Fars News Agency – 5/19/13TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran plans to start mass-production of a new air-defense system on Monday.
The production line of the new system, Herz (Protector) 9, will be inaugurated in a special ceremony attended by the country’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi tomorrow.
Last Tuesday, the Iranian defense ministry announced that Iran plans to unveil five new defensive achievements in coming days.
Also, a senior Iranian military commander announced last month that the country would unveil a home-made long-range air-defense missile system similar to the Russian S-300 in the near future.
“This system, dubbed as Bavar (belief) 373, is being developed in the country and will be officially unveiled soon,” Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army’s Self-Sufficiency Jihad Rear Admiral Farhad Amiri said.
He noted that Bavar-373 missile defense system has reached the production stage and its subsystems have been already tested.
Earlier this year, senior military officials announced that Iran was testing the subsystems of Bavar 373 missile defense system.
Commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base Brigadier General Farzad Esmayeeli said then that “laboratory tests are underway on subsystems of the long-range Bavar 373 air-defense system”.
The Iranian Armed Forces have recently test-fired different types of newly-developed missiles and torpedoes and tested a large number of its home-made weapons, tools and equipments, including submarines, military ships, artillery, choppers, aircraft, UAVs and air defense and electronic systems, during massive military drills.
Defense analysts and military observers say that Iran’s wargames and its advancements in weapons production have proved as a deterrent factor, specially at a time of heightened threats by the US.