Iran has unveiled surface-to-surface ballistic missiles named after assassinated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Qasem Soleimani and an Iran-aligned Iraqi militia commander. The Soleimani missile has a range of 1,400 kilometres, IRIB reported on August 20.

Iran continues to develop short and medium-range missiles despite the US and its allies protesting that it is in breach of nuclear deal commitments by developing such military technology. Tehran says it is within its rights as it has never worked on a missile that could carry a nuclear payload. The naming of the missiles is a sign that companies linked to the IRGC, which is behind a huge amount of Iran’s economy, were the manufacturers of the weaponry.

"The surface-to-surface missile, named after martyr Qasem Soleimani, has a range of 1,400 km and the cruise missile, named after martyr Abu Mahdi [Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia chief who died alongside Soleimani in the US drone strike that killed the major-general at Baghdad airport in January], has a range of over 1,000 km," Iranian Defence Minister Amir Hatami said in a televised speech.

“Missiles and particularly cruise missiles are very important for us ... the fact that we have increased the range from 300 to 1,000 in less than two years is a great achievement,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said. “Our military might and missile programmes are defensive.”

Soleimani, who was head of Iran's elite expeditionary IRGC Quds Force, was widely regarded as the de facto head of Iran’s armed forces and the second most powerful official in the country. Iran has vowed revenge for the direct strike that killed Soleimani. It was directly ordered by US President Donald Trump.

The announcement of the new surface-to-surface rocket comes with the US failing to convince major powers at the UN to back its bid to extend an arms embargo against Iran which is due to incrementally expire from October.

The US is now planning to use nuclear deal provisions to on August 20 start the process of triggering a “snapback” of all UN sanctions on Iran that the accord removed, including sanctions that amount to an arms ban. However, Russia, China and the EU have protested that it is unable to do so as it withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018. Washington, using the legal argument that as an original member of the nuclear deal it still has an entitlement to bring in the “snapback” if it can successfully argue that Iran has breached terms of the 2015 agreement, has said that regardless of those protests it is going ahead. The situation could turn into a serious crisis as regards the functioning and legitimacy of the UN Security Council.

US statements on reimposing UN sanctions against Iran were absurd, and Washington has no legal or political grounds enabling it to make the move, RIA news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on August 20. He also reiterated Moscow’s view that such a step would result in a crisis at the Security Council, according to a report from Interfax.