Hezbollah claims 'pinpoint' Iranian missiles added to its arsenal
On
the eve of a deadline in nuclear talks between six world powers and
Iran, Lebanon’s militant Shiite Hezbollah organization has revealed that
it has acquired advanced Iranian missiles with “pinpoint accuracy” that
it could use against Israel in any future war.
Hezbollah claims 'pinpoint' Iranian missiles added to its arsenal
The Lebanese Shiite militant group and close ally of Iran said it has received more advanced missiles, with greater range, as talks over Iran's nuclear program wind down in Vienna.
By Nicholas Blanford
2 hours ago
On the eve of a deadline
in nuclear talks between six world powers and Iran, Lebanon’s militant
Shiite Hezbollah organization has revealed that it has acquired advanced
Iranian missiles with “pinpoint accuracy” that it could use against
Israel in any future war.
Mr.
Qassem’s comments on Hezbollah’s enhanced missile capabilities and the
threat they pose to Israel came amid waning hopes that a deal could be
struck by a Monday deadline in Vienna between Iran and the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – Britain,
China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, the so-called
P5+1. The six leading nations want Iran to curb its uranium enrichment
capacity, which could be used to make nuclear weapons, in exchange for a
lifting of international sanctions.
By late Sunday, negotiators were reportedly looking for a way to extend the talks beyond the deadline.Watching the Vienna talks closely from the sidelines is Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said he is concerned that any final deal between the P5+1 and Iran will be insufficient to curb what he says is Iran’s goal of building nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian use only.
In an Israeli cabinet meeting Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said that Israel is delivering a “firm stance” to its allies in insisting that Iran should not be allowed to become a “nuclear threshold state”.
“Therefore, no deal would be preferable to a bad deal that threatens Israel, the Middle East and all of humanity,” he said.
If
there is no diplomatic breakthrough in Vienna, the drumbeat for
military action against Iran will almost certainly be heard once more,
raising tensions in a region already ravaged by conflict and radicalism.Over the past decade, Iran has turned Hezbollah into a powerful military force with weapons capabilities unmatched by any other non-state actor. In May, a top Israeli army general said Hezbollah’s arsenal “would not shame any army in the world”.
Iran’s considerable military and financial investment in Hezbollah is intended to bolster Iran’s deterrence against a possible attack on its nuclear facilities. If Israel chooses to bomb Iran’s nuclear plants, it must first assess the response of Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
The stronger Hezbollah’s military capabilities, the greater the stakes for Israel in launching an attack on Iran. Twenty years ago, Hezbollah’s arsenal of unguided 12-mile range rockets allowed it to pepper parts of northern Israel only. Today, the missiles suspected to be in Hezbollah’s arsenal could slam half a tonne of high-grade explosive into specific targets in Tel Aviv, such as the Israeli defense ministry or Ben Gurion International Airport.
Two
weeks ago, a senior officer in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
(IRGC) said that Iran had provided Hezbollah with its indigenously
produced Fateh A-110 short-range ballistic missiles.
“Considering
the range of their [Hezbollah’s] missiles, they are able now to attack
targets from southern to northern parts of the occupied territories
[Israel],” said Brigadier General Sayed Majid Moussavi, the IRGC’s air
defense commander, according to a report by the Iranian Fars news
agency.
The specific missile
system to which Moussavi and Hezbollah’s Qassem referred is likely to be
the 4th-generation version of the Fateh which has a range in excess of
186 miles and can carry a 1,430 pound warhead. Armed with that missile,
Hezbollah could launch it from its camouflaged bases in southern Lebanon
and hit Israel’s nuclear reactor at Dimona in southern Israel, 140
miles south of the border with Lebanon, achieving a degree of
reciprocity for any Israeli air strike against Iran’s nuclear
facilities.
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