Iran lifts self-imposed 2,000-km ballistic missile cap

Tehran: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard says it has lifted a self-proclaimed limit of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) on the range of its ballistic missiles, suggesting the country may seek to develop missiles capable of reaching more distant targets amid fears of renewed all-out war.

The comments by the spokesman of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard came days after the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khomeini, warned that “any kind and level of threat” from the US or Israel would face a response without geographic limits.

Asked at a Tehran press conference about the limit on missile ranges, Gen. Hossein Mohebbi said, “That restriction has been lifted for us.”

He did not say whether Iran had missiles capable of exceeding the limit, saying only Iran would “demonstrate these capabilities in practice” rather than make statements.

Iran is not known to have missiles that can go beyond the 2,000-kilometre (1,200-mile) limit — a range that puts parts of Greece and the Balkans, the entire Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and most of Egypt within reach. However, US officials have said technology from Iran’s space programme can be repurposed to build intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Iranian military, meanwhile, said a tanker east of the Strait of Hormuz had hit a naval mine and caught fire. It did not identify the nationality or destination of the tanker, which it said had turned off its navigational beacon and was sailing in a “prohibited area.”

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