Iran completes Shihab-3 missile development

Iran has completed the development of the Shihab-3 surface-to-surface missile with the capability of striking Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources agreed in their assessment that Teheran is now capable of deploying the medium-range Shihab-3 missile, with a range of 1,300 kilometers, after the success of a secret test in late February.

"The Iranians have essentially completed the Shihab-3," a senior Israeli defense official said. "It won't be accurate. But it will be able to strike anywhere in Israel."

The Shihab-3 has been equipped with a North Korean engine, one of a shipment of engines that arrived from Pyongyang in November. A senior Israeli defense source said the test around Feb. 20 was regarded as a demonstration of the integration of the engine and missile subsystems.

A U.S. intelligence source said the Shihab launch took place from a transportation-and-launch vehicle in what was regarded as an operational test. "The Iranians don't seem to have any plans to set up a production line of the missile," a U.S. intelligence source said. "Instead, the Iranians have been working on Shihab after Shihab and now they have several missiles that can all reach deep in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel."

The source said launch took place at a new airbase of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps at Mashhad. The launch was supervised by the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Maj. Gen.Yahya Rahim Safavi.

"I think that without a doubt this test shows the continued effort by Iran," Rep. Curt Weldon, chairman of the House Military Research subcommittee said. "It is of very great concern especially we assessed that deployment would not take place for another 5-10 years. My own feeling is that those doing the assessment only looked at [Iranian] indigenous development."

So far, the sources said, the Shihab-3 does not contain a sophisticated conventional or unconventional warhead. But the senior Israeli defense official said Iran would continue to try to develop an unconventional warhead for the missile.

The failure to install a lethal warhead, another senior Israeli defense official said, means the Shihab-3 has few military applications. "The Shihab-3 test doesn't change anything," the official said. "Iran is not ready yet."

In December, the U.S. military commander in the Persian Gulf, Gen. Anthony Zinni, told the Association of the United States Army in Washington that the Shihab-3 will eventually carry a nonconventional warhead. He said Iran has replaced Iraq as the greatest threat to the United States in the Middle East and the Gulf, pointing to Iran's investments in sea mines, submarines and relocatable missiles.

U.S. defense officials and analysts don't expect the Iranian parliamentary elections in February, won by reformers aligned with President Mohammed Khatami, to affect Teheran's missile or nonconventional weapons programs.

"I have seen no evidence as yet that President Khatami has ended or reduced proliferation, but at least there's an opportunity," said Anthony Cordesman, a leading defense researcher in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 28 in Washington.