Iran says it tests new advanced missile

updated 7:26 p.m. ET May 20, 2009

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile Wednesday with a range of about 1,200 miles, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

The announcement comes less than a month before Iran's presidential election and just two days after President Barack Obama declared a readiness to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it did not respond positively by year-end to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Iran conducted the successful ballistic missile test.

U.S. officials had said as much earlier Wednesday, but without putting their names to the information. Gates was asked about the reports during congressional testimony.

He said that the successful test involved a missile with a range of approximately 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers. He said that because of chronic engine problems, the range is probably on the lower end of that scale.

Gates says he cannot say whether the test missile hit its intended target.

Analysts said the launch was likely intended for domestic consumption ahead of the June 12 elections, rather than a message to the United States, which has criticized Iran's past missile launches as stoking instability in the Middle East.

"But I don't think the Obama administration and other nations will look at this as a constructive sign," said Patrick Clawson, deputy director for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Clinton warns of ‘arms race’
In an appearance Wednesday before a Senate Appropriations panel, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did not comment directly on the launch, but did say that a nuclear-armed Iran would “spark an arms race.”

Clinton reiterated that the Obama administration opposed Iran getting a nuclear weapons capability and that it was relying for now on diplomatic pressure to stop it.

Clinton described a nuclear capability as an "extraordinary threat" and said that the U.S. goal is "to persuade the Iranian regime that they will actually be less secure if they proceed with their nuclear weapons program."

A more accurate missile?
Iran said the solid-fuel Sajjil-2 surface-to-surface missile is a new version of the Sajjil missile, which the country said it successfully tested late last year and has a similar range. Many analysts said the launch of the solid-fuel Sajjil was significant because such missiles are more accurate than liquid fuel missiles of similar range, such as Iran's Shahab-3.

"Defense Minister (Mostafa Mohammad Najjar) has informed me that the Sajjil-2 missile, which has very advanced technology, was launched from Semnan and it landed precisely on the target," state radio quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He did not name any future targets for the missile when he spoke during a visit to the city of Semnan, 125 miles east of the capital Tehran, where Iran's space program is centered.

Italy said its foreign minister, Franco Frattini, canceled a planned trip to Iran on Wednesday because Ahmadinejad wanted to meet in Semnan rather than in Tehran.

Najjar said the Sajjil-2 differs from the Sajjil missile because it "is equipped with a new navigation system as well as precise and sophisticated sensors," according to Iran's official news agency.

Sajjil means "baked clay." It is a reference to a story in the Quran, Islam's holy book, in which birds sent by God drive off an enemy army attacking the holy city of Mecca by pelting them with stones of baked clay.

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