Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Says It Lifted Its Limits on Ballistic Missile Range, Putting More Countries on Notice

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it has lifted a self-imposed 2,000-kilometer limit on the range of its ballistic missiles, opening the door to weapons that could threaten targets farther away.

"That restriction has been lifted for us," Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi, the Guard's spokesman, said Saturday in Tehran.

Mohebbi said Tehran would demonstrate its capabilities in practice. He gave no new range figure, identified no new missile and did not say whether Iran already has a weapon capable of flying beyond the previous cap.

His remarks followed a warning attributed to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, that Tehran would respond to threats from the United States or Israel without geographic limits. Iran's Tasnim news agency said Khamenei also ordered military commanders to update their list of potential targets.

The roughly 1,240-mile ceiling was an Iranian policy that senior commanders had defended for years. In 2017, then-Guard commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said the range set by then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was sufficient to reach enemy targets in the event of an attack.

Missiles with that reach can already cover Israel and U.S. military installations across much of the Middle East, as well as parts of southeastern Europe, depending on where they are launched.

A failed attack in March had already raised questions about how closely Tehran adhered to the cap. A British official confirmed that Iran tried to strike Diego Garcia, a joint U.S.-British base in the Indian Ocean about 4,000 kilometers, or 2,500 miles, from Iran. Iran fired two ballistic missiles, and one failed in flight; a U.S. warship fired an interceptor at the other, and neither hit the base.

U.S. intelligence has separately assessed that Iran could use technology from its space program to begin developing a militarily viable intercontinental ballistic missile before 2035 if it chose to pursue one. U.S. intelligence officials said they would revisit it as they determined how much damage wartime strikes had done to Iran's missile factories, stockpiles and launch systems.

Trump said Friday that U.S. forces had struck an Iranian air defense system in an operation he described as "minor." The prospect of a broader campaign comes as Democrats prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress in January.

NBC News, citing two U.S. officials, reported that some advisers had urged Trump before the midterms to act before the new Congress takes office if he wants to resume major combat operations.

Those officials told the outlet that a Democratic Congress could use investigations, funding cuts or legislation to constrain military operations. They said Trump had yet to decide whether to resume full-scale combat and had previously called off operations hours before they were due to begin. The Pentagon declined to comment on the discussions.

U.S. Central Command is also setting up a task force to curb shipments of weapons and other sanctioned goods through Iran's land borders and the Caspian Sea. Reuters found that a covert network of Iranian military agencies had imported at least $2 billion in equipment, explosives and heavy trucks since January 2025, using routes through Russia and Central Asia and cargo flights from China.

Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads Central Command, said the new effort would bring U.S. agencies together to restrict Iran's ability to rebuild weapons factories and replenish its arsenal. Central Command estimates its naval blockade has prevented more than $25 billion in Iranian crude exports.