Second Brigadier General Abbas Azimi, Commander of the Army Air Defense Force in northwest Iran, made the comment on Saturday night.
He was speaking with reporters on the 16th anniversary of the establishment the Army Air Defense Force as an independent unit under a decree by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
The commander did not specify the range of the Iranian surface-to-air missiles but emphasized that their range has put Iran among top six countries in the world.
He also said that the country’s air defense has made significant progress in terms of both the equipment it uses and the areas it covers for surveillance.
According to Azimi, Iran used to import its air defense equipment before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But after the Revolution, Iran has managed to produce such equipment domestically and has developed them, he said.
The Iranian army, under the toppled Shah regime, was in control of only 30 percent of the country’s skies, while the army is now conducting surveillance in skies all over the country, the commander noted.
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