According to a June 29 report by the Pentagon, “Iran has boosted the lethality and effectiveness of existing systems by improving accuracy and developing new submunition payloads” that “extend the destructive power over a wider area than a solid warhead,” Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The report, signed by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, was presented to the four US congressional defense committees last week to comply with a 2010 directive to provide an annual classified and unclassified assessment of Iran’s military power.
It noted that improvements in Iran's missile capability are occurring in parallel with regular ballistic-missile training that “continues throughout the country” and the addition of “new ships and submarines.”
Iran is “developing and claims to have deployed short-range ballistic missiles with seekers that enable the missile to identify and maneuver toward ships during flight,” the report added.
“This technology also may be capable of striking land- based targets.”
Congressional Research Service Iran analyst Kenneth Katzman said previous reports by the US government “always downplayed the accuracy and effectiveness of Iran’s missile forces.”
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