Fantastic graphic showing the indigenous development of Iranian ballistic missiles through time
Iranian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
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These U.S. soldiers were injured by Iranian ballistic missiles. They've been denied the Purple Heart award.
Platoon Sergeant Daine Kvasager was part of a skeleton crew left to defend the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8, 2020. Days earlier, the U.S. had , head of the elite Quds military force and the man behind deadly attacks on American bases — but the ballistic missile attack in response would be the biggest against American forces in history.
Iran leveled the base with 11 warheads, each weighing 1,600 pounds.
"It rocked everything," said Kvasager, who told CBS News he was knocked over by a shockwave after one of the missiles hit about 150 feet from him. "The whole earth shook."
He used to help run armed drone operations as part of the unit, but the now 31-year-old struggles with vision and hearing problems and suffers from constant headaches and memory loss. He says he can no longer do his job.
"The person I was prior to a traumatic brain injury, he's gone," Kvasager said. "There's parts that remain. The pieces are all still there, just — yeah, he's not coming back."
"Throughout my whole military career, I was always told 'we take care of soldiers above all else'," said Hansen, who recently was honorably discharged from the military and is attending business school. "It shocks me that we have failed to do that in this situation."
One of the submissions is for 22-year-old Jason Quitugua, who took his own life last month. Quitugua, who was promoted to sergeant posthumously, defended the base when the missiles struck and was diagnosed with a TBI.
"He struggled, you know, like we all are, like I am," said Kvasager, who served with Quitugua. "It's just heartbreaking."
The soldiers CBS spoke with said after the attack, there was pressure to downplay the growing injuries to avoid a further escalation with Iran and avoid undercutting former President Trump.
A week after the attack, Trump was asked about the soldiers' injuries at a press conference. He said he and "I can report it is not very serious."
Hansen said those comments indicated to him that the administration wanted to keep the casualty numbers low.
"Purple Hearts are an indication of a casualty," he said.
Mike Pridgeon, 35, and Hailey Webster, 26, both suffered TBIs in the attack. They each sheltered in bunkers meant to defend against small explosives, not ballistic missiles the size of a truck.
An intelligence officer, Webster told CBS News it feels like her brain "has short-circuited" and she has been forced to medically retire from the army due to her injuries.
"I can do things for short spurts," Webster said, whose job entailed poring over intelligence for up to 12 hours a day. "My brain still works but it doesn't have any stamina, and it very frequently just stops working. And so, it's very difficult to do your job — and then you add any stress on top of it, and it makes it almost impossible."
Pridgeon is still in the military, but said he suffers from constant headaches, memory loss and vision issues.
"My wife will say I used to be so articulate, but now I'm almost like a stroke patient," Pridgeon said.
Platoon Sergeant Daine Kvasager was part of a skeleton crew left to defend the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8, 2020. Days earlier, the U.S. had , head of the elite Quds military force and the man behind deadly attacks on American bases — but the ballistic missile attack in response would be the biggest against American forces in history.
Iran leveled the base with 11 warheads, each weighing 1,600 pounds.
"It rocked everything," said Kvasager, who told CBS News he was knocked over by a shockwave after one of the missiles hit about 150 feet from him. "The whole earth shook."
He used to help run armed drone operations as part of the unit, but the now 31-year-old struggles with vision and hearing problems and suffers from constant headaches and memory loss. He says he can no longer do his job.
"The person I was prior to a traumatic brain injury, he's gone," Kvasager said. "There's parts that remain. The pieces are all still there, just — yeah, he's not coming back."
"Throughout my whole military career, I was always told 'we take care of soldiers above all else'," said Hansen, who recently was honorably discharged from the military and is attending business school. "It shocks me that we have failed to do that in this situation."
One of the submissions is for 22-year-old Jason Quitugua, who took his own life last month. Quitugua, who was promoted to sergeant posthumously, defended the base when the missiles struck and was diagnosed with a TBI.
"He struggled, you know, like we all are, like I am," said Kvasager, who served with Quitugua. "It's just heartbreaking."
The soldiers CBS spoke with said after the attack, there was pressure to downplay the growing injuries to avoid a further escalation with Iran and avoid undercutting former President Trump.
A week after the attack, Trump was asked about the soldiers' injuries at a press conference. He said he and "I can report it is not very serious."
Hansen said those comments indicated to him that the administration wanted to keep the casualty numbers low.
"Purple Hearts are an indication of a casualty," he said.
Mike Pridgeon, 35, and Hailey Webster, 26, both suffered TBIs in the attack. They each sheltered in bunkers meant to defend against small explosives, not ballistic missiles the size of a truck.
An intelligence officer, Webster told CBS News it feels like her brain "has short-circuited" and she has been forced to medically retire from the army due to her injuries.
"I can do things for short spurts," Webster said, whose job entailed poring over intelligence for up to 12 hours a day. "My brain still works but it doesn't have any stamina, and it very frequently just stops working. And so, it's very difficult to do your job — and then you add any stress on top of it, and it makes it almost impossible."
Pridgeon is still in the military, but said he suffers from constant headaches, memory loss and vision issues.
"My wife will say I used to be so articulate, but now I'm almost like a stroke patient," Pridgeon said.
Iran’s negotiator wants guarantee US will not leave renewed nuclear deal
The problem is iran wants from the usa non revokable , confirmable and binding comitment , like the usa from iran or korea and all other counrties for any matters.
And of course the usa doesn't want to keep his word, the binding treatry target is to force iran to do decrease his military capabilities.
By playing tic-toc game getting more and more concession from Iran regards of conventional weapon systems, until it weak enought to be easy to conquer with direct and indirect military means , like Lybia.
There is a word for what Iran wants, a treaty.
There is a mechanism in the US to make a formal treaty. However the threshold to get it passed in Congress is so high, and there are so many warmongers there, that it is impossible for it to happen
US even violates and withdraws from treaties without any repercussions, see Paris Agreement, INF Treaty, Treaty on Open Skies, 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran, and others.
Iran simply wants assurances that the US will not violate the deal since the US destroyed the implied principle of good faith. This 'guarantee' is only for the rest of Biden's term, not beyond. But the US does not even want to provide that.
First ever released footage of test of ultra-heavy solid-fuel SLV engine (Project Qaem) from 2010, now declassified:
Project Qaem was led by Shahid Tehrani Moghaddam, one of the founders and pioneers of Iran's ballistic missile programme. Moghaddam was martyred in an explosives accident while experimenting with new rocket fuels in 2011.
The Qaem SLV is estimated to use rocket stages with diameter of at least 2.4 meters. To date, the largest solid fuel rocket/SLV Iran has revealed is the Zoljanah with 1.5m diameter with 74,000 lbf (estimated range of 5000-6000km if converted to a missile), although Iranian officials have long made mention of far more powerful engines.
This is the first footage from Project Qaem, released today on the 10th anniversary of Moghaddam's martyrdom.
Project Qaem was led by Shahid Tehrani Moghaddam, one of the founders and pioneers of Iran's ballistic missile programme. Moghaddam was martyred in an explosives accident while experimenting with new rocket fuels in 2011.
The Qaem SLV is estimated to use rocket stages with diameter of at least 2.4 meters. To date, the largest solid fuel rocket/SLV Iran has revealed is the Zoljanah with 1.5m diameter with 74,000 lbf (estimated range of 5000-6000km if converted to a missile), although Iranian officials have long made mention of far more powerful engines.
This is the first footage from Project Qaem, released today on the 10th anniversary of Moghaddam's martyrdom.
Iran recently installed an additional 179 advanced IR-6 centrifuges at the underground Fordow Enrichment Facility
The IR-6 is approx. 5x more powerful than the IR-1 centrifuge (the only centrifuge Iran was permitted to operate for 10-15 years under the JCPOA) - approx 5 SWU for the IR-6 compared to 1 SWU for the IR-1.
So the additional 179 IR-6 centrifuges is the equivalent of c. 1000 IR-1 centrifuges.
Currently Iran's main operational centrifuges are the IR-1 (1 SWU), IR-2 (2 SWU), IR-2M (4 SWU), IR-4 (4 SWU) and now IR-6 (5 SWU). The IR-6 is currently the most advanced centrifuge in mass production, but there are many other generations and variants of centrifuges in testing/R&D, including the IR-8 (24 SWU) and IR-9 (50 SWU).
The IR-9 was first unveiled in 2019 and, once mastered and available for mass production, would bring Iran to an elite level of commercial uranium enrichment capacity, not far behind world-leading base level centrifuges used by Urenco. Iran has also revealed research into a 72 SWU centrifuge, which should also be mature for a prototype and testing by now (if there was no JCPOA).
It takes around 10 years from design to mass production stage to complete testing for a new centrifuge. Iran agreed to temporary restrictions (lasting 10-15 years) on R&D and testing of more advanced centrifuges under the JCPOA, which pushes this timeline back for Iran.
Iran currently has the capacity for 20,000+ centrifuges at its main enrichment facilities (Fordow and Natanz), but only operated 5000 IR-1 centrifuges under the JCPOA. 4000 IR-6 centrifuges can replace the output of 20,000 IR-1 centrifuges, and 20,000 IR-6 centrifuges would produce an output of 100,000 SWU annually. Production bottlenecks will hinder this but production rates should be good and fully indigenous with very little reliance on imported parts.
Most of the above is relevant for commercial enrichment, for military enrichment there are other considerations. There are smaller -S models of many iterations, such as IR-9S, these are more suitable for covert enrichment as opposed to commercial enrichment by 5m+ tall IR-9 centrifuges (take less space, easier to conceal, require smaller facilities, etc).
The IR-6 is approx. 5x more powerful than the IR-1 centrifuge (the only centrifuge Iran was permitted to operate for 10-15 years under the JCPOA) - approx 5 SWU for the IR-6 compared to 1 SWU for the IR-1.
So the additional 179 IR-6 centrifuges is the equivalent of c. 1000 IR-1 centrifuges.
Currently Iran's main operational centrifuges are the IR-1 (1 SWU), IR-2 (2 SWU), IR-2M (4 SWU), IR-4 (4 SWU) and now IR-6 (5 SWU). The IR-6 is currently the most advanced centrifuge in mass production, but there are many other generations and variants of centrifuges in testing/R&D, including the IR-8 (24 SWU) and IR-9 (50 SWU).
The IR-9 was first unveiled in 2019 and, once mastered and available for mass production, would bring Iran to an elite level of commercial uranium enrichment capacity, not far behind world-leading base level centrifuges used by Urenco. Iran has also revealed research into a 72 SWU centrifuge, which should also be mature for a prototype and testing by now (if there was no JCPOA).
It takes around 10 years from design to mass production stage to complete testing for a new centrifuge. Iran agreed to temporary restrictions (lasting 10-15 years) on R&D and testing of more advanced centrifuges under the JCPOA, which pushes this timeline back for Iran.
Iran currently has the capacity for 20,000+ centrifuges at its main enrichment facilities (Fordow and Natanz), but only operated 5000 IR-1 centrifuges under the JCPOA. 4000 IR-6 centrifuges can replace the output of 20,000 IR-1 centrifuges, and 20,000 IR-6 centrifuges would produce an output of 100,000 SWU annually. Production bottlenecks will hinder this but production rates should be good and fully indigenous with very little reliance on imported parts.
Most of the above is relevant for commercial enrichment, for military enrichment there are other considerations. There are smaller -S models of many iterations, such as IR-9S, these are more suitable for covert enrichment as opposed to commercial enrichment by 5m+ tall IR-9 centrifuges (take less space, easier to conceal, require smaller facilities, etc).
Iran is ‘leapfrogging our defenses’ in a cyber war ‘my gut is we lose’: Hacking expert Kevin Mandia
- On Thursday, the U.S. government revealed an indictment of two Iranian hackers for election interference.
- Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant, says Iran is among the nation-state sponsors of hacking that has improved its cyberattack capabilities in recent years to bypass U.S. defenses.
- Mandia worries that whether it is Iran, China, Russia or North Korea, the rapid advances made by geopolitical rivals in cyberthreats is leading to a war the U.S. “will lose.”
To Kevin Mandia, the CEO of cybersecurity firm , Iran’s success in the hacking realm is no surprise, as the nation has been upping its cyber-offensive capabilities for years to take advantage of U.S. weaknesses.
Iran has progressed well beyond the first few stages of cyber evolution — defending its government in cyberspace and targeting its closest geographic foes, the immediate threats, which in Iran’s case would include the back and forth between itself and Israel in the cyber realm.
“There was a time when we responded to Iran, their operators looked like they just got out of the classroom,” Mandia said during an interview with CNBC’s Eamon Javers at the Summit in New York City on Wednesday. “And we’re like god, you know ... they just compressed the C drive, why not just compress what you’re going to steal?”
“But that was 14 years ago,” said Mandia, who has been monitoring cyber campaigns by Iran since 2008. “Come today, they’re operating with efficiency, they’re operating with malware that can be updated. They have a framework where they can update their malware super fast,” he said. “So they can be very efficient ... leapfrogging our defenses as they learn. And that’s kind of a frustration. I’ve seen most modern nations do have that capability ...a framework where they can update quickly. Iran does have that framework.”
He said Iran also is part of a group of nation-state actors that have zero day capabilities — referring to a disclosed vulnerability for which no official patches or security updates yet exist even though exploitation by hackers can have severe consequences — the most frustrating of all types of cyberattacks.
“Russia, Iran, Israel, China, they all have zero day components and zero day capability, whether they develop themselves or buy from someone, Iran’s gone through that rites of passage is well,” said Mandia, whose firm was the first to warn the U.S. government about the SolarWinds hack last year, the largest-ever attack on a software supply chain hitting both government agencies and private enterprise. The U.S. government alleges Russia was behind the hacking group that pulled off the cyberattack.
Mandia, who served in the U.S. Air Force, said the nation’s physical military assets are ahead of its cyber assets, and there is no clear advantage in the real of cyber warfare. “In the cyber domain, we don’t have dominance,” he said.
As Hopes for Nuclear Deal Fade, Iran Rebuilds and Risks Grow
WASHINGTON — Over the past 20 months, Israeli intelligence operatives have assassinated Iran’s chief nuclear scientist and triggered major explosions at four Iranian nuclear and missile facilities, hoping to cripple the centrifuges that produce nuclear fuel and delay the day when Tehran’s new government might be able to build a bomb.But American intelligence officials and international inspectors say the Iranians have quickly gotten the facilities back online — often installing newer machines that can enrich uranium at a far more rapid pace. When a plant that made key centrifuge parts suffered what looked like a crippling explosion in late spring — destroying much of the parts inventory and the cameras and sensors installed by international inspectors — production resumed by late summer.
One senior American official wryly called it Tehran’s Build Back Better plan.
That punch and counterpunch are only part of the escalation in recent months between Iran and the West, a confrontation that is about to come to a head, once again, in Vienna. For the first time since President Ebrahim Raisi took office this summer, Iranian negotiators plan to meet with their European, Chinese and Russian counterparts at the end of the month to discuss the future of the 2015 nuclear agreement that sharply limited Iran’s activities.
American officials have warned their Israeli counterparts that the repeated attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities may be tactically satisfying, but they are ultimately counterproductive, according to several officials familiar with the behind-the-scenes discussions. Israeli officials have said they have no intention of letting up, waving away warnings that they may only be encouraging a sped-up rebuilding of the program — one of many areas in which the United States and Israel disagree on the benefits of using diplomacy rather than force.
At the Vienna meeting, American officials will be in the city but not inside the room — because Iran will not meet with them after President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the accord more than three years ago, leaving the deal in tatters. While five months ago those officials seemed optimistic that the 2015 deal was about to be restored, with the text largely agreed upon, they return to Vienna far more pessimistic than when they last left it, in mid-June. Today that text looks dead, and President Biden’s vision of re-entering the agreement in his first year, then building something “longer and stronger,” appears all but gone.
Buying time, perhaps lots of it, may prove essential. Many of Mr. Biden’s advisers are doubtful that introducing new sanctions on Iran’s leadership, its military or its oil trade — atop the 1,500 Mr. Trump imposed — would be any more successful than past efforts to pressure Iran to change course.
And more aggressive steps that were successful years ago may not yield the kind of results they have in mind. Inside the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, there is consensus that it is much harder now to pull off the kind of cyberattack that the United States and Israel conducted more than a decade ago, when a secret operation, code-named “Olympic Games,” crippled centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear enrichment site for more than a year.
Current and former American and Israeli officials note that the Iranians have since improved their defenses and built their own cyberforces, which the administration warned last week were increasingly active inside the United States.
The Iranians have also continued to bar inspectors from key sites, despite a series of agreements with Rafael M. Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ watchdog, to preserve data from the agency’s sensors at key locations. The inspectors’ cameras and sensors that were destroyed in the plant explosion in late spring have not been replaced.
The inspection gap is particularly worrisome because the Iranians are declaring that they have now produced roughly 55 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. That purity is below the 90 percent normally used to produce a weapon, but not by much. It is a level “that only countries making bombs have,” Mr. Grossi said. “That doesn’t mean that Iran is doing that. But it means that it is very high.”
Before Mr. Trump decided to scrap the deal, Iran had adhered to the limits of the 2015 agreement — which by most estimates kept it about a year from “breakout,” the point where it has enough material for a bomb. While estimates vary, that buffer is now down to somewhere between three weeks and a few months, which would change the geopolitical calculation throughout the Middle East.
When Mr. Biden took office, several of his top aides had high hopes that the original deal — parts of which they had negotiated — could be revived. At that time, the Iranians who had agreed to the accord were still in place: Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, remained in office, even if their power was greatly diminished.
But the administration spent two months determining how to approach a negotiation, and European officials complain that, in retrospect, that lost time proved damaging.
The spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, said at a recent news conference that Iran had three conditions for Washington to return to the deal: It must admit to wrongdoing in pulling out of the deal, it must lift all sanctions at once, and it must offer a guarantee that no other administration will exit the deal as Trump did.
“It is absolutely impossible for Iran to give the level of concession to the U.S. that Rouhani’s government gave,” said Gheis Ghoreishi, a foreign policy adviser close to Iran’s government. “We are not going to give all our cards and then wait around to see if the U.S. or E.U. are going to be committed to the deal or not; this is no way going to happen.”
At some point, Biden administration officials say they may be forced to declare that Iran’s nuclear program is simply too advanced for anyone to safely return to the 2015 agreement. “This is not a chronological clock; it’s a technological clock,” Mr. Malley said in a briefing last month. “At some point,” he added, the agreement “will have been so eroded because Iran will have made advances that cannot be reversed.”
President Raisi visits Iran Space Exhibition
Scale model of Chahabar Space Station:
Design finalised and construction in progress. Shows the use of cryogenic fuels (Iran's first cryogenic fuel engine - Bahman, under development - will be used in the first stage of the planned Soroush-2 SLV).
Scale models of the Simorgh, Zoljanah, Sarir and Soroush (from right to left):
Simorgh is a fully liquid fuel SLV, 2.4m diameter (first stage) and can carry 250kg payload to 400km orbit. Successful sub-orbital test flight in 2016 but four subsequent launches from 2017-2021 have failed to deliver a payload into orbit.
Zoljanah is a solid fuel SLV (with liquid fuel third stage), 1.5m diameter and can carry 220km to LEO. Successful sub-orbital test launch conducted in January 2021. Hopefully this can replace the larger and much less advanced Simorgh.
Sarir is a planned fully solid fuel SLV with 2.4m diameter, can carry 500kg payload to 1000km altitude. Project is planned for 2024.
Soroush is a planned liquid fuel SLV with 4m diameter (!), can carry 1000kg+ payload to 36,000km altitude. Project is planned for 2026-2029.
These SLVs are the future of the Iranian space program for the next 20+ years.
The IRGC also has a separate and parallel space program, with the Qased SLV successfully launching the Nour military satellite into orbit in April 2020. The IRGC successfully tested a ultra-heavy solid-fuel rocket engine in 2010 and with sufficient investment and political will all the above is in reach.
Scale model of Chahabar Space Station:
Design finalised and construction in progress. Shows the use of cryogenic fuels (Iran's first cryogenic fuel engine - Bahman, under development - will be used in the first stage of the planned Soroush-2 SLV).
Scale models of the Simorgh, Zoljanah, Sarir and Soroush (from right to left):
Simorgh is a fully liquid fuel SLV, 2.4m diameter (first stage) and can carry 250kg payload to 400km orbit. Successful sub-orbital test flight in 2016 but four subsequent launches from 2017-2021 have failed to deliver a payload into orbit.
Zoljanah is a solid fuel SLV (with liquid fuel third stage), 1.5m diameter and can carry 220km to LEO. Successful sub-orbital test launch conducted in January 2021. Hopefully this can replace the larger and much less advanced Simorgh.
Sarir is a planned fully solid fuel SLV with 2.4m diameter, can carry 500kg payload to 1000km altitude. Project is planned for 2024.
Soroush is a planned liquid fuel SLV with 4m diameter (!), can carry 1000kg+ payload to 36,000km altitude. Project is planned for 2026-2029.
These SLVs are the future of the Iranian space program for the next 20+ years.
The IRGC also has a separate and parallel space program, with the Qased SLV successfully launching the Nour military satellite into orbit in April 2020. The IRGC successfully tested a ultra-heavy solid-fuel rocket engine in 2010 and with sufficient investment and political will all the above is in reach.