Expert Questions Iran’s Satellite Claim

Iran’s new ballistic missile is more likely to be a long-range surface-to-surface weapon than a satellite launcher as Tehran claims, a leading defense analyst said in London. Clifford Beale, editor of Jane’s Defense Weekly, said U.S. intelligence officials had told him that Iran’s new Shehab 4 was largely derived from the obsolete Soviet SS-4 ballistic missile. “My understanding is that if the missile really is an SS-4, you can’t launch a very big satellite with that . . . ,” Beale said. “One has to question whether this would be a commercially useful satellite launcher. . . . What it does do is give Iran a base to learn how to build rockets.”