On Wednesday, Iranian paramilitary revolutionary guards introduced underground ballistic missiles as part of a training involving a mock-up of an American aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting its network of underground missile sites.
Although state television documentaries targeted underground base operations, they have all moved away from the number of geographic points revealing their location. Wednesday’s release of what appears to be Iran’s central desert plateau would possibly have replaced that amid rising tensions between Tehran and the United States with its shattered nuclear agreement with global powers and as economic pressures increase.
“We introduced ballistic missiles from the depths of the Earth for the first time,” General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guard’s aerospace division, told state television. “This means that without the use of traditional release pads, buried missiles pull off the floor and achieve their targets accurately.”
Photographs of drones captured through the Guard showed two missiles exploding from covered positions in the desert early Wednesday morning, with debris flying through the air in its wake. The guard identified the location of the launch or the missiles involved.
The launch, six months after the Guard shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane and killed the other 176 people on board, gave the impression that they were destined to demonstrate the strength of their missile program to a national audience, Melissa Hanham, a missile expert, said. Photographs of the surface transmitted on state television, combined with research techniques, help locate the site, he said.
“Once you’ve discovered the silo, it’s no longer a safe position to keep your missile,” said Hanham, who works as a deputy director of an Austrian-based organization called the Open Nuclear Network.
Since its bloody war in the 1980s with Iraq, in which both nations fired missiles at cities, Iran has developed its ballistic missile program as a deterrent, especially since a UN arms embargo prevents it from buying high-tech weapons systems. Underground tunnels help those weapons, adding liquid fuel missiles that can only run for short periods of time, Hanham said.
“What they’re looking to do is increase the survivability of their missile forces,” he said. “They feel that their missile forces are proven and can be phased out. By building this complex tunnel formula, they are looking to build survival capacity.”
Iran may also have used missiles buried in sealed boats for launches without the need for a primary underground base, said Michael Elleman, a missile expert and director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ nuclear and non-proliferation policy program. The forged fuel propeller can allow those missiles to be buried for years, he said.
“Presumably, these missiles can be introduced remotely, without a launch team on site,” Elleman said. “Maybe the launch team is nearby and has operationals from several to a handful of missiles.”
However, he suspected that the United States knew where the missiles had been buried.
“Maybe not all, but a giant percentage, ” said Elleman. “If this is the case, they are vulnerable to movement before a crisis is released.”
The exercise, called “Great Prophet 14,” also sends a message to the United States. Iran fired on an aircraft carrier resembling the American-class Nimitz-class aircraft carriers towed into the strait through a tugboat. Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri, naval chief of the guard, said his armed drones attacked the carrier’s deck on Wednesday, semi-official news firm Tasnim reported.
During Wednesday’s drills, photographs showed a missile hitting a target resembling a U.S. missile defense formula known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD.
Tasnim posted overnight a graphic that replaced the symbol of a coffin-shaped American aircraft carrier with a point of view on it, with a legend quoting the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promising revenge for the U.S. drone strike that killed a very sensible Iranian. January.
Training, and America’s reaction to that, underscores the persistent risk of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States after a series of growing incidents last year that led to the drone strike in January. Tehran responded to the attack by firing ballistic missiles that wounded dozens of U.S. forces in Iraq.
While the coronavirus pandemic has engulfed Iran and the United States for months, there has been a development as the United States begs to enlarge the UN arms embargo on Tehran that expires in October. A recent incident over Syria involving a U.S. fighter jet traveling on an Iranian aircraft has also rekindled tensions.
The economic tension resulting from the collapse of the nuclear deal, through the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement through President Donald Trump, has led to a drastic fall in the price of the Iranian rial. At the time of the transaction in 2015, $1 charged 32,000 riyals. Today, 1 dollar costs about 235,000 riyals.
The two bases are many miles from where Iran placed the carrier’s reproduction in the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf where 20% of all commercialized oil passes.
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