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Iran Reports Missile Test, Drawing Rebuke

By ALAN COWELL and WILLIAM J. BROAD, The New York Times

PARIS — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards test-fired nine missiles in war-game maneuvers on Wednesday, including at least one the government in Tehran described as having the range to reach Israel.

The tests drew sharp American criticism and came a day after the Iranians threatened to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.

State-run media said the missiles were long- and medium-range weapons, and included a Shahab-3, which Tehran maintains is able to hit targets up to 1,250 miles away from its firing position. Parts of western Iran are within 650 miles of Tel Aviv.

The tests, shown on Iranian television, coincided with increasingly tense exchanges with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran said is for civilian purposes but which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, the United States and the Czech Republic signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its contentious antiballistic missile shield, which Washington maintains is intended to protect in part against Iranian missiles.

At the same time, United States and British warships have been conducting naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf — apparently within range of the launching site of the missiles Iran tested on Wednesday.

The Israelis — whose air force last month practiced what American intelligence officials called a rehearsal for a possible strike on Iranian nuclear facilities — said they did not want war with Iran. But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, “The Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program must be of grave concern to the entire international community.”

The missile tests drew a sharp response from the United States. Gordon D. Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement at the Group of 8 meeting in Japan that Iran’s development of ballistic missiles was a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

“The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity,” Mr. Johndroe said.

He urged Iran’s leaders to “refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world,” and said, “The Iranians should stop the development of ballistic missiles which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon immediately.”

Energy traders reacted to the news by bidding up oil prices, which had been falling in recent days. The most watched oil price benchmark — light, low-sulfur crude for delivery next month — rose more than $2 a barrel in early electronic trading, though by late morning in New York the gain had been pared somewhat.

Some saw the tests as essentially deterrent in nature. A senior American intelligence official said the missile tests, together with belligerent comments by Iranian officials, seemed part of a strategy to warn Iran’s neighbors of its “capacity to inflict pain.”

“I think Iran has a hedgehog strategy: mess with me and you’ll get stuck,” said the official, Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and head of the National Intelligence Council, during remarks at the Center for National Policy, in Washington.

Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam television said the missiles, launched from an undisclosed location in the Iranian desert, included a “Shahab-3 with a conventional warhead weighing one ton and a 2,000-kilometer range,” about 1,250 miles. Cairo, Athens, Istanbul, New Delhi and the Arabian peninsula are within that distance of Iranian territory.

Iranian television showed what appeared to be two Shahabs lifting off within seconds of each other.

“That’s surprising,” Charles P. Vick, an expert on the Iranian rocket program at GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria, Va., said in a telephone interview. “Historically, it’s always been single launches.”

Mr. Vick added, however, that the Shahab display might be less formidable than Iran had claimed. The missile’s conic warhead appeared to resemble an older Shahab model with a range of about 1,500 kilometers, or about 900 miles, rather than the newest one.

The Iranians fired their first Shahab a decade ago, Mr. Vick said, and are now replacing all models with a more advanced missile that burns solid propellants, which are considered better for quick launchings.

In a sense, he said, Wednesday’s Shahab firings seemed to be simply a way for the Iranians to clear out old inventory. The biggest missile that the Iranians apparently fired — known as the 3a model — is no longer in production, Mr. Vick said.

The 3a model predates the atomic jitters that arose with the debut of the Shahab-3b in August 2004. The 3b’s distinctive nosecone — known as triconic and made up of three distinct shapes— is viewed by Western experts as ideal for carrying a nuclear warhead.

The Shahab-3b, Mr. Vick said, is apparently the delivery vehicle intended for the nuclear warhead that, according to a National Intelligence Estimate issued last November, the Iranians worked on until late 2003.

The other missiles in Wednesday’s tests were identified as the Zelzal, with a range of 250 miles, and the Fateh, with a range of 110 miles, Agence France-Presse reported. Iranian television showed what was said to be the Shahab-3 missile rising amid clouds of dust from the desert launching site.

Hossein Salami, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying: “The aim of these war games is to show we are ready to defend the integrity of the Iranian nation.”

“Our missiles are ready for shooting at any place and any time, quickly and with accuracy. The enemy must not repeat its mistakes. The enemy targets are under surveillance,” he said.

The missile tests followed remarks on Tuesday by a senior Iranian official warning the United States and Israel against attacking Iran.

“In case that they commit such foolishness, Tel Aviv and the U.S. fleet in the Persian Gulf would be the first targets to burst into flames receiving Iran’s crushing response,” said the official, Ali Shirazi, a representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.

Like the missile tests, the bellicose language seemed part of an effort by Iran to couple offers of negotiation with warnings of military preparedness.

Negotiations between Iran and the West are scheduled to resume this month, and Iranian officials have sounded mounting alarms about speculation that the United States or Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. On a European tour last month, President Bush repeated Washington’s warning that no options had been ruled out.

Last weekend, Iran signaled that it would not comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring it to stop enriching uranium. During his European visit, Mr. Bush won pledges from some European leaders to tighten sanctions against Iran.

But Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said his country was prepared to open comprehensive negotiations with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and the six world powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — that have proposed a set of incentives to resolve the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.

Alan Cowell reported from Paris, and William J. Broad from New York. Reporting was contributed by Myra Noveck from Jerusalem, Sheryl Gay Stolberg from Rusutsu, Japan, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.