Iran plans three days of military manoeuvres, including short-range missile tests, beginning Sunday – its first since the UN Security Council imposed sanctions against it in late December, state-run television said. “The elite Revolutionary Guards plans to begin a three-day missile manoeuvre on Sunday near Garmsar city,” said the broadcast. The city is located in northern Iran on the edge of Kavir desert, about 100 kilometres southeast of Tehran. “Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles will be test fired in the war game,” the television quoted an unnamed commander of the guards, as saying. Both are considered short-range missiles. “The manoeuvre is aimed at evaluating defensive and fighting capabilities of the missiles,” the commander was quoted as saying. Iran conducted a total of three large-scale military exercises last year as tensions with the West and the United States rose. In November, for example, it test-fired dozens of missiles, including the Shahab-3 that can reach Israel, in military manoeuvres that it said were aimed at putting a stop to the role of world powers in the Persian Gulf.
SundayÂ’s manoeuvres are to be the first such by Iran since the UNSC imposed limited sanctions on the country on December 23, banning selling materials and technology that could be used in IranÂ’s nuclear and missile programmes and freezing assets abroad of 10 Iranian prominent companies and individuals. The latest Iranian manoeuvres also come just days after the United States announced it would deploy a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, the USS Stennis. That appeared to have alarmed some in IranÂ’s hard-line leadership. A prominent member of a powerful cleric-run body this week warned that the United States plans to attack Iran in the coming months, possibly by striking its nuclear facilities.