TEHRAN, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Iran's navy has officially received new coastal-based anti-ship cruise missiles.
A handover ceremony for the missile systems was attended by Commander of the Iranian army's navy Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari and Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, the Fars News Agency reported Monday.
Vahidi said, "These sites have been developed in three forms, including light sites, independent sites and extensive sites that include target detection, missile launch pads, radar guidance systems," adding that the systems' deployment along Iran's coastline will allow Iran to identify, detect and destroy multiple targets via a single integrated command and control center.
The naval missile system is implicitly designed to counter any possible Western naval deployment into the Persian Gulf as a corollary to increased pressure on Iran via U.N. sanctions over its civilian nuclear energy program, which both the United States and Israel allege conceals a covert nuclear weapons program, a charge Tehran strongly denies, pointing out that, unlike Israel, it has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
