Residents of the city of Gorgan, in northeastern Iran, reported that unidentified objects falling around the city, this after a series of muffled explosions that were heard in the area.
Iran initially confirmed the reports and claimed that it was an interception of an aircraft that tried to penetrate their territory from the north of the country, but retracted it shortly and updated that it was an exercise.
According to a source in the Iranian Ministry of Defense, it was a test of a missile with a fragmentation warhead, which deviated from its intended course and fortunately did not lead to casualties. No further details were provided.
Three interesting derivatives to report:
A. Iran has been claiming for over a decade that it has missiles with fissile warheads, but until today it has not officially published the facts - and in particular the fact that it is testing them. In addition, over the past few years, Israel and the US have denied the existence of this capability in the hands of the Iranians.
B. As part of breaking into a nuclear bomb, Iran has to go through two important stages:
The first: enriching uranium to the level of 95% - a capability that in principle already exists, but for obvious reasons is not implemented.
The second: Completion of the process of developing ballistic missiles with a fissile warhead, which can carry a nuclear warhead.
From the moment Iran possesses missiles with a fissile warhead (the most effective configuration for launching a nuclear weapon due to the inability to differentiate between the nuclear warhead and the other warheads - after the fission), assuming that it will immediately move to the uranium enrichment stage, it will only have about four months until For the possession of one nuclear bomb - a significant shortening of the timetables for reaching the bomb.
C. Despite the Iranian admission of the failure of the experiment, it is worth paying attention to the attached documentation.