 can reach parts of southern Europe but poses the greatest threat to points in the Middle East including Israel and US military bases in the region.
"The testing of this missile has been carried out within the framework of our defensive deterrent doctrine and the Islamic republic's standard missile activities," Najjar said.
"It will not be used against any country ... and has nothing to do with the latest regional and international developments."
The name Sejil comes from a Koranic term, which means those stones thrown by God's birds at an army of elephants heading to destroy the Kaaba in what is now Saudi Arabia around 1,400 years ago.
The Kaaba, in Mecca, is Islam's holiest site.
Washington has never ruled out a resort to military action over what it charges is Tehran's effort to develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran insists it wants to develop nuclear power for civilian purposes only in the knowledge that its huge oil and gas reserves will eventually run out.
It has warned of a dire response in the event that it comes under attack by the United States or its regional ally, Israel.
In February, it fired a probe into space on the back of a Shahab-3 missile, a development that prompted even Russia to say it raised suspicions that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapons capability.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
