The Iran regime’s space program on course to producing rockets with ballistic missile capabilities?

On Wednesday the US State Department, as reported by The Washington Free Beacon, spoke of their ‘growing worries about Iran’s development of long-range missiles,’ commenting on this week’s Iranian Simorgh rocket space-launch-vehicle test.

Adding that although Tehran validates the development of these Simorgh rockets as ‘space launch vehicles’, they in fact have ‘a “dual use” system with applications for missiles.’

Rather than vehicles for carrying satellite communication equipment, these Simorgh have been assessed ‘as having enough lift to carry a nuclear warhead, a throw-weight greater than the 220-pound payload capacity claimed by Iranian officials.’

On Jan 16th, in return for the regime’s commitment to reduce its nuclear uranium enrichment program, members of the UN Security Council (P5+1) implemented the lifting of sanctions allowing Iran access to international trade markets. But led by the Supreme Leader Khamenei, the mullahs’ regime warns that the agreement is unbalanced.

Khamenei has warned the EU Security Council against ‘confront[ing] us in our attempt to achieve peaceful nuclear technology,’ threats also echoed by President Rouhani ‘warn[ing] world powers that Tehran would seriously respond if they lag in implementing [their side of] the nuclear deal.’

In a turn on Wednesday, the Voice of America reported on Iranian-backed Shia militia fighters who prop-up President Bashir al-Assad’s regime; adding that Russia, also present in Syria, claims their force is ‘aimed [only] at terror groups such as Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.’

But analyst Genevieve Casagrande of the Institute for the Study of War is not convinced. Looking at the Russia’s bolstered military assets for ‘combatting ISIS’, Dr. Casagrande says “these types of military assets aren’t necessarily used, you don’t actually need them to fight ISIS.”

The news follows on from Sunday’s interview, in the pan-Arabic daily Asharq Al-Aswat with the President-elect of the Iran resistance group Ms. Maryam Rajavi who pointed out the clerical regime as ‘skilled in the art of deception’.