‘Several countries’: Iran says it has built weapon factories abroad; missile development ‘a priority’ says defence minister

Iran’s defence minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, has said in a televised interview that Tehran has built infrastructure to produce weapons in “several countries”, though he did not disclose the names of the nations involved. The remarks come amid heightened tensions triggered by Israeli and US strikes against Iran earlier this summer.Nasirzadeh stated that “missile development” has been a priority, and the “priorities may change” after the war with Israel. He also noted that the factories “will likely be officially opened and announced in the near future,” reported the Times of Israel. Tehran has also tested “new warheads in the past year that are both advanced and maneuverable,” Nasirzadeh said. His comments coincided with Iran’s navy test-firing cruise missiles at surface targets in the Gulf of Oman and the northern Indian Ocean during major exercises on Thursday. The drills came a month after the Casarex 2025 joint exercises with Russia in the Caspian Sea.Nasirzadeh also claimed that if the conflict in June lasted 15 days, Israeli forces would have been unable to intercept Iranian missiles. “If the war had gone 15 days, in the last three days the Israelis would not have been able to hit any of our missiles,” he said, adding that the country did not use its “most precise weapon” the Qassem Basir missile, as cited by Iran International.“In the early days, about 40% of our missiles were intercepted, but by the end of the war, 90% were striking their targets,” Nasirzadeh said. “This showed that our experience was growing while the defensive power of the other side was decreasing.”The Iran-Israel war broke out after Israeli strikes on June 13 killed senior Iranian commanders, nuclear scientists, and damaged key defence and nuclear facilities. Iran reported 1,062 deaths, including 786 military personnel and 276 civilians. Its retaliatory missile and drone attacks killed 32 people in Israel. The conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire on June 24.Earlier this month, a senior military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, cautioned that a new war involving the United States or Israel could break out at any moment, emphasising that the current situation does not amount to a ceasefire but a war.“We are not in a ceasefire, we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation or agreement has been written between us and the US or Israel,” said Yahya Safavi, a top aide of Khamenei and former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), told local media, as cited by the Times of Israel.