The Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday unveiled a hypersonic missile. Hypersonic is a type of supersonic missile that can travel at Mach 15.
Without providing any evidence, state media in Iran and IRGC officials claim that this missile, named “Fattah,” can “penetrate all missile defense systems.”
The range of this missile is reported to be 1,400 kilometers with a solid-fuel spherical type engine.
The Fattah features a moveable secondary nozzle and uses solid propellants, allowing it to reach high speeds and “perform various maneuvers inside and outside the earth’s atmosphere,” according to the regime’s semi-official Fars News Agency, also described as the IRGC’s mouthpiece.
The governments of the United States and United Kingdom responded to the IRGC’s claim of unveiling a hypersonic missile on Tuesday, emphasizing the need to counter the regime’s destabilizing actions in the region.
” The Biden administration has been very clear, very concise, and very firm on pushing back on Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region to include the development of an improving ballistic missile program,” said John Kirby, the Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, in response to a question about the IRGC’s “hypersonic missile”.
“I’m not going to talk about the specific reports of this alleged hypersonic missile, but we have laid down very clear sanctions and other activities to push back on what Iran is doing in the region, again, to include their ballistic missile program,” Kirby added.
A Global Security Threat
The spokesperson of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office issued a statement also regarding the Iranian government and its missile program as a threat to the world. “Iran has announced the development of a new ballistic missile, despite repeated calls from the UN Security Council to halt its programme. This, only weeks after Iran claimed to have successfully test-launched a ballistic missile of similar capability, further proves its continued disregard of international restrictions and the grave threat posed by the regime to global security,” the statement reads in part.
“Alongside partners, the UK remains committed to taking every diplomatic step to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to hold the regime to account for its malign activity around the world,” the FCCDO statement concluded.
The IRGC Air Force hosted the unveiling ceremony of the “Fattah” hypersonic missile with regime President Ebrahim Raisi also participating, state media reported. The name of this missile was chosen by regime Supreme Leader .Ali Khamenei himself, according to these reports.
Raisi delivered a speech at this event, emphasizing on the importance of this development for the mullahs. “This missile power means that the region will be safe from evildoers and foreign aggression. Therefore, its message to the people of the region is a message of security, and to those who are thinking of attacking Iran is that the Islamic Republic is a powerful country, and its power aims to support the people of Iran and the oppressed people of the world,” he said.
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, had previously claimed that the Fattah “can penetrate all missile defense systems, and I don’t think any technology able to counter it will be developed in the coming decades.”
On February 24 the Iranian regime had made the announcement of acquiring a long-range missile. Hajizadeh used the occasion to lash out a threat to Europe.
“We are capable of striking American warships up to 2,000 kilometers away, and this is also out of respect for the Europeans, whom we hope will maintain their own respect,” the IRGC Aerospace Force commander warned.
Banners of the Fattah missile have been recently installed across the Iranian capital of Tehran claiming that the new hypersonic missile could reach Israel in 400 seconds.
Hajizadeh had also claimed the production of a “new hypersonic missile” at the time saying that, in his belief, the U.S. “no longer has any superiority over Iran.”
Amidst threats voiced by IRGC officials at such events, tensions between Tehran and the Washington over Iran’s nuclear program remain high, and the development of Iran’s missile program has become one of the important points of contention between the regime and the negotiating parties in reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.
In recent days, the Iranian regime’s Defense Ministry had announced another ballistic missile named “Khaybar,” which belongs to the regime’s “Khorramshahr” ballistic missile family.
