Iran Says It Has Lifted 2,000km Ballistic Missile Range Limit

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday, November 7, that Iran's self-imposed 2,000km limit on ballistic missile range has been lifted. Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, the Guard's spokesman, was answering questions at a press conference in Tehran marking IRGC Aerospace Week when he said: "This restriction has been lifted for us."

A limit dating to 2017, described as deliberate

The 2,000km ceiling dated to 2017, set under then-supreme leader Ali Khamenei; Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had described it as a deliberate limit, intended to avoid threatening Europe. Mohebbi was responding to a warning from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei that any threat against Iran would receive an immediate and effective response "without geographical limits." The Associated Press reported the press conference, and the Iranian state-linked Tasnim, Mehr and ISNA news agencies also carried his remarks.

A policy statement, not proof of a longer-range missile

What must be stated plainly is that this is a policy statement: there is no evidence that Iran possesses, or has tested, an operational missile with a range beyond 2,000km. Mohebbi himself stressed that capability must be demonstrated in practice rather than claimed in advance, adding that work to extend range continues without pause. Iran's longest declared systems — the Khorramshahr-4, also known as Kheibar, and the Sejjil — are credited at or near 2,000km; at that range, parts of Greece and the Balkans, the entire Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and most of Egypt are already within reach of Iranian missiles.

Context: U.S. confirmed a strike on an Iranian air-defence site the day before

Mohebbi spoke a day after the United States confirmed a limited strike on an air-defence site on Iran's Qeshm Island. According to Xinhua, Mohebbi also said missile and drone production has been moved from surface sites into underground facilities. He added that the Guards would prepare for a shift in Iran's nuclear doctrine if the country's leadership ordered one. A BBC investigation published on November 6, citing satellite imagery, found excavation or construction at two Iranian missile sites and signs of repair at at least 12 other military installations.

(Sources: Associated Press; Tasnim News Agency; Xinhua; Iran International.)