IRGC Says Iran Has Lifted Its Limit on Missile Range

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday, Nov. 7, that the self imposed limit on the range of Iranian missiles has been lifted. Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, the spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, made the announcement at a press conference in Tehran marking IRGC Aerospace Week, the AhlulBayt News Agency reported.

"This restriction has been lifted for us," Mohebbi said, according to Tasnim, an Iranian news agency, in reporting carried by The Daily Flare. He made the remark while answering a question about a warning by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei that threats against Iran should receive an immediate response without geographical limits. TASS also reported the announcement, and said Tehran will demonstrate in practice its ability to respond to threats.

The old limit was 2,000 kilometres

The limit Mohebbi described was a self imposed ceiling of about 2,000 kilometres. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had described the policy as a deliberate limit of 2,000 kilometres, according to RIA Novosti reporting carried by The Daily Flare. Saturday's announcement removes that stated ceiling as a matter of policy.

The announcement is a statement of policy, not a test report. No evidence was reported in the coverage that Iran has deployed an operational missile that exceeds the former limit, and Mohebbi himself drew that line at the same press conference.

Production moved underground, Mohebbi says

Mohebbi said the Guards' aerospace division has established underground missile and drone production facilities, according to Xinhua reporting of the Tehran press conference. "We managed to rapidly relocated the production of missiles and drones from the surface to underground (facilities)," he said, in the wording carried by Xinhua.

He linked the move underground to the work on range. "We are constantly enhancing the range of our missiles, and we will not stop in this regard," Mohebbi said, according to Xinhua. The underground facilities and the range work were presented by the spokesman as claims about the Guards' own programme, made at a week set aside to present the aerospace force's record.

A claim that still has to be shown

Mohebbi cautioned that Iran must demonstrate capabilities in practice before making claims about them. He said it would be inappropriate to make claims before putting them into practice, according to The Daily Flare reporting of Tasnim. TASS reported the same point in shorter form: Tehran will demonstrate in practice its ability to respond to threats.

Mohebbi also described any confrontation as asymmetric. He said Iran could strike an adversary at a point the adversary does not expect, according to the reports of his remarks. That was a statement about how Iran says it would fight, not a report that any such strike has taken place.

For readers, the confirmed news on Saturday is narrow and specific. A named spokesman, at a named press conference in Tehran, said on the record that a long stated range limit no longer applies, that missile and drone production has moved underground, and that work to extend range continues. Whether a longer range missile exists in service is a separate question, and on Mohebbi's own wording it can only be answered by a demonstration in practice.