AS ISRAEL CONTINUES to come to grips with Hezbollah’s missile strike on the northern Israeli city of Haifa, it is important to fully appreciate the implications of this attack. While Hezbollah, like other terrorist and guerrilla organizations worldwide, has long been known to possess a number of Katyushas with a range of up to 10-20 kilometers, the two missiles fired at Haifa are believed to be Iranian-produced Raad-1s, which have an estimated range of as much as 150 kilometers. While attacks by Katyusha rockets (like their Qassem counterparts that are favored by Hamas) have long been a problem for northern Israel, the grim implications of the use of Raad-1s against Haifa were best spelled out in a headline by Ynet News: “2 million Israelis under threat.” The reach of Hezbollah’s missiles, once believed to be confined to the northern border, has now spread to encompass the vast majority of Israel.

The introduction of Raad missiles should also clear up any lingering doubts among analysts as to the Iranian complicity in the latest violence. While the relationship between Hezbollah and the senior echelons of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have long been clear enough to make it the quintessential textbook definition of state-sponsored terrorism, the increasingly sophisticated weapons being used by the terrorist group leave little doubt that Iran is complicit in the recent violence.