Iran has abandoned a self-imposed limit on ballistic-missile range and warned of new domestically made weapons, hours after the US military launched a task force aimed at cutting Tehran’s weapons shipments and illicit trade. The Associated Press reported that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi said the previous ceiling of 2,000 kilometres, about 1,240 miles, no longer applied.
US Central Command set up Task Force Iron Gate on Nov. 7 to target the movement of advanced Iranian weapons, dual-use materials and illicit revenue across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea. Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said closer work with other US agencies would further limit Iran’s ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories and replenish its forces.
Behnam Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital the effort could mean targeted strikes on facilitators and political, market and sanctions pressure on states and institutions linked to the trade. He said basing the work at CENTCOM headquarters was itself significant, and described the Caspian, the world’s largest lake, as a two-way sanctions-busting hub for Iran and Russia. He added that Iranian officials claim military self-sufficiency, but that domestic missile output was badly constrained by the 40-Day War, so rebuilding at scale would depend on imports. Constraining both land and sea trade, he said, hits the regime from two directions.
Iran’s IRGC dismissed the initiative as wordplay. Fars News Agency reported that Tehran said it had already prepared and coordinated with neighbours. At a news conference in Tehran on Saturday, Mohebbi warned, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, that surprises would be unveiled and used if a third round of confrontation began, and that those surprises would astonish the world. He said a further miscalculation by the United States, or one led by Israel, would bring harder Iranian blows that would leave opponents crippled for years.
The old 2,000-kilometre limit already covered the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, most of Egypt and parts of Greece and the Balkans. In March, Iran tried and failed to strike the joint US-British base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, about 2,500 miles from Iran. Mohebbi also said new underground “missile cities” were being prepared so production could continue in wartime, and that the IRGC Aerospace Force kept making missiles and drones in recent fighting from domestic expertise, without imported weapons or reverse-engineering of captured arms. He called that self-sufficiency a very big achievement.
Washington has also pressed Iran’s land routes, including crossings with Iraq, where Baghdad has reportedly resisted demands for wider closures. The Institute for the Study of War said Iraq has shut only one crossing so far. On Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said the US Treasury had urged Iraq to close every border crossing with Iran except two, Reuters reported. Baghdad closed the al-Shayeb crossing in southeastern Iraq on Oct. 21 to review security and install equipment against smuggling of prohibited goods.
Iraqi political sources told Agence France-Presse that Washington wanted most Iran-Iraq crossings shut to limit trade and finance that could help Tehran endure sanctions. ISW said Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Mohammad Kazem al-Sadegh, described as a member of the IRGC Quds Force, was pressing tribal leaders in Maysan province to push officials and the Shiite Coordination Framework to reopen al-Shayeb. The institute judged that Baghdad’s limited steps reflect an attempt to balance ties with Washington against Iranian-backed political factions.