As Iran threatens to strike Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital, its long-vaunted missile program offers Tehran one of the few ways to strike back directly. There are doubts, however, about just how dangerous this is.
The program was responsible for Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel in April, making it the first country to carry out such an attack since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf War.
Few of the Iranian missiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a US-led coalition, while others apparently failed to launch or crashed in flight. Even those that reached Israel appeared to miss their targets.
Now, a new report from experts, shared exclusively with the Associated Press news agency, reveals that one of Tehran’s most advanced missiles is far less accurate than previously thought.
The April strike showed “some ability to hit Israel,” said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who worked on the analysis. But “if I were the top leader, I’d probably be a little disappointed.
If Iranian missiles are unable to hit targets, their role changes, Lair added. They are no longer valuable for conducting conventional military operations. They may be more valuable as weapons of terror.
As an example, he cited the devastating missile attacks on cities during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, when Iran could fire several missiles at a major city and hope that some would get through.
Iran has repeatedly said it will take revenge for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. Israel is widely suspected of having carried out the killing, although it has not claimed responsibility.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei quietly acknowledged that the country failed to strike anything of significance in Israel.
Debates by the other side about how many missiles were fired, how many hit the target and how many did not, are of secondary importance, Khamenei said. The main issue is the rise of the Iranian nation and the Iranian army “in an important international arena. That is what matters.
Retaliation had been in the air for days after a suspected Israeli attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, as well as a member of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
State television showed that Iran’s attack began on April 13 when Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Hossein Salami spoke by phone with Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guard’s aerospace division.
He ordered the launch of the True Promise operation against the bases of the Zionist regime.
As the missiles lifted off, people across Iran stopped what they were doing and pointed their cellphones at the launch sounds from their cars and the balconies of their homes. Videos analyzed by AP showed multiple launch sites, including on the outskirts of Arak, Hamadan, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran.
Grainy footage later released by pro-Iranian military social media accounts showed missiles fired from truck-mounted mobile launchers. Iran’s bomb-carrying Shahed drones, widely used by Russia in its war on Ukraine, leapt from metal stands, their engines humming like lawnmowers in the night sky. Some were launched from pickup trucks racing down runways.
The triangular drones went first, taking hours to reach their targets. Then came the Paveh cruise missiles, which took less time, and finally the Emad, Ghadr and Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles, which took just minutes, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Drones and missiles also came from Yemen, likely fired by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli officials estimate that Iran has fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. In Jordan, an AP journalist filmed what appeared to be a ballistic missile intercepted above Earth’s atmosphere, likely by an Israeli Arrow 3 missile, with the explosion radiating out as a circle.
The US, UK, France and Jordan all shot down incoming fire. The Americans claimed to have shot down 80 bomb-carrying drones and at least six ballistic missiles. Israeli missile defenses were also activated, although their initial claim that they had intercepted 99 percent of the projectiles appeared to be an exaggeration.
The attack was clearly not symbolic or a damage-prevention measure, said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Iran. It was a major attempt to bypass Israeli defenses.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, told AP they estimated that 50 percent of Iranian missiles failed at launch or crashed before reaching their target.
In the aftermath, analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies examined the attack on Nevatim Air Base, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Jerusalem in the Negev Desert. The center’s experts have long studied Iran and its ballistic missile program.
The base came into focus immediately after the suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria. Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, claimed that the attack was carried out by Israeli F-35Is, which are based in Nevatim.
The air base also played a role in Iranian military propaganda. Iranian state television in February aired footage of a Revolutionary Guard test targeting a mock-up of what looked like F-35I hangars in Nevatim. Ballistic missiles, including some of the types used in the April attack on Israel, destroyed the mock-up.
At least four Iranian missiles were fired at Nevatim in the attack, as shown in satellite and other images released by the Israeli military.
The only debris found in the area, collected from the Dead Sea, suggests Iran used Emad missiles to strike Nevatim, the analysts said. The liquid-fueled Emad, or pillar in Farsi, is a variant of Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, built to a North Korean design with a reported range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That indicates the Emads were likely launched from the Shiraz area, which is within the estimated limits of the missile’s likely capabilities, the analysts said.
Based on Iran’s focus on the F-35I, James Martin analysts assumed that the likely target for Iranian fire would be a cluster of aircraft hangars. The position also serves as a near-central point within the Nevatim base itself.
That provides a much more valuable target” than just “poking holes in the runway,” Lair said. But none of the Iranian missiles hit those hangars directly.
Assuming Iran was targeting the hangars, James Martin analysts measured the distance between the hangars and the missile impact zones. That gave an average of about 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) for the circular error, likely a measurement used by experts to determine a weapon’s accuracy based on the radius of a circle that encompasses 50 percent of the spot where the missiles landed.
That’s far worse than the 500-meter (1,640-foot) error circle that experts had first estimated for the Emad. After a U.N. arms ban on Iran ended in 2020, Iran separately advertised the Emad to potential international buyers with a 50-meter (164-foot) circle, a figure in line with the best rocket specifications for systems deployed elsewhere, said Hinz, the IISS rocket expert.
The results of the April attack were not nearly as accurate.
“This means that the Emad is much less accurate than previous estimates indicated,” Lair said. “This indicates that the Iranians are a generation behind the accuracy that previous estimates thought they had.”
The poor performance can be attributed to electronic warfare measures intended to confuse the missile’s guidance system, but also to possible sabotage, poor missile design, and the distances involved in the attack.
In the past, Iranian threats to retaliate against Israel have typically consisted of attacks by Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East or attacks on Israeli targets elsewhere, such as embassies or tourists on board.
Geography limits the options for a direct Iranian military attack. Iran does not share a border with Israel, and the two countries are about 1,000 kilometers apart at their closest point.
Iran’s air force has an aging fleet of Cold War-era F-14 Tomcats and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets, but they would be no match for Israel’s F-35Is and its air defenses. That would mean Iran would once again have to rely on missiles and long-range drones.
It could also call on allied militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to overwhelm Israeli defenses. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire on August 25.
Lingering in the background is the risk that Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon, a threat Iranian officials have reiterated in recent months. While Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, Western intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Tehran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
U.S. intelligence agencies said in a July report that Iran has undertaken activities that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon, if it so chooses. However, building a weapon and miniaturizing it to fit on a ballistic missile could take years.
Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the region and continues to focus on improving the accuracy, lethality and reliability of these systems, the report by the director of national intelligence said. Iran is likely incorporating “lessons learned” from the April attack.
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