[Heaven] Iran builds nuclear-capable cruise missile able to strike Israel from afar
Goodtiding
DEBKAfile Special Report May 11, 2010, 1:01 PM (GMT+02:00)
"This is an extremely serious threat to Israel," Yair Shamir, chairman of
Israel's Aerospace Industries warned in a lecture, naming the new weapon as the
KH-55 cruise missile, based on a model Tehran received from Ukraine in 2006 and
upgraded - together with an air-launched version.
"The pace of missile
development (in Iran) is much
faster that that of the solutions," Shamir said. "The new element is that
Iran is already in space" -
an intimation that its activities in space were a key element in accelerating
Tehran's missile
program.
Shamir rarely talks in public on security matters. debkafile's military sources report
he apparently found it necessary to speak out in view of the defense minister
Ehud Barak's soothing assessments, his efforts to downplay the peril from
Tehran and denials that Iran had become an existential threat to
Israel.
The defense minister was
also challenged by President Shimon Peres who, speaking in Moscow Monday, May 11, cautioned against nonchalance in the
face of the threats to destroy Israel, which came mainly from Tehran.
(He also
noted that no ruler but Syria's Bashar Assad would try to
pretend that missiles for Hizballah were harbingers of peace.)
debkafile's military sources note
that Shamir's was the first authoritative voice to verify Iran's possession of a nuclear-capable,
long-range-missile capable of striking Israel without leaving its own
airspace. The rumors of its acquisition circulating for some years had been
treated with some skepticism. Now, Western sources confirm that
Ukraine did indeed sell
Iran a dozen KH-55 missiles capable
of carrying conventional or nuclear warheads, but they are not sure if the
warheads were part of the consignment or just the diagrams and instructions on
how to fit them.
The Israeli aerospace expert disclosed that Iranian
scientists are working on lengthening the cruise missile's range beyond its
regular 2.500 kilometers and developing a version for the use of fighter
bombers. This would enable Iranian warplanes to shoot missiles against targets
not only in Israel but as far
away as Central Europe, without leaving their
own airspace and risking exposure to American or Israeli air
attack
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