TEHRAN - Iran plans to upgrade its anti-aircraft systems so that they will be able to counter advanced missiles, Air Force Colonel Faramarz Rouhafza said on Saturday.

The plan is meant to make the country’s anti-aircraft systems efficient enough to be able to defend the country against cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, Rouhafza told the Mehr News Agency.
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards its target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy.
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the laws of orbital mechanics and ballistics