Israel and US bases are within missile range, Iran says
An air defense missile is driven past Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during an Army Day parade in Tehran on April 18, 2011.
The commander of Iran's aerospace force Tuesday sent a pointed message to Israel and the U.S.Tuesday that they were within range of Iranian missiles.
Tehran also reportedly revealed a previously secret network of underground missile silos.
Iran has begun a 10-day series of missile tests and earlier Tuesday announced that it had successfully fired 14 surface-to-surface missiles, the Washington Post reports.
As part of the Great Prophet 6 military drills, the Revolutionary Guard Corps is firing the medium-range missiles at targets out to sea.
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The Tehran Times quoted Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force, as saying: "The range of our missiles has been designed based on American bases in the region as well as the Zionist regime."
He added that if provoked, "We can hit [Israel] from Damghan or Semnan with our missiles."
And: "America has made things easier for us by stationing its garrisons and camps in neighboring countries… We can attack all American facilities in the region by these missiles."
UPI reports:
The Israeli border is 745 miles from Iran and U.S. bases in Afghanistan are within their 1,242 mile range, but not Europe. Hajizadeh said Iran had the technological capability to build longer-range ballistic missiles but had chosen not to.
Specifically, the U.S. has bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a presence in Bahrain and Qatar and aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
But Iran is not planning to attack anyone, commanders told reporters.
"Our extra-regional enemies are the U.S. and the Zionist regime and we do not feel a threat from any other country, thus we do not need missiles with a range longer than 2,000 kilometers," he told reportedly said
The underground missile silos were reportedly part of the "swift reaction units" of Iran's missile forces, with missiles ready to be launched against pre-determined targets.
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