Iran has provided the Hizbullah organization with tens of thousands of missiles and is threatening Israel with genocide through the use of additional long-range missiles, Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres declared in the Knesset on Wednesday. Peres's speech came one day after U.S. President George W. Bush classified Iran as a sponsor of terror.
The Hizbullah is armed with missiles with ranges of 20 - 70 kilometers (12 - 43 miles), Peres said, adding that the use of these missiles could easily ignite a regional confrontation. Yediot Aharonot, in its upcoming weekend magazine, will report that during the recent period of relative calm along Israel's northern border, the Hizbullah has not remained idle. Instead, the paper says, based on Israeli military intelligence reports, the organization has armed its forces in southern Lebanon with Fagr missiles and intensified its efforts to establish an intelligence network among Israeli Arabs.
The 240mm Fagr missile, constructed by the Iranians,
"Iran is also threatening to destroy Israel ... through the use of missiles"
- FM Shimon Peres
reportedly with the help of North Korea and China, is launched from a mobile platform. Like the Katyusha rocket and Scud missile, it is not highly accurate at the limit of its range, which would include the city of Haifa.
Iran has developed the Shihab-3 missile, with a range of 1300 km (800 miles), in its bid to intimidate the entire region, Peres said. Iran is working to produce a 5,000 km (3100 miles) -range missile that will threaten European countries. In the future, Iran will try to produce a 10,000 km (6200 miles) -range missile capable of threatening North America, he added. Furthermore, Iran is developing non-conventional missile warheads, he said.
The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB) reported in August 2000, shortly after Iran had completed its second test of the Shihab-3, that this intermediate range ballistic missile is powered by liquid fuel and can carry a warhead weighing up to up to 800 kg (1,760 lbs). The MEIB reported that the more advanced Shihab-4 would be capable of carrying a larger payload and could carry biological, chemical or nuclear warheads. Experts estimated that the development of the Shihab-5, capable of hitting targets in the United States, would be completed by 2010.
Bush lists Iran as part of axis of evil
President Bush addressed the Iranian threat in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday. "Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom," he said, classifying Iran with North Korea and Iraq as a sponsor of terror.
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world," Bush said. The president listed Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Hizbullah as forming part of the terrorist underworld.
The Iranian government scoffed at Bush's charges. "We think the American people should ask their politicians to abandon war-mongering and use their resources to help achieve a peace based on justice," Iran's news agency IRNA quoted President Muhammad Khatami as saying.
"We reject the U.S. accusations, and we think that the world will not tolerate the hegemony of the U.S," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said, according to state-run Radio Tehran.
Dore Gold, a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former ambassador to the UN, welcomed the United States' classification of Iran as an adversary. "During the early phases of the war against Afghanistan, there were thoughts that the U.S. and Iran might find common ground because of a shared mutual hostility towards the Taliban," he told the Jerusalem Post. Bush's address, however, indicates Iran is clearly on the side of America's enemies, he said.
Sharon, Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer will all raise the Iran issue on their upcoming talks in the United States with Bush administration officials, Ha'aretz reported. Sharon convened a special meeting on Wednesday to discuss the Iranian threat and to prepare an international campaign against Iran's "hydra-headed" approach to Israel: its calls for Israel's destruction, its support of the Hizbullah and Islamic terror groups in the territories, its provision of arms to the Palestinian Authority as in the case of the Karine A weapons shipment, and its efforts to acquire a nuclear capability and long-range missiles. |
