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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Vows US, Israel’s Demise

Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at Sunday's rally in Tehran. (AFP)
Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at Sunday's rally in Tehran. (AFP)
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Vows US, Israel’s Demise

Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at Sunday's rally in Tehran. (AFP)
Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami speaks at Sunday's rally in Tehran. (AFP)

Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami declared on Sunday that the United States and its ally Israel were on their way to their demise if they did not change their behavior.

He vowed that the “resistance front” and Iran will do everything they can to confront Israel.

He was speaking at a rally of hundreds of Iranians in central Tehran marking the 45th anniversary of the raid on the US embassy in Iran and hostage taking of its diplomats and staff in 1979.

Salami slammed the US for supporting Israel, saying they cannot “survive without the killing of Muslims and carrying out massacres against them.”

He warned Washington and Tel Aviv that the “Islamic resistance will deal the evil front a harsh response,” reported ISNA state news agency.

Despite its talk of democracy, freedom and human rights, the US is the source of unrest, crime and occupations in the world, he went on to say.

The US is not content with its own geographic borders but believes that the entire world is within its influence, and it wants to control the political will of peoples through wars, occupation and assaults, he declared.

Moreover, he blamed the US for the emergence of extremist groups, such as ISIS. “For 45 years, the US has turned the Islamic world into a war zone. It has sought to subjugate the free people in the name of freedom,” he alleged.

“The US brought backwardness and instability to Iraq and quit Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation and a cost of 85 billion dollars,” he added.

Furthermore, Salami dismissed Washington’s ability to confront Iran, saying it has failed in its “soft war against it and its political influence is waning. It is no longer capable of imposing its will or achieving victories the way it used to.”

On Lebanon, he stressed that Hezbollah “was still strong in spite of all Zionist attempts to weaken it.”

“Hezbollah will not make do with not being defeated, but it will seek to bury the Zionist regime and its followers in southern Lebanon and occupied Palestine,” he stated.

“Israel will inevitably meet its end,” he vowed.

Demonstrators at the rally in front of the former US embassy in Tehran carried Iranian, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags. Many carried banners reading “death to America” and “death to Israel” in both Persian and English and some burned Israeli and American flags.

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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.