iran missiles
© Fars News (IRAN) / ReutersIran's Revolutionary Guards fire missiles during a war game
On the same day that Iran published videos of its navy harassing US aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf earlier this year, Russian media are reporting that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it has:
hit the ringleaders responsible for a terrorist attack on a military parade in Ahvaz on September 22, which killed 30 people and injured over 60.

In a statement published by its own outlet Sepah, the IRGC said its Aerospace Division targeted the "headquarters of the terrorists" east of the Euphrates in Syria. The statement was accompanied by photos of surface-to-surface missiles being launched. It claims that "a large number" of the terrorists were hit.

Before the IRGC announced the attack, videos were posted on social media purporting to show the moment of the launch. Some users said there were a total of eight missiles fired, and that two of them crashed shortly after being fired.
It was a pretty spectacular show of force by the Iranians:




Tehran of course accused the US and its Gulf allies of enabling the carnage in Ahvaz, with President Rouhani calling the US a "sponsor" of the states that provided the terrorists with material and political support, while the IRGC vowed "a crushing and devastating" response - which has been duly delivered.

The missiles were launched at the last remaining ISIS pocket east of the Euphrates in southeastern Syria, which is surrounded by the Syrian Army to the west and the US-backed SDF to the east. This is the pocket that the US and SDF have been leaving alone in order to provide the pretext that because ISIS still exists in Syria, a US presence is still justified. They haven't done anything in months. Well, on the evening of the third anniversary of Russia's intervention in Syria, it looks like the Iranians are sending a message. Not only are they not going anywhere, they're actually fighting the terrorists the US is coddling.

Shooting at America's proxies in Syria is a smart countermove. Even though whichever ISIS positions were hit in eastern Syria probably had nothing to do with the parade attack, Iran is entitled to follow the standard set by everyone else and use that as cover to 'demonstrate deterrence' to the usual suspects by trying out its new, homegrown ballistic missiles.

Poor Syria; everyone's using it as a 'war game proving ground'. However, bombing some remote locations in the middle of the desert is better than the alternative - the risk of that relatively discrete war zone spilling over into a wider, less predictable, riskier regional war zone, which is why even the US-British-Israeli media will be directed by its bosses to tacitly accept Iran's narrative of 'avenging the terror attack' (by simply ignoring it, probably, or by referring to it obliquely as 'Iran threatening the whole region').