TEHRAN, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Iran announced Thursday it had carried out successful tests of a Russian-supplied anti-ship missile that could be used against U.S. warships.
The tests involved the Soviet-designed SSN-4 Sark anti-ship missiles, Iranian television said according to a report carried by the RIA Novosti news agency. Iranian television cited the hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which operates Iran's missile forces, as the source for the report.
Iranian television said the Sark tests were a component of military maneuvers in southern Iran that were launched Wednesday. The tests involved several missiles being fired out to sea and all of them struck their intended targets, the report said.
"Iranian military experts say the SSN-4 Sark missiles, designed in the 1960s in the Soviet Union and classified as R-13 missiles, have a hitting range of 300km (186 miles) and are capable of reaching all classes of ships in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, as well as in the northern part of the Indian Ocean," RIA Novosti said.
The tests came the same day that Iran said it had also "successfully tested a TOR-M1 air defense missile system recently supplied by Russia. In late January Russia delivered 29 TOR-M1 anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract signed at the end of 2005," RIA Novosti said.
The U.S. government this year imposed new sanctions on Rosoboroexport, the Russian government's main and official arms export company, because of the sale of major weapons systems to Iran. The sanctions have angered Russia which maintains that the arms sales were not destabilizing because they all involved defensive weapons.
