TEHRAN, 21 July 2003 — Iran said yesterday its Revolutionary Guards had been armed with a new medium-range missile, which analysts say could hit Israel or US bases in the Middle East, after successful tests of the weapon. The deployment of the Shahab-3 missile, announced by state television, comes as Iran faces mounting scrutiny about a nuclear energy program which Washington says may be a front for a covert bid to make atomic arms.

State television showed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who heads Iran’s Islamic power structure, attending a military parade where at least one Shahab-3 was on display. Iran announced earlier this month it had successfully completed tests on the Shahab-3, which analysts say is based on the North Korean Nodong-1 missile but has been improved with Russian technology. Its range is about 1,300 km.

Russian-built Sukhoi SU-25 Frogfoot close support aircraft, attack and transport helicopters were also handed over yesterday to the Revolutionary Guards, which is separate from Iran’s regular army and reports directly to Khamenei.

Television did not say how many new missiles, aircraft and helicopters were now at the Revolutionary Guards’ disposal. The armed forces “are ready to confront the enemy with a strong will wherever it is necessary,” television quoted Khamenei as saying at the ceremony.

“Today our people and our armed forces are ready to defend their goals anywhere,” Khamenei told a ceremony for the elite Revolutionary Guards. “This divine force has answered all threats, and we are witnessing today that this divine force is now doing the same for the Lebanese and the Palestinian people,” he added in the ceremony to bring the Shahab-3 missile into service.

The news came as government officials continued to deny reports that the United Nations inspectors had found enriched uranium in environmental samples taken in Iran. “We strongly deny the existence of any kind of enriched uranium in Iran,” government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told a news conference.

Diplomats have told Reuters that initial analysis of samples taken in Iran showed uranium enrichment levels possibly consistent with an attempt to make weapons grade material. Iran insists its nuclear facilities are geared to producing electricity and the diplomats cautioned the presence of enriched uranium in the samples could be the result of contamination.

“We advise the Americans and our opponents not to get too excited by this report to avoid a repeat of what happened in Iraq,” Ramazanzadeh said in reference to the now widely questioned Western intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, asked in a Sky News interview about the reports on enriched uranium in Iran, said: “Now this is really dangerous. If states such as this acquire a nuclear weapons capability that is a huge threat to the region they are in and to the wider world.” Asked whether concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions could lead to another war in the Middle East, Blair said: “No, but we must apply a lot of pressure on them.”

Switzerland’s Ambassador to Iran, Tim Guldimann, who represents US interests in Tehran, said in an interview published yesterday that Iran felt threatened by the close proximity of other nuclear states such as Pakistan and Israel. “It is clear that Iran is conducting nuclear activities that in the West’s estimation could lead to producing atomic weapons,” he told the SonntagsBlick Swiss newspaper.