from the website www.reuters.com/

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Iran fires missile that can evade radar-TV
Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:33 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Friday successfully
test fired a home-made missile which can evade radar, state television
reported.

"Iran successfully test fired a home-made Fajr-3 missile," Hossein
Salami, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, was quoted as saying
on state television.

from the website www.reuters.com/

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Iran fires missile that can evade radar-TV
Fri Mar 31, 2006 8:33 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Friday successfully
test fired a home-made missile which can evade radar, state television
reported.

"Iran successfully test fired a home-made Fajr-3 missile," Hossein
Salami, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander, was quoted as saying
on state television.

The missile was tested as part of a week of naval wargames that started
on Friday and were due to take place in the Gulf and Sea of Oman.

Previous models of the Fajr range of missiles have been described as a
land-based weapons system for use against ships.

"This missile, with the capacity of evading radar, can attack several
targets simultaneously," he said, adding the missile was newly
developed.

State media described the missile as one of a "new generation". Iran
has previously said it had successfully tested missiles carrying the
Fajr (Dawn) name.

The range of the new missile was not immediately clear but Salami said
it had greater tactical and technical capabilities, state television
reported. It also said the missile could not be hit by anti-missile
rockets.

Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Earlier, naval officials had said the wargames would start by firing a
Shahab-2 surface-to-surface missile, which experts say has a range of
about 440 miles.

Naval Admiral Morteza Saffari earlier said the wargames would involve
more than 17,000 troops and 500 large and small naval vessels, the
official IRNA news agency earlier reported.

The naval wargames were aimed "to display the Islamic system's
defensive capabilities", IRNA said.

Diplomats in Europe said this month that Iran, which is currently
involved in a nuclear standoff with the West, was stepping up
development of missiles capable of carrying atomic warheads.

The diplomats, citing an intelligence report, said the program included
plans to arm Iran's Shahab-3 missiles, which experts believe has a
maximum range of around 2,000 km (1,240 miles), with nuclear warheads.

Iran says its nuclear plans are purely for peaceful purposes. The
United States and other Western nations accuse Iran of trying to
develop atomic bombs.

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