Commander Rejects Russian Cruise Missiles Crash-Landing in Iran
“The West’s allegations concerning Russian cruise missiles targeting the ISIL militants in Syria and falling into Iranian territory is a blatant lie and is part of psychological warfare,” Brigadier General Moussa Kamali told Sputnik on Friday.
“If there was confirmation that Russian missiles landed in Iran, then there would be proof of this, and they would surely show this, but these reports are fictional,” he added.
He underlined that there have been no confirmed reports on any Russian missiles crash-landing in Iran.
Yesterday, the Iranian defense ministry also rejected reports alleging that four of the 26 cruise missiles fired from Russia’s Caspian fleet at ISIL targets in Syria have crash-landed in Iran, saying the reports are part of the West’s “psychological warfare”.
A source at the Iranian Defense Ministry said that it has not received any report indicating the crash of the Russian missiles on Iranian territories, describing the allegations as “psychological war”.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also denied the US media reports of the alleged incident, stating that all missiles hit their designated targets.
“No matter how unpleasant and unexpected for our colleagues in the Pentagon and Langley was yesterday’s high-precision strike on Islamic State (of Iraq and the Levant) infrastructure in Syria, the fact remains that all missiles launched from our ships have found their targets,” ministry’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on Wednesday that four Russian Navy warships had fired a total of 26 missiles at the positions of the ISIL terrorist group in Syria.
On Thursday, FNA released an amateur video showing the missiles fired from the Russian Navy warships in the Caspian Sea travelled through the sky of Iraq’s Kurdistan region before hitting their targets in Syria.
“Four missile ships in the Caspian Sea launched 26 cruise missiles at 11 targets. According to objective control data, all the targets were destroyed. No civilian objects sustained damage,” Shoigu said.
Also on Thursday, the CNN claimed that according to Pentagon officials, at least, four of the Russian cruise missiles have crash-landed in Iran.
The CNN report came after the Russian army announced that all the 26 missiles hit and completely destroyed their targets in the Syrian provinces of Raqqa, Idlib and Aleppo.
The missile attacks came from Russia’s fleet in the Caspian Sea, which borders Russia, Iran and three other littoral countries. The precision weapons reportedly hit all intended targets. The attacks apparently required cooperation from Iran and Iraq, as the missiles had to travel through their airspace to reach Syria.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it had worked with its partners to plan the flight path so that the missiles traveled only over desolate areas and didn’t pose any danger to civilians.
The missiles flew some 1,500 km before reaching their targets, proving their efficiency.
Four warships of the Caspian fleet were involved in the missile attacks, the Gepard-class frigate Dagestan and the Buyan-M-class corvettes Grad Sviyazhsk, Uglich and Veliky Ustyug. They fired cruise missiles from the Kalibr NK (Klub) VLS launchers. The missiles used are capable of hitting a target within 3 meters at a range of up to 2,500 km.
