Iran Claims To Have Built Hypersonic Ballistic Missile
A senior commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed Thursday that the country had built its first hypersonic ballistic missile, which, he asserted, was capable of evading and targeting “all missile defense systems.”
A report by Iran’s Press TV network quotes Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Division, as saying: “The missile has a high velocity and can maneuver both in and out of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Hypersonic weapons can move at speeds of at least Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound – and on a trajectory low in the atmosphere that is difficult to intercept.
Hajizadeh was speaking at a ceremony to mark the 11th anniversary of the death of Maj. Gen. Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, known as the “father of Iran’s missile program,” who was killed on November 12, 2011, in a large explosion in Iran’s Moddares garrison missile base.
“The new missile can pass through all missile defense systems,” Hajizadeh said, adding, “I don’t think that the technology capable of countering it will be achieved in the decades to come.” He noted that “it can target the enemy’s anti-missile systems, and its production marks a huge leap in the development of a new generation of missiles.”
