Iran presented what officials described as its first domestically-made hypersonic ballistic missile on Tuesday, the official IRNA news agency reported, an announcement likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran’s missile capabilities.
Iranian state media published pictures of the missile named Fattah at a ceremony attended by President Ebrahim Raisi and commanders of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps.
“The precision-guided Fattah hypersonic missile has a range of 1,400 km and it is capable of penetrating all defence shields,” Amirali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards’ aerospace force, was quoted as saying by Iranian state media.
Hypersonic missiles can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound and on a complex trajectory, which makes them difficult to intercept. State TV said Iran’s Fattah missile can target “the enemy’s advanced anti-missile systems and is a big generational leap in the field of missiles”.
“It can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic missile systems of the United States and the Zionist regime, including Israel’s Iron Dome,” Iran’s state TV said.
Fattah’s top speed reached mach 14 levels (15,000km/h), it added.
