Iran’s state media unveiled a new ballistic missile and an advanced one-way attack drone at a military parade on Saturday, amid rising regional tensions and accusations of supplying arms to Russia. Iran has been accused by Western governments of supplying both the drone and the missile to Russia for use in its war with Ukraine, a charge it has repeatedly denied.
The solid-fuelled Jihad missile was designed and produced by the aerospace branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and has an operational range of 1,000 kilometres (more than 600 miles), state news agency IRNA said.
He said the Shahed-136B drone is an advanced version of the Shahed-136 with new features and an operational range of over 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles).
New President Masoud Pezeshkian attended the annual parade in Tehran commemorating the 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
He said, “Today our defensive and deterrent capabilities have increased so much that no devil even thinks of any aggression against our beloved Iran.”
“With unity and harmony among Islamic countries … we can put in its place the bloody, genocidal, usurping Israel, which shows no mercy to anyone, whether women or children, old or young.”
The Middle East has been in turmoil since the Iran-backed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, sparking a war in Gaza and involving Iranian allies around the region.
Tensions have escalated in recent days as the Israeli military’s focus has shifted north to the Lebanese border, where its troops are fighting the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.
Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold killed 16 members of its elite Radwan Force on Friday, a source close to the group said, coming shortly after deadly sabotage attacks on the group’s communications earlier this week.
Britain, France, Germany and the United States imposed new sanctions on Iran earlier this month, accusing it of providing ballistic missiles to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)