Strike Force

Because of pressure by China and the United States on North Korea to stop shipping missiles to “rogue states,” Iran announced in 2000 that it would start to build the missile itself at its new Shahid Hemat Industrial Facility south of Tehran. The first missile was test-fired in 2001, and the weapon system declared operational in 2002. By 2006 thirty indigenously built missiles had been completed and secretly deployed to the Strongbox, where they could be fired quickly and accurately and could easily reach targets in Israel and Western military bases in Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. Like the Shahab-2, it was road-mobile and could be deployed and set up to launch within hours.

The duty officer in charge of the Seventh Rocket Brigade of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps received the radio message from headquarters. Because the call came in on the direct emergency-only channel, he immediately hit the alarm button, which sent an “Action Stations” alert throughout the entire complex. Each of the three missile regiments inside the Strongbox — two Shahab-2 regiments and one Shahab-3 regiment, plus security and support companies — immediately began preparing their units to deploy to pre-assigned launch points, all within thirty miles.

The coded message copied by the communications officer and verified by the duty officer gave the actual order — and it was a “prepare to attack” order. The duty officer immediately radioed the brigade commander, Major-General Muhammad Sardaq. The commander was already hurrying to the command post by the time the message was decoded and verified. “We have received an actual ‘prepare to attack’ order, sir,” the duty officer reported.

“An ‘actual’ message, you say?” Sardaq queried. The brigade ran numerous exercises every week, so “exercise” messages were common, not “actuals. Verify it again.” The general watched as the two officers decoded the message — again it authenticated as an “actual” message. He swore to himself, then picked up the direct secure telephone line to Pasdaran headquarters at Doshan Tappeh Air Base in Tehran.

“That’s not the procedure, sir…”

“I’m not going against procedure, Major,” Sardaq told the duty officer. “Continue the checklist and have the brigade prepare to attack. Never mind what I’m doing.”

As he waited for someone at headquarters to answer the phone, the general watched carefully as the command post team began tracking the progress of each regiment as it prepared to deploy the missiles. After sending their own coded message acknowledging receipt of their orders, headquarters would then send another short coded message with either the pre-planned strike package for each unit, or a very lengthy message with target coordinates and a force launch timing matrix. The longer message had to be verified, decoded, verified again, and compared to a catalog of possible targets chosen in advance by the National Security Directorate, then broadcast as a coded document to the regiment. After receipt, the launch crews would have to verify, decode, and check the target coordinates again, then enter the coordinates and the launch timing matrix into their launch computers. The launch timing matrix was critical to ensure that each of the brigade’s missiles didn’t interfere with one another at launch, inflight, or at impact.

The commander and duty officer gasped in astonishment as they read the decoded attack orders. The first verified target set was a short “canned” message for the Shahab-3 regiment, ordering strikes against military air bases in Israel, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, and Qatar, designed to destroy known command-and-control facilities and alert strike aircraft bases with high-explosive warheads before they could send an alert or launch their aircraft and counterattack. These missiles would launch second. The target set for the first Shahab-2 regiment and two squadrons of the second Shahab-2 regiment was also a short message, ordering strikes against Western command-and-control, air defense, air bases, armored, infantry, and supply bases inside Iraq, scheduled to launch first so they might have a chance to destroy some of the American Patriot anti-ballistic missile sites set up in Iraq.

“Finally we’re striking out against the Israelis and Americans!” the duty officer exclaimed happily. “They’ve been threatening us for long enough — I’m glad we’re getting our punches in first!”

“Shut up, you idiot,” the general said. “This will work only if the damned politicians somehow convince the Americans not to bomb us into oblivion after our missiles fall. What do you think the chances of that are?”