According to Arabic media reports, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday successfully launched Shehab-3 long-range ballistic missiles which are capable of striking targets in Israel.

According to a report from al-Alam, the missiles were armed with a one-ton conventional warhead, and its range is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles).

“Our finger is always on the trigger and we have hundreds and even thousands of missiles ready to be fired,” said Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of the Revolutionary Guard ground forces

The International Herald Tribune reports the following: 

One day after threatening to strike Israeli and U.S. interests if attacked, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were reported Wednesday to have test-fired nine missiles, including one that Tehran claims has the range to reach Israel.

State-run media, quoted by Western news agencies, said the tests near the Strait of Hormuz included long- and medium-range missiles, among them a new version of the Shahab-3, which Tehran maintains can hit targets 2,000 kilometers, or 1,250 miles, away.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Wednesday’s tests “evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one.”

“Those who say that there is no Iranian missile threat against which we should build a missile defense system perhaps ought to talk to the Iranians about their claims,” Rice said while traveling in Sofia, Bulgaria.

A White House spokesman called the tests “completely inconsistent with Iran’s obligations to the world.”

“The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council.

“They should also refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world,” he added, speaking from Japan where President Bush is attending the Group of Eight summit.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel / Associated Press / International Herald Tribune)