Iran says it has created a hypersonic missile, the Fattah, capable of travelling at 15 times the speed of sound.
Source: IRNA News Agency, “The Guardian“
IRNA’s tweet: “The indigenously developed Fattah hypersonic missile, the latest achievement of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was unveiled on Tuesday morning (June 6) in the presence of President Ebrahim Raisi.”
During the presentation of the Fattah (Conqueror) hypersonic missile in Tehran, the Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that Iran is now one of four countries that have the technology to produce hypersonic missiles.
“The rocket that was presented today is unique in the world… With this discovery, Iran has become one of the four countries that possess this technology,” he said.
The statement came amid high tensions with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iran’s state television reported that the missile, called Fattah, or “Conqueror” in Farsi, has a range of up to 870 miles (1,400 km).
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The report also claimed that the missile could penetrate any regional missile defence system, although no evidence was provided to support this claim.
The broadcast showed what appeared to be a model of a missile being presented by the Revolutionary Guard to President Ebrahim Raisi.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps already has a large arsenal of ballistic missiles.
In November, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that Iran had developed a hypersonic missile without providing any evidence to support it.
This statement was made during nationwide protests following the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country’s “moral police.”
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Hypersonic weapons, which fly at speeds of over Mach 5, which is five times the speed of sound, can pose severe difficulties for missile defence systems due to their speed and manoeuvrability.
Like the United States, China is believed to be working on this weapon.
Russia claims that it is already deploying the weapon and has claimed to have used it in the war against Ukraine.
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