Tehran Banners Say New Missile Can Hit Tel Aviv in “400 Seconds”

Authorities in Tehran have put up banners in the streets showing what officials described as the Islamic Republic’s first domestically produced hypersonic ballistic missile and with Arabic and Hebrew captions reading "400 seconds...to Tel Aviv." 

The banners appeared in the Iranian capital after commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unveiled a new missile named Fattah, or “Conqueror” in Persian, at a ceremony on June 6.

The Islamic Republic says the missile is able to reach 15 times the speed of sound and “can bypass the most advanced anti-ballistic missile systems of the United States and the Zionist regime, including Israel's Iron Dome."

Western military experts say that Iran’s officials sometimes give exaggerated figures for the capabilities of Iranian weapons.

Iranian officials did not release any footage of a successful launch of the Fattah.

The developments came amid heightened Western concerns about Iran's missile capabilities and nuclear programs, with Israel redoubling threats to launch pre-emptive military strikes on Iranian targets if international diplomacy fails to rein in Tehran's nuclear work.

The Islamic Republic is believed to have the largest and most diverse ballistic missile arsenal in the Middle East.

Israel sees the country's missile program as a threat and warns the missiles could be used to carry nuclear weapons. Tehran denies seeking nuclear weapons and claims its missile arsenal is for defense and deterrence purposes only.