Iran has released photographs and film footage purporting to show a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) underground base supplied with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as “electronic warfare” equipment.
A regime-controlled television report described the base as a “missile city” at an unknown location, where rows of rockets appeared to be stacked in a weapons depot lined with cement walls.
The report claimed that said the base’s “electronic warfare equipment” included radar, monitoring, simulation and disruption systems.
The head of the elite IRGC Naval Unit Alireza Tangsiri boasted to state TV that the site is equipped with technology capable of detecting enemy signals.
Operations at the facility are apparently intended to deter the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami commented during the broadcast that, “What we see today is a small section of the great and expansive missile capability of Revolutionary Guards’ naval forces.”
Iran, which routinely lays claim to possessing technological advances in its armed forces, has one of the biggest missile programs in the Middle East.
The IRGC previously stated that it has built a series of underground “missile cities” along the Persian Gulf coastline.
One such site was revealed as part of the 2019 Islamic Revolution’s 40-year-anniversary celebrations, when the IRGC claimed precision ballistic missiles were being manufactured for its Aerospace Division. A video published by Iranian state television at the time showcased the “Dezful” surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a claimed range of 1,000 kilometers. Following international criticism of Iran’s ballistic missile program, then IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, said that “Iran’s defensive capability is deterrent [in nature] and in line with preserving its national security, and it cannot be subjected to any transaction or negotiation.”