iranian cruise missiles

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Iran’s navy adds sophisticated cruise missiles to its armory

In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023, a missile system is displayed in an unveiling ceremony at a naval base near the Indian Ocean in the southern Iranian port of Konarak, some 850 miles (1,400 kilometres) southeast of the capital, Tehran, Iran. Iran’s navy on Sunday added domestically produced sophisticated cruise missiles to its arsenal, state TV reported. (Iranian Army via AP)

In this picture released by the official website of the Iranian Army on Sunday, Dec. 24, 2023, Talaeieh missile system is displayed in an unveiling ceremony at a naval base near the Indian Ocean in the southern Iranian port of Konarak, some 850 miles (1,400 kilometres) southeast of the capital, Tehran, Iran. Iran’s navy on Sunday added domestically produced sophisticated cruise missiles to its arsenal, state TV reported. (Iranian Army via AP)

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s navy on Sunday added domestically produced sophisticated cruise missiles to its arsenal, state TV reported.

The TV said both Talaeieh and Nasir cruise missiles have arrived at a naval base near the Indian Ocean in the southern Iranian port of Konarak, some 1,400 kilometers (850 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran.

Navy chief Adm. Shahram Irani said the Talaeieh has a range of more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and called it “fully smart.” Irani said the cruise missile is capable of changing targets during travel.

He said the Nasi has a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles) and can be installed on warships.

Last month, a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack from a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean, as Israel wages war on Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

From time to time Iran announces the test firing, production and commissioning of new military equipment that cannot be independently verified. The country says it has a stock of various kinds of missiles with ranges up to 2,000 kilometers (1250 miles), capable of reaching its archenemy Israel and U.S. bases in the region.

Iran’s Arsenal of Cruise Missiles

Since 2004, Iran has developed cruise missiles capable of targeting U.S. ships, foreign oil tankers and the fleets of Arab allies in the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Its arsenal of anti-ship missiles ha s  changed the balance of naval power between Iran’s conventional navy – which is comprised of small craft with speed and maneuverability – and the U.S. Navy, which is the world’s largest naval fleet.   

For decades, the U.S. Navy has relied on larger surface ships to ensure naval supremacy. The growing threat of anti-ship cruise missiles has forced it to rethink military strategy. “At what point does a U.S. aircraft carrier becomes a hole in the water in which you pour missiles?”   said Anthony Cordesman, an  expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  

The threat posed by the missiles extends beyond the Gulf because Tehran could transfer the missiles to allies and proxies , according to Cordesman . “Once you’ve started deploying systems in places like Yemen or Lebanon ,  you have basically said the risk to carriers or other U.S. ships has gone up .”  

On June 18, 2020, Iran tested both short-range and medium-range cruise missiles that it claimed could accurately hit ships across the width of the Persian Gulf.  If true, Iran could hit the U.S. Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain with cruise missiles fired from inside Iran. Photos of the Iranian navy firing missiles from both land and sea were released by the official IRNA news agency.  

The tests occurred during a war game conducted by Iran’s conventional navy—not involving the naval wing of the Revolutionary Guards—in the northern Indian Ocean. Iran’s navy operates in the Gulf of Oman and the Caspian Sea. State media said that the medium-range missile could travel at least 280 kilometers (170 miles). “At that range, it makes it progressively harder for the U.S. to put a large ship in or near the Gulf,” Cordesman said.   

The Iranian Ministry of Defense did not identify the missiles involved in the test. But government photographs appeared to show the Nasr anti-ship cruise missile being fired from both a truck and a ship, according to Mike Elleman, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  

The Nasr is based on the Chinese C-704, which has a maximum range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Iran  began  mass production of the Nasr-1 in 2010.   

Iran also tested a medium-range cruise missile, although it provided no photographs and did not identify the missile. Its medium-range missiles are based on the Chinese C-802, which has a range of 200 kilometers (125 miles). Iran may, however, have been able to extend the C-802’s range, Elleman and Cordesman said.  

The photographs showed the missiles hitting a shipping target at sea. The missiles were equipped with homing devices that enabled them to navigate and hit targets without human guidance, Naval Chief Admiral Hossein  Khanzadi   said . “We fire the missile and the data is on the missile itself, it has various navigation systems built-in.”   

Any missile with a range of over 200 kilometers would need a built-in navigation system to be accurate, according to Elleman. “It’s as much about target acquisition as it is about firing the missile,” he said. “The key will be: Do they have the radar system to go with it?”   

Iran began building a cruise missile arsenal with the  purchase  of almost 100 C-802 anti-ship cruise missiles from China in 1995. China stopped selling the missiles under U.S. pressure, although Iran was able to reverse engineer the C-802. Iran  unveiled  its first homegrown anti-ship missile in May 2004.   

Andrew Hanna, a research assistant at the U.S. Institute of Peace, assembled this report. 

Photo credits: Album via  Fars News Agency  ( CC BY 4.0)   

Iran navy receives new cruise missiles amid growing regional tension

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The Iranian Missile Threat

Photo: SHAIGAN/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary by Anthony H. Cordesman

Published May 30, 2019

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By Anthony H. Cordesman

There is no doubt that Iran and North Korea present serious security challenges to the U.S. and its strategic partners, and that their missile forces already present a major threat within their respective regions. It is, however, important to put this challenge in context. Both nations have reason to see the U.S. and America's strategic partners as threats, and reasons that go far beyond any strategic ambitions.

Iran is only half this story, but its missile developments show all too clearly why both countries lack the ability to modernize their air forces, which has made them extremely dependent on missiles for both deterrence and war fighting. They also show that the missile threat goes far beyond the delivery of nuclear weapons, and is already becoming far more lethal and effective at a regional level.

This analysis examines Iran's view of the threat, the problems in military modernization that have led to its focus on missile forces, the limits to its air capabilities, the developments in its missile forces, and the war fighting capabilities provided by its current missile forces, its ability to develop conventionally armed precision-strike forces, and its options for deploying nuclear-armed missiles

Iran's Perceptions of the Threat

Iran has certainly carried out missile developments that could allow it to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the region, hit much of Europe, and develop some form of ICBM. This presents an all too real potential threat if the JCPOA or alternative efforts to halt Iran's nuclear programs should fail.

However, there is another side to Iran' s missile programs, and to the perceptions and strategic considerations that drive them – what the British strategist Liddell Basil-Hart called the "other side of the hill." Seen from an Iranian perspective, Iran is responding to proven threats from its neighbors and the U.S., and its inability to properly modernize its military forces since 1980.

Iran provoked the hostage crisis with the U.S. in 1979, but this crisis was a reaction in part to the Anglo-American coup that brought the Shah back to power in 1953. It also led to a broad cutoff in U.S. and European arms transfers that has continued ever since 1980, and left Iran heavily dependent on aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, armor, and ships that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

The hostage crisis was also casualty free. The Iran-Iraq War was not. Iraq invaded Iran that same year, and Iraq's Arab neighbors, Europe, and the U.S. then backed Iraq once the Iraqi invasion collapsed after Iran's successful creation of a massive mix of conventional and "revolutionary" military forces in the first two years of the eight year-long Iran-Iraq War. Iraq ultimately recovered, however, and the war crippled Iran's economy, and produced estimates of up to 1,000,000 casualties and 500,000 dead – although the number of the casualties on each side is highly questionable.

The Iran-Iraq War also exposed a very real Iraqi nuclear, chemical, and biological threat, and Iraq triggered a missile war against Iran's cities. This led to Iran creating its own missile forces, and the revival of the Iran chemical warfare and nuclear programs that Khomeini had cancelled.

While France and Russia led the arming of Iraq, the U.S. played its own role in shaping Iran's defeats in 1987 and 1988. The reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers led to a U.S.-Iranian "tanker war" in 1987-1988. At the same time, America's European allies provided major transfers of arms to Iraq, including modern combat aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, and some precision munitions.

Iran has exploited Arab divisions and fault lines ever since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, and has sometimes covertly attacked U.S. forces and targets. The aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War saw periods where the U.S. and Iran seemed to be easing their tensions, along with periods of improvements in Gulf Arab and Iranian relations. However, it also saw the creation of permanent U.S. bases in the Gulf, and the steady improvement of every aspect of Israeli as well as Arab forces.

The first Gulf War to liberate Kuwait in 1990-1991 then demonstrated the rising levels of U.S. and Arab military capabilities and triggered a further major build-up of Southern Gulf Arab forces that has continued ever since. The U.S. ended low-level cooperation with Iran over the Afghan conflict after 2001 because of the "axis of evil" policy. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 then placed major U.S. forces in Iraq on Iran's border. While most of these forces withdrew in in 2011, the U.S. then returned to face the rise of ISIS.

While the U.S., its Arab partners and Israel all have good reason to see Iran as a threat and a cause of regional instability, Iran's leaders and senior military feel they have equal cause to see all three as a major threat. The ongoing struggles for control and influence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Gaza are not the result of some abstract Iranian interest in exporting a revolution. From an Iranian perspective, they are a natural reaction to an all too real threat.

Iran's Inferiority in Arms Imports

It is also a threat where Iran's missile programs are part of a focus on asymmetric warfare where Iran has had no other options. Like its Arab neighbors, Iranian military modernization is critically dependent on arms imports. So far, Iran has not been able to raises its military production capabilities to the point of producing most forms of advanced major weapons, although it has done well in producing missiles, munitions, and smaller weapons systems. Iran has also only had sporadic access to Russian arms and no recent access to advanced new combat aircraft, tanks, major combat ships other than three submarines.

The totals for the Arab side show that Iran is anything but the hegemon of the Gulf. If one looks only at the Arab GCC states – and ignores Israel and Iraq – the GCC states have had continuing access to the most modern arms available since at least 1990, and have taken full advantage of the fact.

From 1980 to the present, Iran has faced massive new U.S. and European arms transfers to the Southern Arab Gulf states. If one looks at the volumes of new arms import orders reported by the Congressional Research Service using declassified U.S. estimates since the end of the first Gulf War, the Southern Arab Gulf states alone had had a vast lead over Iran in total imports from all sources.

The latest such CRS numbers cover 2008-2015. According to this report, Iran ordered only ordered $900 million worth in 2008-2015. In contrast, Saudi Arabia ordered $93,500 million worth during 2008-2015. The UAE ordered $25,700 million, Bahrain ordered $900 million, Kuwait ordered $8,000 million, Oman ordered $10,500, and Qatar ordered $23,900. The GCC total for these six states – which ignores the cost Egypt, Iraq, Israel, and Jorden and the modernization of U.S. power projection forces – is $162.5 billion vs. $900 million for Iran: 181 times more than Iran . And this ignores the steady improvement of U.S. power projection forces, new missile defense ships and stealth fighters like the F-35.

(For a full analysis of the patterns in Iranian and other Gulf arms transfers and military expenditures, see Anthony H. Cordesman and Nicholas Harrington, The Arab Gulf States and Iran: Military Spending, Modernization, and the Shifting Military Balance , https://www.csis.org/analysis/arab-gulf-states-and-iran-military-spending-modernization-and-shifting-military-balance, December 12, 2018.)

The Air Balance Overwhelmingly Favors the Other Sides

This gross imbalance in access to arms imports has been a key reason for Iran's dependence on missiles. From 1980 to today – a period of nearly 40 years – Iran has received only very limited transfers of modern combat aircraft. Iran's most competitive fighters are dated export versions of the MiG-29 and Su-24. Iran has only begun to acquire anything approaching modern surface-to-air and limited missile defenses with the Russian delivery of the first elements of the S-400 system in 2018. The Southern Arab Gulf states received massive transfers of modern aircraft and precision strike munitions and built up major surface-to-air and missile defenses.

Iran currently has no aircraft that can compete with U.S. power projection assets or the first line assets of America's European strategic partners. According to the 2019 edition of the IISS Military Balance , the relative fixed wing combat aircraft strength of key regional air forces most likely to engage Iran in late 2018 was:

• Iran: 336 combat Aircraft : No fully modern, 94 semi-modern . FTR 184+: 20 F-5B Freedom Fighter ; 55+ F-5E/F Tiger 24 F-7M Airguard ; 43 F-14 Tomcat ; 36 MiG-29A/U/UB Fulcrum ; up to 6 Azarakhsh (reported) FGA 89: 64 F-4D/E Phantom II; 10 Mirage F-1E; up to 6 Saegheh (reported); up to 7 Su-22M4 Fitter K ; 3+ Su-22UM-3K Fitter G. ATK 39: 29 Su-24MK Fencer D; 7 Su-25K Frogfoot (status unknown); 3 Su-25UBK Frogfoot (status unknown), ISR : 6+ RF-4E Phantom II*
• Bahrain: 28 combat Aircraft : 20 fully modern. 8 F-5E Tiger II; 4 F-5F Tiger II, FGA 20: 16 F-16C Block 40 Fighting Falcon ; 4 F-16D Block40 Fighting Falcon
• Iraq: 65 combat capable. 21 fully modern, 19 semi-modern . FGA 21: 18 F-16C Fighting Falcon; 3 F-16D Fighting Falcon ; ATK 30: 10 L-159A; 1 L-159T1; ε19 Su-25/Su-25K/Su-25UBK Frogfoot ISR 10: 2 Cessna AC-208B Combat Caravan *; 2 SB7L-360 Seeker ; 6 Beech 350ER King Air.
• Israel: 352 combat capable. 322 fully modern . FTR 58: 16 F-15A Eagle ; 6 F-15B Eagle ; 17 F-15C Eagle ; 19 F-15D Eagle . FGA 264: 25 F-15I Ra’am; 78 F-16C Fighting Falcon ; 49 F-16D Fighting Falcon ; 98 F-16I Sufa ; 14 F-35I Adir ISR 6 RC-12D Guardrail ELINT 4: 1 EC-707; 3 Gulfstream G550 Shavit AEW 4: 2 B-707 Phalcon ; 2 Gulfstream G550 Eitam (1 more on order)
• Kuwait: 66 combat capable, 39 fully modern . FGA 39: 31 F/A-18C Hornet ; 8 F/A-18D Hornet . TRG 11 Hawk Mk64*; 16 EMB-312 Tucano *
• Oman: 63 combat capable, 35 fully modern , FGA 35: 17 F-16C Block 50 Fighting Falcon ; 6 F-16D Block 50 Fighting Falcon ; 12 Typhoon TRG 4 Hawk Mk103*; 8 Hawk Mk166; 12 Hawk Mk203*; 12 PC-9*
• Qatar: 18 combat capable, 12 Fully modern . FGA 12: 9 Mirage 2000ED ; 3 Mirage TRG 6 Alpha Jet* .,
• Saudi Arabia: 407 combat capable, 266 fully modern, 79 semi-modern . FTR 81: 56 F-15C Eagle ; 25 F-15D Eagle . FGA 185+: up to 67 F-15S Eagle (being upgraded to F-15SA configuration); 47+ F-15SA Eagle ; 71 ATK 67 Tornado IDS . ISR 14+ : 12 Tornado GR1A*; 2+ Beech 350ER King Air. AEW&C 7: 5 E-3A Sentry ; 2 Saab 2000 Erieye. ELINT 2: 1 RE-3A; 1 RE-3B . TRG : 24 Hawk Mk65* (incl aerobatic team); 16 Hawk Mk65A*; 22 Hawk Mk165.
• UAE: 156 combat capable, 78 fully modern, 66 semi-modern . FGA 137: 54 F-16E Block 60 Fighting Falcon ( Desert Eagle ); 24 F-16F Block 60 Fighting Falcon (13 to remain in US for trg); 15 Mirage 2000-9DAD; 44 Mirage 2000-9EAD. ISR 7 Mirage 2000 RAD*. SIGINT 1 Global 6000 AEW&C 2 Saab 340 TRG 12 Hawk Mk102*;

These totals do not recognize massive orders of new fighters by Israel and the Arab Gulf states that are now pending while Iran as yet has no backlog of such orders. However, if one compares the total of first line fighters on each side, Iran has none, the Arab Gulf states (less Iraq) have 450, and Israel has 322. The U.S. is actively deploying the F-25, has the F-22, and is building up its inventory of AEGIS missile defense ships.

Iran (and North Korea's) Dependence on Missiles

As is the case with North Korea (and was the case with Iraq during the first Gulf War) missiles offer Iran the ability to strike deep into Arab territory in spite of its gross inferiority in airpower power and precision air strike capability. They have limits, but so do aircraft, and many of the key limits to today's missiles are now vanishing with improvements in missile accuracy and lethality

Missile defenses are also so far limited. Although the Arab states do have some missile defense capability, it is nowhere near the capability of their air defense forces to deal with Iran's limited air forces. Missile strikes have also so far had a major initial impact on populations even if they were only capable of limited point-target lethality in largely random strikes on area targets like cities and population centers.

The U.S. (and Arab and Israeli) focus on the potential nuclear threat from a future nuclear-armed ICBM is valid, but it is only part of the story. It also ignores the fact that any actual Iranian use of nuclear weapons – like a strike by North Korea on outside targets – would probably trigger the destruction of Iran. As Henry Kissinger once remarked in a different context, the threat of committing suicide is a poor deterrent to being murdered.

The U.S. (and Arab and Israeli) focus on the potential nuclear threat from Iran also ignores the fact that even moderately advanced powers with weak airpower already can use missiles as a key part of their mix of deterrence and defense. Iran and North Korea's current ballistic missile systems may lack the mix of accuracy and lethality to hit point targets with anything approaching predictable effectiveness, but they still have deterrent value, political impact, and reinforce the potential threat posed by the risk they may eventually be armed with weapons of mass destruction.

Short and medium range missiles also are relatively easy to disperse, and are still much harder to target and destroy than aircraft tied to an airbase once the missiles have been sheltered, hidden, or are actively mobile. They pose an enduring threat while – as the first Gulf War and invasion of Iraq demonstrated – aircraft can be relatively easy to suppress or destroy once a given side has established air superiority.

At the same time, it is important to note that the open source data on Iran's missile forces are unreliable and contradictory. This not only affects missile numbers, but leads to largely speculative data on nominal performance that ignores the lack of reliable test data, "guesstimates" performance, focuses on the theoretical accuracy of the guidance platform rather than actual missile performance, ignores the lack of any data on the actual warhead, and fails to address major aspects of Iran exercise performance, doctrine, and targeting.

There is no doubt that Iran has a wide range of missile developments. Figure One shows an estimate of Iran's range of missile types produced by the CSIS Missile Defense Project. Such estimates have to be somewhat nominal, given the lack of open source access to intelligence data, but it provides are liable picture of the sheer variety of Iran missile programs.

The IISS Estimate

Some estimates of Iran's actual ballistic missile forces from highly respected sources remain relatively small and only cover the number of launchers – not the numbers of missiles. The 2019 edition of the IISS Military Balance provides the following estimate for Iran's major missiles – which are operated by its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force – although these figures do not include some short-range Army systems and long range artillery rockets, coastal defense systems, and efforts to develop ship and submarine-launched versions of the Fateh SRBM:

• 1 bde with Shahab -1/-2; Qiam -1?
• 1 bn with Shahab -3?
• MRBM Conventional up to 50: Shahab -3 (mobile & silo); some Ghadr -1 (in test); some Emad -1 (in test); some Sajjil -2 (in devt); some Khorramshahr (in devt)
• SRBM Conventional up to 100: some Fateh 110; Some Khalij Fars ( Fateh 110 mod ASBM); some Shahab - 1/-2; some Qiam -1; some Zelzal
• CISR Medium Shahed 129

An IHS Jane's Estimate

An April 2019 estimate by IHS Jane's, another widely respected source, is very different and seems to track better with official background briefings. It states that Iran has a major production facility in Parchin. It warns that many aspects of range and reliability are unclear, but that Iran has exported missiles to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen and states that Iran is establishing a missile production facility in Syria. It also notes that Iran has supplied Shahab (dubbed 'Burkan' by Houthi forces), Qiam-1 (dubbed 'Burkan-2' and 'Burkan-2H'), and Soumar cruise missiles to the Houthi in Yemen.

The IHS Jane's brief states that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Air and Space Force (IRGCASF) has the following five brigades:

• 15th Ghaem Missile Brigade, with short-range missiles such as the Fajr
• 5th Ra'ad Missile Brigade equipped with Shahab-3/-4, based in the Karaj area, northwest of Tehran
• 7th Al-Hadid Missile Brigade equipped with Shahab-1 and -2 (Scuds B and C) missiles, based in the Karaj area; and controls the Imam Ali Missile Site in Khorramabad, western Iran. IHS Jane's notes that North Korea supplied Iran with 6-12 Scud-B TELs and up to 200 missiles between 1987 and 1992, and that the US-based Federation for American Scientists estimated in 2008 that Iran possessed between 300 and 400 Shahab-1s and Shahab-2s armed with conventional warheads and distributed among 3-4 battalions.
• 19th Zulfiqar Missile Brigade, equipped with Nazeat and Zelzal short-range missiles, based in the Karaj area
• 23rd Towhid Missile Brigade, based at Khorramabad.

IHS Janes estimates that Iran's short-range missile holdings are separate, and include the Fateh, Shahab-1 and Shahab-2, and enhanced and modified variants of the original Scud-B and Scud-C systems. It also describes five different variants of the Fateh – including anti-ship, anti-radar, and 750 -kilometer range systems. It also reports that China sold up CCS-8 (M-7/Project 8610) short-range, road-mobile, solid-propellant, single-warhead ballistic missiles and 30 TELs based on m modifications of the SA-2 to Iran in 1989. It is not clear they are still fully operational, but they have a 190 kg warhead, a 150 km range, and very poor accuracy. Iran calls them the Tondar 69. Some 90 missiles were delivered to Iran in 1992, and a further 110 may have been delivered later.

When it comes to Iran's longer-range missiles, the report indicates that the Nazeat 10 began to be tested in 2014, and is called an MRBM – although its range is unclear. It is felt to be more accurate than the Nazeat – although such reporting seems to focus on the guidance platform rather than missile tests.

IHS Janes indicates that its liquid-fueled Qiam missiles have been mass produced since 2011, and has a range of up to 700 km with a 650 kg payload. It also cites three different versions of the liquid-fueled Shahab missile – which is derived from the North Korean No Dong, and exceeds the 1,000-kilometer range limit set by the UN. These versions include the Shahab-3A (Ghadr 101) with a range of 1,500-1,800 km, the Ghadr-1 with a range of 1,800 km, and Shahab-3B (Ghadr 110) with a range of 2,000-2,500 km.

The Shahab is being replaced or supplemented by the more accurate Qadr F with a range of 1,600 km, the Qadr H with a range of 2,000 km and improved multiple re-entry vehicle, and the Qadr S with a range of 2,000 km with cluster munitions warhead.

The Khorramshar is said to still be in the test phase, and similar to the North Korean Hwasong-10 (KN-07) liquid-fueled missile with a maximum range of 2,000 km. The Seiji-2 is estimated to be another longer-range solid fueled system with a range of 2,200 km with a 750 kg warhead. A third system called the Emad may be a modification of the Qadr and to have started delivery in 2016.Finally, Iran seems to be developing an ICBM called the Simorgh (Safir-2) out of its Simorgh satellite launch system.

According to work by Jeffery Lewis of NTI, Iran also displayed new 1,000-km long-range ballistic missile called the Dezful in February 2019. Lewis notes that Major General Mohammad Ali Jafar, a former commander of the IRGC, called the missile as “an answer to Westerners ... who think they can stop us from reaching our goals through sanctions and threats,” and state that its purpose was to "“to protect our nation and the oppressed and downtrodden nations in the region that may ask for help from the Islamic Republic.”

Peering Through the Fog

It should be stressed here that open-source estimates are heavily dependent on trying to interpret Iranian data that are deliberately designed to confuse and often to exaggerate Iran capabilities. The data focuses on the maximum range based on a nominal payload which is often never fully specified or defined, and not actual payload or test data. There are no reliable data on actual performance, there almost always seem to be too few actual tests to properly establish a derived aim point level of accuracy, and it is generally assumed that the warhead is either unitary high explosives or cluster munitions without terminal guidance or missile defense countermeasures.

Just as Iran often deliberately exaggerates the size and nature of its military exercises, it exaggerates its missile capabilities. It has issued faked videos of salvo launches, and images of its ability to use missiles to target airfields. It also plays name games with its missiles to exaggerate or confuse the nature of its development programs. This is all too "fair" in hybrid warfare, but it also means that any Iranian or outside open source reports on Iranian missile performance need to be approached with extreme caution.

That said, Iran has conducted enough credible tests, and transferred enough missiles and missile technology to third parties like the Houthi in Yemen, to show its missile capabilities are still very real. It is building on well-established Russian, Chinese, and North Korean missile technology, and a purchasing and espionage network it has steadily refined since the Iran-Iraq War. US, Israeli, and other experts do report major improvement in Iranian missile design and manufacturing capability, and Iranian shorter and medium range systems do seem to be relatively rugged in a the few known field tests where the data seem moderately convincing.

Iran's Current Ballistic and Cruise Missiles and Warfighting Capability

One needs to be cautious about any effort to go from these uncertainties to making any broader judgments about Iran's current ability to use its ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones to deter, influence/shape events, and actually fight major wars.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif said on June 1, 2019 that Iran had the right to defend itself against U.S. aggression and stated that it would use “whatever missiles it wants” to deal with the increased American military presence in the region. At least in the near term, however, Iran's ability to use its missile capabilities in actual fighting are highly scenario-dependent. Iran does not to possess of a nuclear-armed missile force, and its warfighting abilities to launch a highly lethal major attack with precision guided and conventionally armed systems.

Iran's forces are evolving, but most current Iranian missiles lack the necessary accuracy and lethality. Even large salvos of such missiles would probably do little or no damage to key point targets and hit well outside of the blast range of the missile warhead. In broad terms, the real world accuracy/reliability of any missile without fully functional GPS guidance or terminal homing is so limited that only luck – the equivalent of a "magic bullet" – will allow it to hit a critical point in a major industrial facility, air or other military base, port, desalination plant or other area targets.

In contrast, Iran faces Arab Gulf and Israeli air forces with precision strike air launched missiles with ranges over 100 kilometers like the Storm Shadow, and U.S. stealth aircraft and cruise missiles. As long as Iran is reliant on older ballistic missile technology without precision strike capability, it would be far more vulnerable to air-delivered precision counterstrikes than its potential target.

As a result, Iran best current tactics and strategic options are to use its missiles as a retaliatory deterrent, keeping them as an active threat that it can use to deter or limit U.S., Arab, and/or Israeli first use of precision strikes. If Iran did use missiles offensively, it would probably seek to use them in asymmetric or hybrid attacks that would limit counterattacks and counter-escalation.

Iran has several such options. Iran could seek to use a third party as it has the Houthis – transfers which might include the Assad regime or Hezbollah – to limit the risk or counter escalation. It might also conduct limited launches against key Gulf petroleum facilities, tanker loading ports, or other critical targets where sporadic launches might avoid triggering a general response but be enough to force a shutdown of such a facility or halt tanker and shipping movements and loadings. Firing at an airport or center of government might be another case. Such efforts to decouple any use of a ballistic missile from retaliation would be uncertain at best, but demonstrative escalation could also occur against a non-target.

Large-scale retaliation to U.S., Arab, and/or Israeli use of precision strikes is also a more credible option. Launching as many retaliatory missile strikes as possible in the face of a major threat to the regime, or volleys against cities and key bases in the face of more limited outside attacks, might not achieve high levels of critical lethality, but it seems unlikely that Iran's regime would accept a passive defeat or fail to try to use more focused retaliation to the extent it could.

In short, the large-scale use of Iran's present missile forces seems likely to be sufficiently limited in its destructive effect so that it would be more provocative than either a deterrent or defense. The vastly superior current strike capabilities of Iran's opponents –their desire to act before Iran can create more effective missile forces and are defenses seems likely to lead to a scale of U.S., Arab Gulf and/or Israeli conventional precision strike retaliation that cripples Iran's economy and military forces for years, that might destroy or force the collapse of the current regime, and even one lead to Iran's occupation.

Iran's Coming Conventional Precision Strike Forces

The nature of the Iranian missile threat is already changing, however, in ways that will radically increase the value of conventional Iranian missile strikes. Once again, the details of these efforts are unclear and open sources are in conflict, but the broad trends are not controversial. Respected experts like Uzi Rubin believe Iran is already in the process of deploying conventionally armed missiles accurate enough to hit critical military and civil point targets.

Iran may now be claiming levels of precise accuracy, and countermeasure capabilities against missile defenses that it does not yet have. However, many experts feel that Iran will develop a far more effective mix of forces over the next few years. Here, the U.S., Israel, and Arab strategic partners must consider the following key force changes:

• Precision strike conventionally armed ballistic missiles. Iran has already claimed to have made extensive tests of ballistic missiles like the "Fateh 313" with much more accurate guidance and a range of 500 km. Some sources also claim that a version of the Fateh has a satellite navigation system-assisted inertial navigation system guidance package, and an imaging infrared sensor which could give it a capability to hit moving targets, including ships. While sources vary, Iran seems to have claimed that its Emad had a CEP of only 500 meters after tests in October 2015 – although this claim may refer only to the accuracy guidance platform and not the entire system. Work by Uzi Rubin also suggests that Iran may have a much broader family of precision strike images.

It currently is unclear how much real-world progress Iran has made, what types of improved guidance it is seeking to deploy, and what kind of ballistic missile force it is seeking to evolve. What is clear is that even a relatively large conventional warhead requires accuracy in meters to tens of meters to destroy many critical targets, and that accuracy/reliability and terminal guidance are the critical aspects of conventional missile lethality because of the inverse cube limits to improving blast lethality. The U.S. has also demonstrated how damaging even relatively small UCAV warheads and laser-guided bomb warheads can be.

The Gulf is filled with high value components and targets where precision-strike systems – whether a bomb, cruise missile, or ballistic missile – could do critical damage with months to years of long-lead replacement and repair time. These include key C4I/battle management, IS&R, and sensor/radar links. They also include a wide variety of key petroleum, port, water and desalination, electric power, and other civilian facilities, and a major precision strike could potentially do the same level of damage in days and hours that took the U.S. weeks in the 1991 attacks on Iraq.

• Countermeasure equipped ballistic missiles. Iran has already claimed to have some countermeasure capability and its booster could deliver relatively large warheads with such measures at long ranges.
• Firing older missile types as cover and to saturate defenses. Iran could retain large numbers of older missiles in static disperse launch sites and try to saturate missile defenses with volleys of older systems while it launches more modern and accurate systems.
• Mixes of cruise missiles and UCAVs. Iran already is developing cruise missiles and has long deployed drones and unmanned combat aerial vehicles. Its first major family of drones was called the Mohajer, and Iran has experimented in arming the Mohajer with anti-aircraft missiles It transferred UAVs to the Hezbollah as early as 2005, and began to employ light crew-portable surveillance UAVs like the Yasir in Iraq in 2009 and the Ababil in 2014. It has also deployed a 100 km range jamming drone called the Siraf.

Iran current level of progress is unclear, and it has made many ambitious and sometimes conflicting or duplicative claims. It does seem to have recovered major parts of a U.S. stealth UAV called the RQ-170 Sentinel in 2011.Iran claims to have tested a copy in October 2016 that can carry four precision-guided bombs, but its pylons and other features make it clear that it is not a true stealth system.

Iran clams to have developed a UCAV called the Shahid 129 – which some sources have called similar to the U.S. Predator or Israeli Hermes 450 – and flew it against Israel in 2016. Iran claims it has a range of up to 1,600 kilometers, a 24-hour endurance, and a payload of up to eight Sadid-1 missiles (similar to the Israeli Spike LR). Iran also has said it has an IS&R drone called the Karar that has a 965 km range that can carry a small bomb. Iran's Ra'ad-85 ids claimed to be a suicide attack drone.

Iran also seems to have modified the Russian Raduga Kh-55 cruise missiles to create a mobile ground-based system called the "Soumar" family of cruise missiles). with claims it could be modified to have a range as long as 3,000 km. Iran's Defence Minister Amir Hatami and the Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh announced a new generation of the Soumar long-range ground-to-ground cruise missile called the Hovizeh (Hoveyzeh) –and Iran provided video footage of launch – on February2, 2019.

Iran claimed on February 28, 2019 to have tested a submarine-launched cruise missile, and released footage of its Ghadir-class submarines firing a new Jask-2 submarine-launched anti-ship cruise missile during a major exercise in the much of Gulf and in the Gulf of Oman. Iran has also claimed to be deploying Qased 3 (“Messenger”) air-launched cruise missiles on its F-4s.

Both its largest UCAVs and cruise missiles like the Soumar could potentially have combination of accuracy and lethality that could destroy key components of critical military and civil systems in the same way as precision-guided ballistic missiles and become similar "weapons of mass effectiveness."

In addition, Iran has developed anti-ship missiles like the Zafar, Nasr, Noor, and Ghader (Qader) that have related technologies.

This mix of cruise missiles and UCAVs creates the possibility of developing mixes of precision guided ballistic and cruise missiles, and UCAVs that could greatly complicate any missile defense effort. Iran could use its systems with high range-payloads to fly evasive and unpredictable attack patterns rather than achieve a maximum range. It could also combine low fliers with ballistic missile attacks that mixed precision guided modern missiles and older, less accurate missiles as decoys. UCAVs can also fly profiles that could make it easier to deny attribution to future Iranian precision strikes, and/or be transferred to other countries and non-state actors in ways that help Iran avoid taking responsibility for given attacks.

• Precision targeting inventories. Iran already has some satellite and UAV targeting capability. Iran can almost certainly already carry out its missile launches with military grade GPS coordinates. Given the uncertain level of Gulf Arab security and dependence on foreign workers, it can use field agents and cellphone size devices to get precise GPS coordinates and cell phone images of the exact location of critical facilities and major components for target purposes – possibly using small drones as well. Many targeting problems that existed in the past could be eliminated.
• Added missile mobility and shelters. Improved boosters and reliability can make it far easier to disperse and support Iran's ballistic missiles. Creating a "shell game" set of disperse shelters and improved mobile missile launchers is a relatively cheap option.
• Russian or Chinese sales of advanced combat aircraft. Russia or China may see Iran as a more credible strategic option as its missile forces improve and/or be willing to sell more advanced fighters and air systems for other reasons as part of their strategic competition with the U.S.
• Other hybrid or asymmetric attack modes. Iran's improving strike capabilities will interact with its ability to threat shipping in the Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz, and support other states and non-state actors by creating a far more serious threat of retaliation if Arab states, Israel, or the U.S. escalate or threat Iran for such actions.
• Deployment of the S400 and S500 Russian air and missile defense systems. Iran already is deploying its first major improvement in surface-to-air and missile defense systems in decades – with the exception of small numbers of a Russian very short-range defense system called the 299K331 Tor-M1 (SA-15 Gauntlet). It may acquire the S500 with far more advanced missile defense capabilities as well. Over time, this could sharply degrade the present advantage the U.S, Israel, and Arab states have in air combat and precision strike capability.
• Transfers to other states and non-state actors . Iran has already transferred missiles to the Houthi in Yemen, Syrian government forces, and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as rockets to Palestinian forces in Gaza. All of these weapons, technologies, and tactics can be used in making such transfers in the future, and reducing/avoiding Iranian accountability for such attacks.

There is no current way to predict how many of these options Iran will execute or how well it will execute them. It seems highly unlikely, however, that Iran will fail to take advantage of many – if not all – of these options. It is also clear that powers like North Korea will have similar opportunities. For all the present concern with nuclear-armed missiles – and weapons of mass destructiveness – it may well be conventional armed precision missiles that become weapons of mass effectiveness that come to dominate both the Iranian and North Korean threat.

The Limits to Iran's Nuclear Missile Options: Threatening Suicide as a Deterrent to Being Murdered

Finally, it is important to keep Iran's options for deploying nuclear-armed missiles in careful perspective. For all the present focus on Iran's potential nuclear missile threat, it is important to note that such a threat has critical limits. Even if Iran does eventually deploy nuclear-armed missiles, these are only clearly valuable as a deterrent threat and that deterrent value only exist up to the point where such weapons are actually employed. They could all too easily become a disaster for Iran if it ever used them.

Once such Iranian weapons are used – and possibly even if they are only used in the most limited demonstrative way – Iran is like to trigger a massive all-out attack on Iran. Moreover, even the suspicion that Iran was actively preparing for such an attack might trigger a massive preemptive response.

No one can really predict how each side will behave in a conflict so inherently irrational because of its sheer unpredictability and destructiveness. However, Iran's actual use of nuclear weapons against U.S. and allied forces in the Gulf can too easily to lead to a response that makes such any Iranian action border on regime suicide.

Iran might also make demonstrative or terror-related use of other forms of weapons of mass destruction. Iran is a self-acknowledged chemical weapons power under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and has the technical based to create advanced biological weapons. Ballistic missiles are scarcely ideal ways to deliver such weapons, and the political and escalatory consequences might well be far worse than any advantages Iran can gain.

However, slow and low fliers like cruise missiles and UAVs offer far more effective forms of line source delivery of CBW agents and might well be harder to detect or clearly assign to Iran. Moreover, the history of military escalation is not particularly rational on the part of any of the sides involved. Syria has already shown that using chemical weapons can lead to "red lines" that vanish into the sand, but a future such Iranian chemical attack might trigger an all-out U.S., Gulf Arab, or Israeli response.

At the same time, such an Iranian action might conceivably lead to a state of panic in the targeted area. Even firing a missile with a non-functioning chemical warhead could have a major terror or deterrent effect. This kind of option involves so many risks and uncertainties that is seems more likely to be only used by a more extreme regime state like North Korea, but cannot be totally dismissed.  

Anthony H. Cordesman

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Iran launches barrage of strikes toward Israel

By Tori B. Powell , Sophie Tanno, Emma Tucker , Kaanita Iyer , Paul LeBlanc and Adrienne Vogt , Jerome Taylor and James Legge, CNN

Iran launches cruise missiles in addition to drones, Israeli media says

Iran launched cruise missiles at Israel, in addition to dozens of drones, according to Israeli media reports.

Public shelters open in Haifa

From CNN's Paul Murphy

Public shelters have been opened in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

The municipal administration held a special situational assessment on Saturday based on the security situation.

"Also, in the event of an alarm, the Carmelit light train stations approved for use as shelters by the Home Front Command will be opened," according to a message from the Haifa government sent to residents.

Iranian state media says retaliatory strikes launched at Israel

From CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali

Iranian state media confirmed that retaliatory drone strikes have been launched against targets in Israel.

According to Iran's Press TV, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “has launched extensive drone strikes against targets in occupied territories," a term Iran uses to describe Israel.

An IRGC statement was also read on Iranian state TV. 

"In response to the Zionist regime's crime in attacking the consular section of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, the IRGC’s air force hit certain targets in the territories of the Zionist regime with dozens of drones and missiles," the statement said.

US assets are in the region that could help in defense against Iran attacks

From CNN's Haley Britzky

The Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group remains in the region after officials say that Iran launched dozens of drones towards Israel. 

The strike group includes 6,000 sailors, the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Mason (DDG 87) and USS Gravely (DDG 107). 

The destroyers have the ability to intercept missiles. They have repeatedly intercept launches form Iranian proxies.

The group also includes Carrier Air Wing Three, which is composed of nine squadrons, including four strike fighter squadrons. 

Additionally, air defense systems for US force protection exists in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. 

Iran's attack is "likely to unfold over a number of hours," US security official says

From CNN’s Lauren Koenig

Iran has launched an attack against Israel that is “likely to unfold over a number of hours,” according to National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. 

“President Biden is being regularly updated on the situation by his national security team and will meet with them this afternoon at the White House,” and the team “is in constant communication with Israeli officials as well as other partners and allies,” the statement reads.

Watson reaffirmed the president’s position that “our support for Israel’s security is ironclad” and that the United States will “stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”

Biden will meet with national security leaders in the Situation Room, White House says

US President Joe Biden will meet with National Security Council officials in the White House Situation Room upon his return from Rehoboth, Delaware, according to a statement from the White House.

The president was also briefed about the situation in the Middle East earlier by national security adviser Jake Sullivan and principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, the White House said.

The White House added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown will be among those in the Situation Room, along with Sullivan and Finer.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Biden’s Chief of Staff Jeff Zients “will attend by secure video,” the White House said.

Iran launches dozens of drones against Israel, Israeli official says

From CNN's Kylie Atwood

Iran has launched dozens of drones from Iranian territory, according to an Israeli official

The Israel Defense Forces announced publicly a short time ago that Iran had launched the drones.

"Whoever harms us, we will harm them," says Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Saturday that Israel had been preparing for an attack from Iran.

"In recent years, and especially in recent weeks, Israel has been preparing for a direct attack by Iran," he said.

"Our defensive systems are deployed; we are ready for any scenario, both defensively and offensively. The State of Israel is strong. The IDF is strong. The public is strong," he said.

Netanyahu thanked the US, Britain, France and its other allies for "standing alongside Israel."

"We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination," his statement said.

US official confirms Iran has launched drones toward Israel

From CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Jeremy Diamond

A US official has confirmed that Iran launched drones against Israel, shortly after an announcement from Israel Defense Forces.

An Israeli official also confirmed Iran has launched dozens of drones.

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• Missiles of the World

Soumar (Hoveyzeh, Abu Mahdi)

The Soumar is an Iranian ground-launched cruise missile that was officially revealed to the public on March 8, 2015. It is believed to be a continuation of the Meshkat missile that was announced by Iran in September 2012. However, the origin of the Soumar appears to be from the nuclear capable Russian Kh-55. In 2005, Ukraine acknowledged that 12 Kh-55’s (without nuclear warheads) were illegally sold to Iran in 2001 through a black market counterfeit operation.

Soumar at a Glance

Soumar Development

In February 2019, Iran debuted the Hoveyzeh cruise missile, which is likely an evolution of the Soumar missile. Then-Defense Minister Brigidier General Amir Hatami claimed during the unveiling ceremony that the missile had a range of over 1,350 km, notably far less than the original 2,500 km reported range of the Soumar. 4 At its unveiling, Iran claimed to have tested the missile to a range of 1,200 km. 5 The engine housing of the Hoveyzeh missile is more typical of a turbojet engine, suggesting Iran may have incorporated that technology into the new missile. 6

• Reuben F. Johnson, “Iran reveals new Soumar ground-launched cruise missile” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 13, 2015
• Jeremy Binnie, “Analysis: Iranian cruise missile unveiling raises questions about range” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 17, 2015
• “Iran Unveils Long-Range Hoveyzeh Cruise Missile,” PressTV, February 2, 2019, https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/02/02/587434/Iran-missile-defense.
• “Iran Says New Cruise Missile Successfully Fired on Revolution’s 40th Anniversary,” Times of Israel, February 2, 2019, https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-unveils-new-cruise-missile-on-40th-anniversary-of-revolution/.
• The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Open-Source Analysis of Iran’s Missile and UAV Capabilities and Proliferation (East Sussex: Hastings Print, April 2021), 24.
• Thomas Newdick, “Iran Unveils New Solid-Fuel Ballistic Missile Named After the General America Killed,” The Drive, August 20, 2020, https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35891/iran-unveils-new-solid-fuel-ballistic-missile-named-after-the-general-america-killed.
• The International Institute for Strategic Studies, Open-Source Analysis of Iran’s Missile and UAV Capabilities and Proliferation (East Sussex: Hastings Print, April 2021), 26.
• Seth J. Frantzman, “Iran Denies that ‘New’ Cruise Missile is Just an Old One with New Paint,” Jerusalem Post, August 22, 2020, https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-denies-that-new-cruise-missile-is-just-an-old-one-with-new-paint-639504.

CNN gets a rare look at the Iranian missiles and drones that hit Israel

E ditor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories.  Sign up here.

“You have to ask the Israelis,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Brigadier General Ali Belali says with a smirk when asked how many ballistic missiles the Islamic Republic fired towards Israel in its April 14 strike.

But he’s more than happy to show the missiles and drones Iran used in its first ever attack against Israel launched directly from Iranian soil.

“It was a punitive measure,” Belali says, as he uses a laser pointer to indicate the missiles deployed, towering above him in the exhibit.

Two weeks after the Middle East came to the brink of an all-out war, with Iran firing hundreds of projectiles toward Israel in retaliation for a suspected Israeli airstrike on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Tehran is keen to show the world that it is capable of fighting a wider conflict should it be faced with one.

On April 19, Israel responded with a suspected attack inside Iran’s borders. Both the Iranian and Israeli actions resulted in minimal damage and appeared by both sides to be aimed at restoring deterrence. That situation de-escalated, but the threat of war continues to loom large over the region as Israel’s offensive in Gaza grinds on.

CNN was given rare access to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards exhibit that showcases Tehran’s air and space capabilities, including the types of weapons that were used against Israel last month. American media had never been allowed inside until now.

At the permanent exhibit of the Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Forces in western Tehran, dozens of long- and medium-range ballistic missiles stand tall along with cruise missiles and drones. The exhibit is meant to show the development and progress of Iran’s drone and missile program.

“Today, our drones and missiles have become an important factor of strength and the execution of power in the world,” Belali, himself a former missile commander during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that ended in 1988, tells CNN. He says Iran’s massive drone and missile barrage against Israel was a major success.

Iran’s attack on Israel included drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. The night sky over Israeli cities lit up as the country’s air defenses worked to intercept the projectiles. Meanwhile, the air forces of Israel, the US, the UK, France and Jordan were busy in the skies, also trying to take down as many Iranian drones and missiles as possible.

“NATO, The United States and Arab countries of the region wanted to create barriers for our drones, missiles and cruise missiles, but they failed,” Belali says. “The world was not able to stop us.”

The Israeli military said that  “99%” of projectiles  fired by Iran were intercepted by Israel and its partners, with only “a small number” of ballistic missiles reaching the country.

The Iranians claim they managed to hit two locations inside Israel, including the Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that ballistic missiles that reached Israel fell on the airbase and caused only light structural damage .

“Accurate, (to) less than five meters,” Brigadier General Ali Belali claims, standing in front of two of the ballistic missiles he says were involved in the strikes against Israel, the Ghadr and the Emad. The missiles have a range of more than 1,000 miles and can carry warheads between 450 and 500 kilograms (1,102 lbs), he says. Another missile, called Kheybar, which he says was also used, carries a warhead of about 320 kilograms, the general adds.

Region’s largest ballistic missile force

Iran’s ballistic missiles have long been a cause for concern for the US and its allies in the Middle East, who have called for curbs on the missile program to be part of any deal that Washington strikes with Tehran.

The US says Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East and considers its missile arsenal as one of its “primary tools of coercion and force projection.”

Iran has in the past insisted that its missile program is solely for defensive purposes.

In recent years, and until its attack on Israel, Iran had carried out at least five major cross-border ballistic missile strikes in the region, John Krzyzaniak, a research associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, DC, told CNN earlier. Those include two attacks on ISIS in Syria, and three in Iraq claiming to have targeted US forces, Kurdish militants and Israeli intelligence.

Also on display at the Tehran exhibit is what Iran says is an American RQ-170 Sentinel drone, made by Lockheed Martin, that it claims to have downed in 2011. US officials told CNN that year that the drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission that involved both the intelligence community and military personnel stationed in Afghanistan. Three years later, Iran said it had managed to copy the drone .

Belali says Iran’s missile development is key to the Islamic Republic’s defense strategy. “In our defense capabilities we don’t rely on anyone. We have had good progress in this field and we will progress more. There are achievements that have not yet been talked about.”

Drones are equally as important for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards. The exhibit shows various stages of their drone development, starting from small wooden UAVs used in the Iran-Iraq war, all the way to models the Iranians claim have stealth capabilities.

One the most prominent is the Shahed 136, a cheap “fire and forget” drone, meaning a flight path is programmed, the UAV is launched, and it then independently flies towards the target area.

While the Iranians acknowledge using dozens of Shahed 136 drones to target Israel, both the US and Ukraine also accuse Tehran of giving hundreds to Russia, with Moscow using them to hit Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure. The Iranians have consistently denied those claims.

The Shaheds fly low and slow and usually attack in swarms, the general says, standing in front of an unmarked truck that serves as a secretive launching platform.

“Everything is preprogrammed. The flight route is chosen according (to) the enemy’s capabilities and blind spots of radars and all the elements that can help us reach the target.”

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Iranian-Made Quds-2 Cruise Missile Photographed in Iraq

Alex Almeida is the head security analyst at a leading risk advisory firm.

Michael Knights is the Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and cofounder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which offers in-depth analysis of developments related to Iran-backed militias.

Part of a series: Militia Spotlight

or see Part 1: How to Use Militia Spotlight

Recently used in Houthi attacks from Yemen, this missile family could give Iraqi militias the capacity to target sites in Israel if they choose to escalate their campaign of solidarity with Hamas.

On January 3, Iraqi media outlets reported  an explosion in Babil just south of Baghdad that was later clarified to be a controlled detonation. The item destroyed was a Quds-2 cruise missile (Figure 1) that appeared to have fallen off a transport or launch vehicle.

The incident occurred on or near the Hillah-Diwaniyah highway (i.e., Expressway 1, Iraq's main north-south highway) inside Babil province. The Babil Police Command handled the controlled detonation. The specific area of the detonation was reportedly "the western Hamza district, south of Hillah."

The Quds family of missiles are downscaled copies of Iran's Soumar cruise missile, which is itself a version of the Soviet-era Kh-55. The missile shown in Babil looks to be laying alongside a tractor trailer with a launch or carrying cradle. The solid motor launch booster with its distinctive four wings is not attached, perhaps due to the device being in transit or prior to being assembled for launch. Alternately, the photo could show the aftermath of a failed launch in which the rocket motor detached during operation or was removed to be extinguished. 

The implications of the image are serious: an Iranian cruise missile was either being moved inside Iraq or possibly fired from inside the country. In Militia Spotlight's assessment, Babil is not a likely launch location for a strike on Israel using a missile with a range of 700-800 kilometers; locations further westward in Iraq would be better for that purpose. Yet Babil could be a launch point for a longer-ranged Quds variant to reach Israel. The rapid controlled detonation may have been an effort to destroy any evidence of, or attempts to recover, the missile.

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US says Iran readying as many as 100 cruise missiles for possible strike on Israel, reports say

• The US expects Iran will carry out a number of strikes on Israel.
• President Joe Biden issued a warning to Iran, advising them against attacking.
• It comes after Israel killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp  officials in an airstrike in Syria.

The US expects Iran will carry out a number of strikes on Israel as tensions rise in the Middle East, a senior administration official and a source familiar with the intelligence said, per CNN .

One of the people said that US officials believe Iran could be readying as many as 100 cruise missiles for an attack, the report said. ABC News carried a similar report.

Both sources said Iran had been moving military assets, including drones and missiles, in preparation for a possible attack on the Jewish state.

Related stories

Iran's Revolutionary Guard also seized an Israeli-affiliated container ship near the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, adding to the tensions in the region.

It comes after Israel killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials in an airstrike earlier this month.

"There is a real risk that Iranian-backed groups will intensify their targeting of US forces and Israel in response to this latest attack, leading to heightened escalations in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and possibly Jordan," Haid Haid, a consulting fellow in the think tank Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa Programme said in a report .

On Friday, the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah fired 40 rockets into Israel from its Lebanon base, some of which were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome defenses, reports said.

President Joe Biden issued a simple but stark warning to Iran following the reports, saying: "Don't," while also warning that he expected an attack "sooner than later."

"We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel," he added. "We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed."

The US has responded to the latest threat with plans to dispatch its warships, including the aircraft carrier the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, a cruiser, and two destroyers , closer to Israel, reports said.

Tensions between Israel and Iran have ramped up since Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip, following the October 7 terrorist attacks, when Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel.

The Israeli counteroffensive has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.

Watch: Israel bombards Lebanon and Gaza in retaliatory attack

• Main content

What Iran’s attack on Israel revealed about its weapons arsenal

Iran’s first direct attack on Israel overnight Saturday demonstrated the country’s military might and the advances of its domestic weapons program, analysts said, while also revealing the limitations of its arsenal.

With more than 300 drones and missiles launched in a layered onslaught, it was Iran’s largest-ever conventional show of force . That it inflicted only minimal damage was due in part to the choreographed nature of the attack — giving Israel and the United States ample time to prepare air defense systems — but may also be attributed to shortcomings in its medium- and long-range capabilities.

“The operation showed that our armed forces are ready,” Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi told crowds gathered Wednesday in Tehran to mark Army Day. Parades in the Iranian capital featured many of the same munitions used in the attack on Israel.

What Iran used against Israel

110 ballistic

Iranian drones

These drones can deliver small payloads of explosives in self-detonating attacks.

Length: 11.5 ft.

Width: 8 ft.

Max. take off weight: 440 lb.

Max. speed: 115 mph

Range: About 1,100 - 1,500 miles

Its nose contains a warhead and can be equipped with a camera.

Length: 8 ft.

Width: 7 ft.

Max. take off weight: 300 lb.

The Shahed-131 is an earlier version of Shahed-136 with a similar principle of operation. The layout and aerodynamics are also identical.

Ballistic missiles

KHEIBAR SHEKAN

The Kheibar Shekan MRBM is a solid-propellant ballistic missile designed by the IRGC.

Length: 34 ft.

Diameter: 2.6 ft.

Max. range: 900 miles

Warhead weight: 1,100 lb.

Introduction: 2022

The Emad MRBM is an Iranian-designed, liquid-fuel ballistic missile based on Shahab-3.

Length: 54 ft.

Diameter: 4.1 ft.

Max. range: 1,056 miles

Warhead weight: 1,650 lb.

Introduction: 2015

The Ghadr-1 MRBM seems to be an improved variant of the Shahab-3A. It is also referred to as the Ghadr-101 and the Ghadr-110.

Max. range: 1,211 miles

Warhead weight: 1,760 lb.

Introduction: 2007

Cruise missile

Max. range: 1,025 miles

Introduction: 2023

What Iran did not use

The Sejjil-1 Iranian MRBM is a two-stage, solid-propellant, surface-to-surface missile.

Length: 60 ft

Max. range: 1,243 miles

Warhead weight: 1,540 lb.

Introduction: 2011

The Shahab-3 is a MRBM developed by Iran and based on the North Korean Nodong-1.

Diameter: 4.1 or 4.5 ft.

Max. range: 808 miles

Warhead: Single or multiple

with 5 warheads of 617 lb.

Introduction: 2003

Sources: OE Data Integration Network (ODIN),

CSIS Missile Defense Project

120 ballistic

120 ballistic missiles

30 cruise missiles

Overhead view

1,211 miles

1,056 miles

Max. range:

Warhead weight:

Introduction:

Sources: OE Data Integration Network (ODIN), CSIS Missile Defense Project

Raisi hailed the attack as a resounding “success,” but was also quick to qualify the strikes as “limited” and “not comprehensive.”

“If it was supposed to be a large-scale action, nothing would have been left of the Zionist regime,” he said. And if Israel retaliates, Raisi pledged, “they will be dealt with fiercely and severely.”

Yet after analyzing the munitions used in Saturday’s assault and the success of regional defense systems, researchers say it’s unclear how Iran could inflict greater damage on Israel through conventional military means.

“Iran basically threw everything it had that could reach Israel’s territory,” said John Krzyzaniak, a researcher who studies Iran’s missile programs at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Like other analysts interviewed for this story, he has spent the past several days studying launch videos, imagery of debris and interception information to identify the Iranian munitions.

His conclusion is that Tehran “used some of every system they have.” And experts said it made sense that the Sejjil-1 and Shahab-3 missiles were excluded from the attack.

Shahab-3 “wasn’t used because it’s so old,” said Fabian Hinz, an Iran analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin. “The Sejjil is a bit of a mysterious missile,” he said, adding that Iran has “used it very, very little during maneuvers.”

Other analysts noted the Sejjil was expensive to produce and may no longer be in production.

The quantity of munitions used also provides new insights into Iran’s capabilities. The deployment of over 100 ballistic missiles in a single wave suggests that previous estimates that Iran has about 3,000 ballistic missiles stockpiled are probably accurate, and could even be on the low end.

“If this is just round one of an unknown number of rounds to come, you wouldn’t fire a significant fraction of what you have just in the first round,” Krzyzaniak said.

The firing of over 100 ballistic missiles in the space of a few minutes suggests Iran has at least 100 launchers, he added — a new data point for researchers.

“This shows that Iran has really faced no limitation in domestically producing missiles and launchers,” he said.

Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, the largest of any country in the Middle East, is almost entirely homegrown. In recent years Iran has demonstrated the ability to upgrade some systems, improving their range and precision.

The spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, Abolfazl Shekarchi, said the munitions used in the strikes against Israel only represented “a fraction of” the country’s military’s might, according to a statement published on state-run media.

The evolution of Iran’s

missile program

In the mid-1980s, Tehran acquired Scud missiles from Libya, Syria and North Korea and also began adapting the technology for their own missile variants. During the eight-year war with Iraq, Tehran countered primarily with Scud B missiles, which have a range of 185 miles.

Shahab-1 , 186 miles

1994 to 2001

Iran developed its own version of the Scud B, the Shahab-1, and from 1994 to 2001 fired it at bases in Iraq used by the opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq.

A new generation of missiles

After 16 years without firing new missiles, Iran showed its technological advances in 2017 striking on an ISIS command center with 6 Zolfaghars with a range of 430 miles. In early 2024, it launched strikes against Islamic State targets in northwest Syria using Kheibar Shekan missiles that travelled 745 miles from Iran to Syria.

Fahteh 110 , 181 miles

Fahteh 313 , 310 miles

Zolfaghar , 435 miles

Qiam 1 , 497 miles

Kheibar Shekan , 900 miles

IRAN ATTACKS

Against ISIS

6 ballistic missiles

Deir ez-Zor, Syria

Against Kurdish dissidents

7 ballistic missiles

Abu Kamal, Syria

Against Oil fields and facilities

18 drones + 7 cruise missiles

Abqaiq, S. Arabia

Khurais, S. Arabia

3 cruise missiles

Against U.S. forces

Erbil, Iraq

1 ballistic missile

Ain Al Asad, Iraq

15 to 22 ballistic missiles

Against “Israeli strategic centers”

At least 10 ballistic missiles

73 launches + at least 20 drones

and suicide drones

Sulaimaniyah,

Against IS targets

Harem, Syria

Israeli “spy headquarters”

Against Jaish ul Adl

Balochistan,

Missiles and drones

Against Israel

120 ballistic missiles,

170 drones,

Sources: United States Institute of Peace, CSIS, IDF

The evolution of Iran’s missile program

IRAN TARGETS

KNOWN MISSILE

Zolfaghars,

Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia

Khurais, Saudi Arabia

Zolfaghars and

potentially

Ballistic missiles and suicide drones

Sulaimaniyah, Iraq

Kheibar Shekan

Balochistan, Pakistan

Missiles and drones against Jaish ul Adl

170 drones, 30 cruise missiles

Before the attack on Israel, Iran’s most significant use of ballistic missiles was in 2020, after a U.S. drone attack killed the powerful Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.

Iran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two U.S. military bases in Iraq, one in the country’s west and one in the north. While there were no fatalities, dozens of U.S. service members suffered traumatic brain injuries.

Iran also used ballistic missiles in strikes this year on Pakistan, Syria and Iraq.

Iranian ballistic

missile ranges

1,240 miles

Locations of Iranian

missile strikes

INDIAN OCEAN

But the attack on Israel suggests that many of Iran’s munitions are of low quality. Israel’s military said 99 percent of the missiles and drones launched by Iran were intercepted or failed to launch.

“We saw that accuracy and precision are a work in progress,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has written extensively about Iran’s missile program. “These weapons alone won’t win a war for Iran.”

Iranian drones made up the first wave of the attack. Cheap, effective and easy to produce, Iranian drones have been used in attacks across the Middle East for years. Iran has also supplied drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine , where they have been deadly.

During the attack on Israel, the slow-moving drones were probably deployed to occupy air defenses and allow more advanced munitions to get through. All the drones were shot down before entering Israeli airspace, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Ali Hamie, a Lebanese military analyst, said Iran had probably gleaned important lessons about Israel’s aerial defenses. Commentators on Iranian state television have made similar points.

“It could be a testing attack,” Hamie said, “and the Iranians got what they want. Making it past the air defenses is not only a symbolic victory, but real victory.”

One of the few missiles to make it through the interceptors hit an Israeli air base in the Negev desert. Images of the strike were run on loop on many state-run Iranian broadcasters in the days after the attack. Israel characterized the damage as minor.

General location of missile strikes

that reached the ground.

Beirut—

Populated areas

Haifa—

Tel Aviv—

—Amman

—Jerusalem

An emad missile

was found here.

The barrage of

missiles from Iran

included targeting

the Nevatim

General location of

missile strikes that

reached the ground.

Mediterranean

General location of missile

strikes that reached the

In addition to analyzing Israel’s air defenses, Tehran will probably also be studying the problems with its missile systems that reportedly led to failures at launch and in flight, according to Afshon Ostovar, a professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.

“Another attack could be more effective,” he said. But ultimately the kind of approach demonstrated in Saturday’s attack “is not really sustainable over a long-term conflict.”

Even if Iran changed the tempo of attacks and adjusted the munitions used, “they would still have to launch quite a lot of stuff for just a few [munitions] to get through,” he said.

Some Iranian officials have suggested they have held back their most dangerous weapons.

“We are prepared to use weapons we have never used before. We have plans for every scenario,” said Abolfazl Amoui, a parliamentary national security spokesman, in an interview with Lebanese broadcaster Mayadeen.

But analysts say it’s unlikely that any one type of munition could be a game changer. Rather, it’s more likely Iran would use the same kinds of munitions in a future attack, but in a different way: giving less warning, or launching the barrage in concert with allied militant groups in the region. The country’s proxy forces, from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen, played little role in Saturday’s assault.

As Israel mulls its response , Tehran has warned that a counterattack would come in “a matter of seconds.”

“Iran will not wait for another 12 days to respond,” Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani said Monday.

While the United States and Israel have celebrated the thwarting of Saturday’s attack, analysts are urging humility.

“The number of munitions it took to repel the attack was enormous, costly and could be difficult to replicate,” said Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Israel may have gotten lucky and Iran may have gotten very unlucky.”

William Neff and Suzan Haidamous contributed to this report.

Israel-Gaza war

The Israel-Gaza war has gone on for six months, and tensions have spilled into the surrounding region .

The war: On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival . (See photos and videos of how the deadly assault unfolded ). Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948 .

Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars , killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “ famine-like conditions. ” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave .

U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians , including President Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons , funds aid packages , and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ cease-fire resolutions.

History: The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 . Read more on the history of the Gaza Strip .

• Middle East conflict live updates: Hamas says it views cease-fire talks favorably; Blinken urges group to accept deal 11 minutes ago Middle East conflict live updates: Hamas says it views cease-fire talks favorably; Blinken urges group to accept deal 11 minutes ago
• Six months of the Israel-Gaza war: A timeline of key moments April 7, 2024 Six months of the Israel-Gaza war: A timeline of key moments April 7, 2024
• Colombia is the latest and largest country to sever ties with Israel May 1, 2024 Colombia is the latest and largest country to sever ties with Israel May 1, 2024

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Israel’s Strike on Iran Highlights Its Ability to Evade Tehran’s Air Defenses

The retaliatory attack damaged a defense system near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program.

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By Farnaz Fassihi ,  Ronen Bergman ,  Eric Schmitt and Luis Ferré-Sadurní

An Israeli airstrike on Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, in an attack calculated to deliver a message that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems undetected and paralyze them.

The strike damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program, according to two Western officials and two Iranian officials. The attack — and the revelation on Saturday of its target — was in retaliation for Iran’s strike in Israel last week after Israel bombed its embassy compound in Damascus. But it used a fraction of the firepower Tehran deployed in launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel.

The strike on Friday was the latest salvo in a series of tit-for-tat attacks between the two countries this month that have heightened fears of a broader regional conflict. But the relatively limited scope of Israel’s strike and the muted response from Iranian officials seem to have eased tensions.

Iran and Israel have conducted a yearslong shadow war , but the conflict intensified on April 1, when Israeli warplanes killed seven Iranian officials, including three senior commanders , at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, which Israel asserts was used as a military site. Iran responded last week by firing a barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Israel, almost all of which were shot down by Israel and its allies. But the strikes nevertheless rattled Israelis.

That attack was Iran’s first-ever direct assault on Israeli soil, thrusting the countries’ clandestine warfare — long fought by land, air, sea and cyberspace — into open view. The Israeli government vowed to respond, even as world leaders and Western allies, including the United States, rushed to de-escalate the situation, urging Israel not to respond in a way that could lead to a regional war.

Though Israel’s leaders came close to ordering a more extensive attack on Iran, the Friday attack appeared calibrated to send a warning about Israel’s military capabilities — but without further raising tensions as Israel continues to fight Hamas in Gaza.

The two Iranian officials who discussed the Israeli attack said that Israel had struck an S-300 antiaircraft system at a military base in the province of Isfahan. The officials’ account was supported by satellite imagery analyzed by The New York Times , which showed damage to the radar of an S-300 system at the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Isfahan.

It was unclear precisely what sort of weapon struck the S-300 system. Three Western and two Iranian officials confirmed on Friday that Israel had deployed aerial drones and at least one missile fired from a warplane. Previously, Iranian officials had said the attack on the military base had been conducted by small drones, most likely launched from inside Iranian territory.

Two Western officials said that a missile was fired from a warplane far from Israeli or Iranian airspace, and that the weapon included technology that enabled it to evade Iran’s radar defenses. The two Iranian officials said the military had not detected anything entering the country’s airspace on Friday, including drones, missiles or aircraft.

The efforts to ratchet down tensions between Israel and Iran played out as Israel’s war against Hamas, now in its sixth month, continued on Saturday with reports of a deadly assault in southern Gaza.

Israeli airstrikes in Rafah on Saturday killed at least 10 civilians, including women and children, according to Palestinian state media, sending fear through an area where more than a million Palestinians have been displaced.

Palestinians have been bracing for weeks for an Israeli ground offensive on Rafah, the southernmost part of Gaza, where a majority of the strip’s 2.2 million residents have fled after being forced from their homes. Israel’s bombardments and ground invasion have killed more than 30,000 people, according to local officials.

The Israeli airstrikes on Saturday hit two homes, and missiles and artillery struck other areas of Rafah and the surrounding area, according to the Wafa News Agency. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.

“It was like an earthquake,” Mohammad al-Masri, 31, said of the shaking from the strikes.

The first strike hit just past midnight, and the second one soon after, said Mr. al-Masri, an accountant who was sheltering with his family in a tent in a large encampment in Rafah.

“When we hear these strikes, we don’t know what to do,” he said. “Everyone is saying the same thing: ‘Where can we go?’”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel’s military plans to invade Rafah to “complete the elimination of Hamas’s battalions” and destroy its tunnel networks. World leaders, including President Biden, have urged Israel not to invade the city because of the risks of heavy civilian casualties.

About 500 miles away, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, traveled to Turkey on Saturday to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has strongly condemned Israel and its leaders since the war began in October.

Turkey was once Israel’s closest friend in the Muslim world, but the relationship has grown increasingly turbulent since Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Mr. Erdogan has backed the Palestinian cause, which has widespread public support in Turkey, defended Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack and strongly condemned Israel and its leaders.

On Saturday, Mr. Erdogan’s office said the two leaders had discussed Israeli attacks against “Palestinian land, primarily against Gaza; what is needed to be done for the humanitarian aid to reach Gaza adequately and without interruption.”

After the meeting, Mr. Erdogan told reporters he would use every opportunity to draw attention to the suffering in Gaza, and that he hoped Israel would eventually be held accountable.

“Israel will certainly pay the price of the atrocities it has been inflicting on Palestinians one day,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters.

Earlier on Saturday, one person was killed and eight were injured in an explosion at a military base in Babylon Province, Iraq, that was used by an Iranian-backed armed group, Harakat al Nujaba, according to Iraq’s military command.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the strike.

In a carefully worded statement, Iraq’s military did not attribute the explosion to an air attack with a missile or a drone. Privately, however, military officials said it appeared that at least one projectile had hit inside the perimeter of the base. A video taken shortly after the blast and posted on social media showed damaged buildings and a large crater filled with rubble. A second video showed several parts of the base on fire.

The U.S. military, which has previously carried out strikes on Iranian-backed armed groups in Iraq, said in a statement shortly after the attack that it had not participated in strikes on any locations in Iraq. The Israeli military declined to comment.

Liam Stack , Raja Abdulrahim and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting.

Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization, and also covers Iran and the shadow war between Iran and Israel. She is based in New York. More about Farnaz Fassihi

Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv. His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House. More about Ronen Bergman

Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt

Luis Ferré-Sadurní covers immigration, focused on the influx of migrants arriving in the New York region. More about Luis Ferré-Sadurní

More From Forbes

Israel’s iran strike bore some similarities to tehran’s 2019 saudi arabia attack.

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An Iranian military truck carries parts of the S-300 air defense missile system during a parade on ... [+] the occasion of the country's Army Day, on April 18, 2017, in Tehran. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel’s April 19 strike on Iran’s central Isfahan region was clearly aimed at demonstrating its capability to knock out some of Iran’s most advanced air defense missile systems. Ironically, the way Israel sent this message wasn’t wholly unlike how Iran executed a previous unclaimed attack against Saudi Arabia in 2019.

Iran brushed off Israel’s attack on Isfahan, deriding the appearance of quadcopter drones swiftly downed by Tehran’s air defenses. Iran’s foreign minister even dismissed the drones as mere “toys,” stressing they caused no damage whatsoever and the attack was unworthy of any response. However, post-strike analysis confirmed much more than Tehran was letting on.

Satellite imagery reviewed by The Economist revealed that an air-launched Israeli ballistic missile had directly hit a 30N6E2 Tombstone radar of a long-range Iranian S-300PMU-2, the most advanced Russian air defense system in Iran’s arsenal, at an Isfahan base. Iran swiftly swapped out the radar for another, which the Economist report notes isn’t interchangeable with the 30N6E2. The Iranians also “kept the launcher canisters, which fire interceptors, in an upright position” in an attempt to cover up the damage.

But the damage had been done.

Burn marks surround what analysts identify as a radar system for a Russian-made S-300 missile ... [+] battery, center, near an international airport and air base is seen in Isfahan, Iran, Monday, April 22, 2024. Satellite photos taken Monday suggest an apparent Israeli retaliatory strike targeting Iran's central city of Isfahan hit a radar system for a Russian-made air defense battery, contradicting repeated denials by officials in Tehran in the time since the assault. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Wreckage photographed in neighboring Iraq led analysts to believe Israel most likely used its Blue Sparrow ballistic missile, which fighter jets can launch at targets up to 1,250 miles away. The debris uncovered in Iraq was likely from the fuel booster units designed for jettisoning mid-flight.

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Israel neither confirmed nor denied the strike, which came just under a week after Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone attack against Israel on the night of April 13. Despite this, the message was clear: Israel has the capability to strike with precision deep inside Iran.

The S-300’s proximity to Iran’s underground Natanz enrichment site—a vital part of the Iranian nuclear program Israel accused Iran of using to build nuclear weapons—is undoubtedly Israel’s way of demonstrating that Iranian air defenses won’t necessarily deter or stop it from targeting Iranian nuclear sites.

Israel could have inflicted much more damage on the S-300 system; imagery of its smoldering launchers would have been far more difficult for Iran to conceal and deny, but it settled for a relatively discreet demonstration of its reach. Furthermore, even though Iran launched 300 missiles and drones on April 13, the overwhelming majority were intercepted, with only some ballistic missiles causing minor damage to a sprawling airbase in southern Israel.

Israel’s response was arguably more damaging and decisive.

“The strike on an S-300 radar in what appears to have been a very limited strike by the Israelis would represent far more damage done than,” Iran managed in the April 13 attack, an AP analysis noted . And while it’s not clear how many air-launched ballistic missiles Israel used on April 19, they were undoubtedly a fraction of the 300 munitions Iran launched in its attack.

Iran downplayed the attack but undoubtedly received its message. Tehran likely understood this message because it sent a similar one five years ago against another regional rival.

On September 19, 2019, Iranian drones and cruise missiles struck oil processing facilities operated by Saudi Aramco at Abqaiq and Khurais in the kingdom’s east. The attack briefly saw Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by half .

A destroyed installation in Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq oil processing plant is pictured on September 20, ... [+] 2019. - Saudi Arabia said on September 17 its oil output will return to normal by the end of September, seeking to soothe rattled energy markets after attacks on two instillations that slashed its production by half. The strikes on Abqaiq - the world's largest oil processing facility - and the Khurais oil field in eastern Saudi Arabia roiled energy markets and revived fears of a conflict in the tinderbox Gulf region. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP) (Photo credit should read FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images)

The operation and strike package was estimated to cost a mere $2-3 million and could have caused much more damage had the planners intended. They clearly did not. However, the attack’s objective of highlighting the vulnerabilities of Saudi energy facilities was undoubtedly a success.

While the Houthis claimed the attack, the consensus is that Iran executed it, given its direction, from the north and east rather than Yemen in the south. The attack was also highly sophisticated. With pinpoint accuracy, the Iranian-made drones and cruise missiles directly hit and seriously damaged spheroid modules but left other critical infrastructure unscathed.

“It was clear to officials from Aramco and the government what the attackers had done: Using accurate mapping and pinpoint targeting, they’d hit only components that could be fixed quickly,” wrote Bradley Hope and Justin Scheck in their 2020 book Blood and Oil .

“The Saudis were able to get oil production back on track within weeks only because Iran decided to graze, rather than demolish, the facility,” the authors added a few sentences later.

Israel similarly sought to damage one of Iran’s most advanced air defense systems with a pinprick strike or graze, showing Tehran it could do a whole lot worse if it chose.

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Israel launches airstrike; explosions heard in central Iran: Reports

Explosions were heard in Iran after Israel launched missile strikes in retaliation for a barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles fired by Tehran over the weekend, three U.S. news organizations reported.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said on Friday local time that explosions were heard near the airport at the central city of Isfahan. ABC, CBS, and NPR, each citing at least one unnamed American official, reported that Israel was responsible.

Citing three Iranian officials, the New York Times reported that a military airport near Isfahan had been targeted.

"The cause of these sounds is still unknown, and investigations continue until the exact details of the incident are determined," Fars reported. An unidentified Iranian official later told Reuters that the explosions came from local air defense systems, adding that no missile attack had been carried out. The brief report made no mention of Israeli drones.

Will it spark a wider war? Israel's long-simmering conflict with Iran moves out of the shadows.

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Civilian airports were closed in Iran and flights from the Persian Gulf were diverted. There was no immediate comment from Israeli and U.S. officials.

Iran's weekend swarm of munitions and Israel's response marked the first direct exchanges of fire between the regional arch-enemies.

Warning sirens wailed inside communities near Israel's northern border in anticipation of rocket attacks from Hezbollah , the powerful Iranian proxy force that controls southern Lebanon − but officials later said it was a false alarm.

The U.S. on Thursday announced a fresh set of sanctions targeting Iran's production of unmanned aerial vehicles, while Tehran warned Israel it would review its official stance on nuclear weapons if its atomic facilities were attacked.

Iranian state TV said the country's nuclear facilities were intact.

Iran told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that Israel "must be compelled to stop any further military adventurism against our interests" as the U.N. secretary-general warned that the Middle East was in a "moment of maximum peril."

Israel, the U.S., and other regional and Western allies joined forces on Saturday to blast hundreds of Iranian drones , cruise missiles and ballistic missiles out of the sky after they were fired at Israel. That attack was itself an act of retaliation after Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khameni, blamed Israel for an airstrike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, that killed several people including a leading Revolutionary Guards commander.

Officials have been on edge about the possibility of a regional war since the Palestinian militant group Hamas rampaged across southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 and taking more than 200 people hostage. More than 30,000 Palestinians have died in the ensuing six months in Israeli airstrikes and ground fire, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry .

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"The regional states remain quite concerned that the longer the open-ended conflict in Gaza goes on, the greater the possibility – through a direct decision or miscalculation –  of a regional war," analyst Michael Wahid Hanna of the International Crisis Group told USA TODAY on Tuesday.

Following reports of the airstrikes, the U.S. Embassy in Israel issued a security alert saying that U.S. government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva areas until further notice. 

"In response to security incidents and without advance notice, the U.S. Embassy may further restrict or prohibit U.S. government employees and their family members from traveling to certain areas of Israel (including the Old City of Jerusalem) and the West Bank," the alert added.

Contributing: Reuters