IRAN'S MISSILE COULD REACH 5,000 KILOMETERS

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran has been developing a range of missiles, the most advanced of which could achieve a range of 5,000 kilometers, a leading federal lawmaker said.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said Iran is obtaining help from North Korea and Russia to complete a range of intermediate- and long-range missiles. These include such missiles as the Shihab-3, Shihab-4 and Shihab-5.

"Iran has been working now on a system, Shihab-3, Shihab-4 and Shihab-5, which now possesses a capability of sending a missile about 2,500 kilometers," Weldon said. "That covers a good part of Europe. Iran is also working on a missile system called the Shihab-5. That system will have a range, we think, of 5,000 kilometers. Iran's goal is to develop a long-range missile to eventually hit the U.S."

U.S. officials have discussed the development of the Shihab-3 and Shihab-4. But officials and many experts had dismissed the Shihab-5 as a feasible program.

Weldon said that Moscow -- which is helping Iran's missile programs -- has been marketing missile defense systems to Israel, a target of Teheran. He said Russia has tried to sell Greece and Israel the Antei-2500 system. The system has also been marketed in the Gulf

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2001/july/07_05_1.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 05, 2001

Answers

Whatever happened to nuclear non-proliferation?

-- LillyLP (lillyLP@aol.com), July 06, 2001.

Israel says Iran establishing missiles inside Lebanon OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel charged on Tuesday that Iran is setting up an “international terrorist network” in Lebanon, with the approval of Beirut's powerbroker Syria, to arm Hizbollah resistance fighters and destabilise the Middle East. “Iran is establishing a consortium of international terrorism in Lebanon with region-wide implications,” said Dore Gold, a top adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.

He told AFP that Tehran's Islamic clerical regime now had missiles on Lebanese territory that were pointed at Israel and under the “command- and-control” of Iranian forces.

He also repeated charges that Iran is regularly supplying arms to Lebanese Hizbollah fighters, who have vowed to continue the armed fight against the Jewish state until Israel pulls out of the disputed Shebaa Farms border area.

“Iranian cargo aircraft land at Damascus International Airport from where weaponry is shipped to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and supplied to Hizbollah,” Gold said.

Israel has in recent days insisted that Hizbollah's cross border attacks have the full blessing of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad.

“Hizbollah camps are located in areas under the direct military control of Syria, and so Syria's role in the ongoing attacks is indisputable,” Gold said.

Hizbollah fighters seriously wounded one Israeli soldier in a rocket and mortar attack on an Israeli post in the Shebaa Farms on Friday.

Damascus says it backs Beirut's claim to the tiny border region, although Israel captured the area from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Despite the claims, the United Nations verified that Israel has completely pulled out of south Lebanon after more than two decades of occupation last year.

Following the Hizbollah attack, Israeli warplanes on Sunday pounded a Syrian radar post in the Bekaa, where many of the more than 20,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon are located, wounding at least one Lebanese and two Syrian soldiers.

Hizbollah retaliated with another bombardment which it claimed knocked out a major Israeli radar and surveillance facility. Israel has not commented on the claim.

http://www.jordantimes.com/Wed/news/news7.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 07, 2001.