Iran’s launch of a ballistic missile over a distance of around 4,000 km., shattering the 2,000 km. range that much of the world hoped it would stay under, likely involved a two-stage satellite-like launch process, former IDF air defense chief Brig.-Gen. Ran Kochav told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. Kochav said that the launch had “doubled the demonstrated capability overnight” of what Iran could do when it targeted the joint UK-US base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
Echoing IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir’s statement on Saturday night that the additional distance probably stemmed from a launch vehicle that used multiple stages, Kochav noted that Iran has been working on such two-stage launch technologies for years to try to launch satellites into space. Both Israel and the US have warned that Iranian satellite tests could turn out to have dual-use elements, leading to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), both conventional and nuclear. While the Islamic Republic has long denied this possibility, Saturday’s launch has likely exposed a clandestine program it has operated for years for precisely such purposes.
Discussing different scenarios, Kochav, who was later also the IDF’s chief spokesman, said that it was possible that the kind of missile used might be a modified USSR-era R-27 ballistic missile. The R-27 was mainly fired by the USSR from submarines and potentially had nuclearcapabilities, but Iran could have modified it to launch from a land-based platform. (Read More)
