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Iran moves its Shahab 3 units
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06 March 2006
Iran moves its Shahab 3 units
By Ed Blanche
Reports attributed to Western intelligence services said that on 19 January the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which controls Iran's ballistic missile forces, was ordered to change the location of its mobile Shahab 3 batteries every 24 hours as a precautionary measure.
This was apparently done, for at least two weeks, with the batteries remaining within a 35 km radius, presumably to stay within range of their command-and-control centres. These reports said that the IRGC has moved Shahab 3 units to Kermanshah and Hamadan provinces in the west of the country, with reserve batteries deployed in Fars and Isfahan provinces further east.
Iran is believed to have six operational Shahab 3 brigades, the first of which was established in July 2003. These are mainly equipped with standard variants, but with others described as 'enhanced Shahab', with ranges of 1,300 km-1,500 km and 2,000 km respectively.
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