Iran Claims Long-Range Missile Test

(AP)  Updated at 6:57 a.m. Eastern.

Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully test fired an upgraded version of its longest-range, solid-fuel missile which it said is faster and harder to shoot down.

State television broke the news in a one-sentence report accompanied by a brief clip of the test.

Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi later spoke on television, describing the Sajjil-2 as a high-speed, surface-to-surface missile that would serve as a "strong deterrent" against any possible foreign attack.

"Given its high speed," he said, "it is impossible to destroy the missile with anti-missile systems because of its radar-evading ability."

The Sajjil-2 is a two-stage missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. That range places Israel, Iran's sworn enemy, well within reach and reaches as far away as southeastern Europe with greater precision than earlier models.

It is Iran's most advanced two-stage missile and is powered entirely by solid-fuel while the older, long-range Shahab-3 missile uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel in its most advanced form.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on Iran's latest missile test.

Iran has intensified its missile development program in recent years, a source of serious concern in Israel, the United States and its Western allies at a time when they accuse Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Iran, which is under several sets of U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, denies the charges and says its nuclear program is aimed solely at generating electricity.

Israel has not ruled out a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran, in turn, has threatened that such an attack would be retaliated against with strikes on Israel's own nuclear sites.

The name "Sajjil" means "baked clay," a reference to a story in the Quran, Islam's holy book, in which birds sent by God drive off an enemy army attacking the holy city of Mecca by pelting them with stones of baked clay.

(CBS)

Solid-fuel missiles like the Sajjil-2 are more accurate than the liquid fuel missiles of similar range currently possessed by Iran. The country has for several years had a solid-fuel missile, the Fateh, but with the much shorter range of 120 miles.

Iran's arms manufacturing program began during the country's ruinous 1980-88 war with neighboring Iraq to compensate for a U.S. arms embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane. The actual capabilities of the weapons, including the accuracy and range of the country's homemade missiles, are difficult to ascertain given the secrecy of the Iranian military.

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 10:31 PM EST
I suppose you have a ready-made script for what Islam did to the Hindus, or for the partition of India? Because you're just so reasonable.






I'm pointing out the atrocities of the Israeli's, and you keep trying to justify those atrocities, because of acts committed by OTHER groups of people!

Why don't you just come out and condemn Israel for THEIR atrocities, with the same vigorous fervor that you condemn the arabs?

I do - why can't you?

[starving1968-1]

by slownewsday-5_ December 16, 2009 10:01 PM EST
I give Israel maybe six more months of waiting on Obama's do nothing policy..then they are going to let hell break loose on the crazies. I just hope I can sell my stock before Iran gets the hammer put down on them.






Let them!!

What happens between Israel and Iran is NONE of our concern!!

[starving1968-1]

Yeah - he's REAL dense!

Almost as bad as UsuallySoWrong16!

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 10:20 PM EST
I think that you are ripping out the half of the book that you don't like. It makes you very unusual. The chapters on Arab slave trading in East Africa are more than you can take right now.






I'm talking about the 1920's - 1950's, and your response is to bring up something from 150 years ago, that our own forefathers did, and later realized was wrong.

Yeah - stick with that pathetically weak argument.

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 10:14 PM EST
I think I'd rather go beheading






I'm not that surprised to hear that from an Israeli supporter.

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 10:10 PM EST
I'd like to see you try some of that peace and love on the Lesbians.






So would I!!!

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 10:09 PM EST

And all of those Jews who left Arab countries penniless, they were just THAT anxious to leave the lands of their birth because they were on a voluntary religious pilgrimmage, is that what you're saying? And Israel, roughly the size of New Jersey, might actually be the size of a Super New Jersey, if these trends continue, is that what you're saying? And the extermination of the Jews in the Balkans, aided by the leading Muslim in Jerusalem, a pro-Nazi anti-Jewish demagogue, a man who in the 1920s claimed there wasn't even a nation called Palestine, this man was a statistically anomaly, or a figment of the imagination -- just the photos he took -- and so his teachings never affected his relative Yasser Arafat (whose wife lives wealthy and comfortably in Paris, praise be to the revolution).






I don't know where you got the idea that they left those arab lands penniless, but yes - they most certainly DID leave those lands on their own!!

What you know of Israel, wouldn't fill a thimble!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah_Bet




And what does the Balkans have to do with Israel committing atrocities against the Palestinians?!?!

"They did it to us, so we can do it to someone else!"

That's your claim?

Or are the Palestinians being punished / exterminated as punishment for what Hitler did in the concentration camps?

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 9:44 PM EST
Why is it, if you demonized them all, I haven't read any single post you've ever made in which you point-out that the Israelis have the only multi-party republic in a region of rogue states? Where is your condemnation of the politics that has the West Bank as a sector of Turkish Syria, or British Palestine, or Royalist Jordan, and no one in the Arab League declares a state of war because the Palesinian nation existing since time immemorial has vanished? The same question can be asked of Egypt's province of Gaza.

The answer is that Palestine is a creation of the Marketing Department to further a war against the non-Muslim Israelis. The answer is that the same war aims were directed against the Jews of Europe by pro-Nazi politicans in the Arab world during the 1920s-1940s. So if you ever have anything negative to say about these guys from Raiders of the Lost Ark, now would be an excellent time.







"Multi-Party Republic"?!? They're a jewish theocracy, like Iran is a Islamic theocracy!! They're not exterminating the arabs and stealing their land by the acre everyday as a form of, "eminent domain"!! They are stealing the land, and forcibly EVICTING the people that have lived there for generations!!

The West Bank was OWNED by the arabs / Islamics back in 1947, as was over 87% of the land. The UN decided to "give" Israel 50% of the land in UN resolution 181, even though it only owned 12.5% according to the JNF.

After the 1967 war, Israel sat on approximately 65% of the land, and today it sits on 84%.

How did they go from 12.5% in 1947, to 84% today, without EVER PAYING A PENNY for any of it? It's because they TOOK IT by overwhelming military force!! (Force provided by the US by the way, which is why the radical extremists target US for attacks as well as Israel!!)

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 9:30 PM EST

I have an excellent idea of who's an American and who's the sort of fellow who should emigrate to a Jihad nation and stay there.







I agree.

You should emigrate to Israel, expatriate yourself, and join the IDF as your official duty as a permanent Israeli citizen.

[starving1968-1]

You go and enlist, and help Israel with their own version of "jihad", I'll practice "peace and love" on lesbos.

Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll let you shoot white phosphorus into a school, like the IDF did earlier this year, even though white phosphorus use is internationally outlawed according to the Geneva Conventions.

[starving1968-1]

by ToolMangler1 December 16, 2009 9:30 PM EST
So you think The USA should make friends with the Islamic countries by throwing Israel to the wolves?? If We abondon an 'Ally' and suck up to their enemies out of 'FEAR' then I would leave this country that I love and spit on it as I left.
I hope to GOD, I never have to do that..




(Reusing a previous answer):

When did I say that "we should make friends with the Islamic countries by throwing Israel to the wolves"?

In my mind, Israel is just as evil as those other nation's that you demonize. I demonize them ALL, you demonize them all EXCEPT ONE.

Why is that?

[starving1968-1]

by YoureSoWrong16 December 16, 2009 9:21 PM EST
Oh, I see. Israel is the terrorist nation. The assorted kingdoms, dictatorships, one-party theocracies are not. The presidents-for-life, the warlords, the mystic visionaries are civic minded. The nationalized oil wealth that funds Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO, the PLF, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and at one time Uday and Qusay's rape palaces in Iraq, this is a mere bookkeeping error.

I could go on listing what are called facts. But I wanted to ask if any of this pains you as you try to build your case.






When did I say that those other nations "are not" terrorist / evil nations? Do you condone and support Israel stealing the Palestinians land, bulldozing their houses, and leaving them penniless and homeless, then shipping them off to overcrowded "refugee camps"? Then while in the "refugee camps", their food, water, and medical supplies are cut off to MILLIONS of people at a time, because some kid threw a rock at a soldier? And whole neighborhoods are "walled off" and NO ONE is allowed to travel in or out, preventing them from getting desperately needed jobs? That sounds like the actions of a "democracy" to you?!?!

In my mind, Israel is just as evil as those other nation's that you just demonized. I demonize them ALL, you demonize them all EXCEPT ONE.

Why is that?

[earth5667_]

"I haven't read any single post you've ever made in which you point-out that the Israelis have the only multi-party republic in a region of rogue states?"


Israel IS a rogue state.