Iran may have just tested a missile it doesn’t want the world to know about.
Satellite photos reviewed by the Associated Press show scorch marks at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, evidence pointing to a launch on September 18. The pad, freshly painted in the Iranian flag’s colours weeks earlier, now shows clear signs of fire damage consistent with previous launches.
Tehran hasn’t acknowledged the test. State media is silent. But locals in Semnan province posted pictures of a contrail streaking across the evening sky. That contrail, combined with satellite proof, suggests Iran fired something, a missile or a rocket, during one of its most politically sensitive weeks.
A lawmaker’s bold, unverified claim
Into this silence stepped Mohsen Zanganeh, an Iranian lawmaker, who declared on state TV that Iran had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), according to Associated Press.
If true, that would mean Tehran is breaking its own red lines. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly capped missile ranges at 2,000 kilometres, enough to hit Israel and US bases in the Middle East, but not Europe or America.
Zanganeh offered no evidence. Analysts say Iranian MPs often exaggerate. Still, the claim is politically charged: an ICBM would reach all of Europe, and possibly the US homeland.
Analysts: Israel war made Iran double down
This alleged launch comes just months after Israel pummeled Iranian missile sites during the 12-day war in June. The strikes destroyed infrastructure but also sent Tehran a message: Israel could cripple its arsenal.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, bluntly told Associated Press: “Israel’s successes in the 12-day war against Iran’s missile attacks reinforced for Tehran the importance of developing more ballistic missiles and qualitatively better versions of them.”
In other words, Iran is now racing to 'build back better,' faster, longer-range, and harder-to-intercept systems.
Solid-fuel, scorch marks, and Zuljanah
So what exactly was launched? Experts cited by Associated Press are examining the scorch marks, saying the pattern matches that of a solid-fuel rocket.
Solid-fuel systems are prized because they can be stored, moved, and fired quickly, harder to detect and preemptively strike. Fabian Hinz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies noted the burn marks looked like those left by Zuljanah, Iran’s three-stage rocket designed to carry satellites into orbit.
Zuljanah is a dual-use technology: officially a space launch vehicle, but with the kind of long-range potential that worries Washington and Europe.
Failure or warning shot?
Despite the contrail and the scorch marks, there’s a glaring omission: no satellite launch was recorded. US space trackers have not logged any new Iranian payloads. That suggests either the launch failed or it was never meant to orbit anything.
Instead, Iran could be sending a political message. With UN sanctions set to snap back this weekend over its nuclear program, Tehran may be demonstrating it won’t slow down, sanctions or not.
The bigger risk: nuclear pairing
Right now, US intelligence believes Iran is not actively building a nuclear bomb. But it has enriched uranium to 60 percent, dangerously close to weapons-grade. Pair that with a solid-fuel, long-range missile, and suddenly the world sees a different picture.
As Taleblu put it: “If this was a space-launch vehicle test, it shows Tehran’s ambition to threaten beyond the Middle East, Europe and potentially the US homeland.”
Unanswered questions
Was it an ICBM? No proof yet, only political boasting.
Was it successful? Contrails suggest liftoff, but the lack of a satellite hints at failure.
Why now? Likely to signal defiance before sanctions bite.
As one missile expert put it and Associated Press quoted: “With Iran, it’s always hard to know what is a coincidence and what is a pattern.”
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