Iran plans to extend the range of its recently developed Fattah hypersonic missile by as much as 600 km, IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh has revealed.
“The fact that we have built the Fattah missile with [the current range of 1,400 km, ed.] does not mean that we will not have a missile with a range of 2,000 km with these characteristics in the future. Rather, this is its current range, and in the future we will extend its range,” Hajizadeh said at a ceremony at Mazandaran University, northern Iran on Wednesday.
“Today,” the commander said, Iran has “achieved all complex technologies in the defense industry,” and will have more “good news for our beloved people in the field of missiles” in the future.
Iran depends on its conventional ballistic and cruise missile arsenal as its main deterrent against foreign aggression, casting off nuclear weapons and all other kinds of weapons of mass destruction as incompatible with the tenets of Islam.
The country built up its defense industry from scratch over the past forty years after being cut off from its traditional Western arms suppliers after the 1979 Revolution, developing and fielding an array of missiles, drones, radars and other advanced weapons systems, and creating a homegrown defense electronics sector.
The Islamic Republic took a major step in rocket science earlier this month when it unveiled the Fattah, which is reportedly capable of accelerating to Mach 13-15 and maneuvering during flight. Footage accompanying the missile’s unveiling showed its launch, touchdown on target, and engine testing, revealing that it is fitted with a thrust-vectoring nozzle that allows for steering in flight, thus making its trajectory unpredictable.
Former US Central Command chief Kenneth McKenzie told Congress last year that the US estimates Iran’s missile stockpile to consist of “over 3,000” missiles of various ranges and classes.