Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran's influential former president, on Tuesday added to the war of words with Israel and the United States by claiming Iran had developed a satellite-launching rocket with a range of 2,000km.

Mr Rafsanjani used a speech on 'space and national security' to warn that Iran was determined to improve its military capabilities. Tehran used recent military manoeuvres to test a new version of the Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of 1,300-km that could already reach Israel and US bases in the Gulf.