TEHRAN — Iran test-fired a new submarine-to-surface missile during war games in the Persian Gulf yesterday, a show of military might amid a standoff with the West over its nuclear activities.
A brief video clip showed the long-range missile, called Thaqeb, or Saturn, exiting the water and hitting a target on the water’s surface. The test came as part of large-scale military exercises that began Aug. 19.
“The army successfully test fired a top speed long-range sub-to-surface missile off the Persian Gulf,” the navy commander, Gen. Sajjad Kouchaki, said on state-run television.
Iran routinely has held war games over the past two decades to improve its combat readiness and to test equipment including missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.
But yesterday’s firing of the missile came as Iran remains defiant just five days before a deadline imposed by the U.N. Security Council for Tehran to suspend the enrichment of uranium, which can produce both reactor fuel and material usable in nuclear warheads.
Iran said last week it is open to negotiations but it refused any immediate suspension, calling the deadline illegal.
Tehran has expressed worry about Israeli threats to destroy its nuclear facilities, which the West contends could be used to make a bomb but which Iran insists are for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity.
The Islamic country also is concerned about the U.S. military presence in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan.
In an advance for Iran’s weapons industry, the Thaqeb is the country’s first missile fired from underwater that flies above the surface to strike its target, adding to the country’s repertoire of weapons that can hit ships in the Gulf.
Iran’s current arsenal includes several types of torpedoes — including the “Hoot,” Farsi for “whale,” which was tested for the first time in April and is capable of moving at some 223 mph, up to four times faster than a normal torpedo.
Gen. Kouchaki said the Thaqeb could be fired from any vessel and could escape enemy radar. He said it was built based on domestic know-how, although outside specialists say much of the country’s missile technology originated from other countries such as Russia and China.
He did not give the weapon’s range. It did not appear capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
During the April war games, Iran also tested a new land-to-sea missile, the Kowsar, with remote control and searching systems that cannot be scrambled, as well as a high-speed missile boat that is undetectable by radar.
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