Iran has alarmed Israel by unveiling what it claims is its first domestically made hypersonic missile. It had previously said it would be able to hit Israel within 400 seconds.
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, attended the unveiling of the missile, named Fattah, or “conqueror” in Farsi. It is claimed to have a range of 870 miles (1,400km), to be able to travel at up to 15 times the speed of sound and to bypass air defence systems.
Hypersonic missiles can fly at least at Mach 5 – five times the speed of sound – and their speed and claimed manoeuvrability is believed to make them difficult to intercept. Only four other countries claim to have them in their arsenals.
Iran said in November it was on the way to building a hypersonic ballistic missile that could manoeuvre in and out of the atmosphere. “It can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic missile systems of the US and the Zionist regime, including Israel’s Iron Dome,” Iran’s state TV said.
Raisi claimed in a segment on Iranian state TV unveiling the Fattah that it was a deterrent that would be “a point of security and stable peace” for the region.
Credit: theguardian.com
