 "'Dormant volcano': Iran unveils underground drone & missle cities as tensions escalate in West Asia")
Amid the ongoing tension in West Asia, Iran has unveiled an underground missile storage facility. On Friday, Tehran announced that it is manufacturing “new special missiles,” Tasnim News reported. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shared a video showing the security forces’ Commander Major General Hossein Salami and Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh. The latter went on to describe the site as a “dormant volcano”.
According to the Iranian news outlet, part of Iran’s operations against Israel in October and April were carried out using this underground missile base. While addressing an event in Iran’s southwestern city of Abadan on Friday, Salami also announced that the IRGC Aerospace Force is developing “new special missiles.”
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— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) January 10, 2025
Iran has unveiled a massive new Underground Missile City
Thousands of Ballistic Missiles are stored deep inside a Mountain, footage shows just 10% of the entire underground missile complex pic.twitter.com/P9rEd5MLiF
The announcement came days after General Ali Mohammad Naeini warned that Iran would be holding new drills and war games this month that would reveal “missile and drone cities”. Naeini predicted that the revelation would include an underground city which would store missiles and another facility accommodating vessels in the south of Iran, Tasnim News reported.
Iran boasts its military might
With the release of the recent video, many believe that Iran is aiming to project that it has not lost power in the region as the tensions continue to escalate. However, in a few months, Tehran witnessed several setbacks. Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen are still under attack by Israel and the fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime, an ally of Iran, left the country in shock.
“Our deterrence has not been designed based on action from any other country,” Salami said in the Friday press conference. In October last year, Israel said that it had struck Iranian missile manufacturing sites and aerial defence systems inside Iran in response to earlier strikes launched by Tehran on the Jewish nation.
Impact Shorts
View AllAt the time of the attack, Iran’s foreign ministry called the Israeli strike a “clear violation” of international law, adding that it is “entitled and obligated to defend itself.” Interestingly, the video was also released just days before US President-elect Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.
Trump had previously launched a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran in his first stint at the White House. Amid the chaos, US officials have expressed optimism in regard to the negotiations of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal with hopes of reaching one before Trump takes office on January 20.
With inputs from agencies.
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