TEHRAN – Iran’s Navy on Tuesday fired the homegrown long-range cruisemissile ‘Qadir’ for the first time from a warship to hit targets in the sea.link>link>link>link>Onthe second day of a massive exercise the Iranian Army has staged in a largearea southeast of Iran, the Navy warships fired Qadir cruise missile todestroy the hypothetical enemy’s vessels at a long distance.

It was the first offshore test firing of the Iranian cruise missile.

Qadir long-range missile has a short setup and reaction time, flies in lowaltitudes with high navigation capabilities, hits the targets preciselywith great destructive power, and suits for electronic warfare. It can belaunched from various types of vessels and even a helicopter, helpingextend its operational range.

The coast-to-sea version of Qadir can identify and annihilate naval targetsat distances as far as 300 kilometers away from the coast.

The homegrown cruise missile was unveiled in August 2014 by PresidentHassan Rouhani, and was delivered to the Navy in large quantities inNovember 2015.

In recent years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has made great achievementsin its defense sector and has attained self-sufficiency in producingessential military equipment and systems.

Tehran has repeatedly assured other nations that its military might posesno threat to the regional countries, saying that the Islamic Republic’sdefense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.