Iran has extended the range of its land-to-sea ballistic missiles to 700 kilometers (435 miles), a senior Iranian military official said on Tuesday, amid rising tensions with the United States over Iran's missile program.
"We have managed to make land-to-sea ballistic, not cruise, missiles that can hit any vessel or ship from 700 kilometers," Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Airspace Division, was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.
U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 international agreement on Iran's nuclear program in May and reimposed sanctions on Iran, saying that one of the deal's major flaws is that it does not include curbs on Iran's development of ballistic missiles or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.
Iran, which says its missile program is purely defensive, has threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf if the United States tries to strangle Iranian oil exports.
Hajizadeh said the Guards began focusing on extending the land-to-sea missile range after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked the military a decade ago about the possibility of "hitting ships" with ballistic missiles.
He did not give details on the previous range of the missiles. In 2008, Iran displayed a ground-to-sea missile that it said could travel about 290 kilometers (180 miles).
On Monday, U.S. special envoy on Iran Brian Hook said the Iranian ballistic missile program was exacerbating tensions in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
"We are accumulating risk of regional conflict if we do not do more to deter Iran's missile proliferation in the Middle East," Hook said.
The Iranian government has ruled out negotiating with Washington over its military capabilities and has dismissed U.S. assertions that its activities in the Middle East are destabilizing.
Hajizadeh said some short-range Iranian missiles had been used over the past two years in Syria's civil war, where Iranian forces have fought in support of President Bashar Assad.
He also said Iranian drones had carried out 700 attacks on Islamic State positions in Syria.
The Revolutionary Guards have sent weapons and thousands of soldiers to Syria to help shore up Assad during the long conflict there.
