While Iran threatens Israel, the danger of Tehran’s long-vaunted missile program remains questionable

Jon Gambrell
| Associated Press

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – As Iran threatens to attack Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital, its long-touted missile program offers Iran one of the few opportunities to strike back directly. But the question remains as to how great the threat really is.

The program was behind Iran's unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel in April, when Iran became the first nation to launch such an attack since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

But 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 the missiles that reached Israel appeared to miss their target.

A new expert report, obtained exclusively by the Associated Press, now suggests that one of Tehran's most advanced missiles is far less accurate than previously thought.

The April attack “showed some ability to hit Israel,” said Sam Lair, a research fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who worked on the analysis. But “if I were the supreme leader, I would probably be a little disappointed.”

If Iranian missiles are unable to hit targets precisely, “their role will be redefined,” Lair added. “They are no longer as valuable for conducting conventional military operations. They may be more valuable as terror weapons.”

He cited as an example the jamming of cities during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when Iran could fire a large number of missiles at a large city and hope that some would get through.

Iran has repeatedly stated that it will retaliate for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Israel is widely suspected of carrying out the murder but has not claimed responsibility.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment, but Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tacitly acknowledged that the country had failed to achieve anything significant in Israel.

“Debates by the other party about how many rockets were fired, how many of them hit the target and how many did not, are of secondary importance,” Khamenei said. “The main issue is the emergence of the Iranian nation” and the Iranian military “on an important international stage. That is what matters.”

A salvo of missiles and drones

Retaliatory strikes had been expected for days after a suspected Israeli attack hit an Iranian diplomatic headquarters in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, as well as a member of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.

Footage broadcast on state television showed that the Iranian attack began on April 13 with a phone conversation between Revolutionary Guard commander General Hossein Salami and Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Guard's aerospace division.

“Launch Operation True Promise against the Zionist regime's bases,” he ordered.

As the rockets shot into the sky, people across Iran stopped what they were doing and pointed their cellphones at the sound of the rocket launches from their cars and on the balconies of their homes. Videos reviewed by AP showed several launch sites, including on the outskirts of Arak, Hamadan, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran.

Later, crude footage was posted on pro-Iranian military social media accounts showing missiles thundering from mobile launchers onto trucks. Iran's bomb-carrying Shahed drones, which Russia frequently uses in its war against Ukraine, leapt from metal racks, their engines whirring like lawnmowers through the night sky. Some were launched from pickup trucks speeding down the runways.

The triangular drones were the first, taking hours to reach their target. 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 and were likely fired by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Israeli authorities estimated that Iran fired 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. In Jordan, an AP journalist filmed a ballistic missile apparently being intercepted above the Earth's atmosphere, presumably by an Israeli Arrow-3 missile, with the explosion radiating in a circular pattern.

The US, Britain, France and Jordan shot down all enemy missiles. The Americans claimed to have shot down 80 bomb-carrying drones and at least six ballistic missiles. Israel's missile defenses were also activated, although their initial claim of having intercepted 99 percent of the missiles appeared to be exaggerated.

The attack “was clearly not symbolic, nor was it an attempt to avoid damage,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Iran. It was “a massive attempt to overcome Israeli defenses.”

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, told AP they estimate that 50 percent of Iran's missiles failed during launch or crashed before reaching their target.

Attack on air base indicates lack of accuracy

Analysts from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies then investigated the attack on the Nevatim air base, about 65 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Negev desert. The center's experts have long been studying Iran and its ballistic missile program.

The base came into focus immediately after the alleged Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria. Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari claimed that the attack was carried out by Israeli F-35Is based at Nevatim.

The air base has also featured in Iranian military propaganda. In February, Iranian state television aired footage of a Revolutionary Guard test attacking a model resembling the F-35I hangars at Nevatim. Ballistic missiles, including some of the types used in the April attack on Israel, destroyed the model.

At least four Iranian missiles hit Nevatim in the attack, as shown in satellite images and Israeli military footage.

The only debris found in the area – recovered from the Dead Sea – suggests Iran used Emad missiles against Nevatim, the analysts said. The liquid-fueled Emad (for “pillar” in Farsi) is a variant of Iran's Shahab-3 missile, which was designed on the North Korean model and reportedly has a range of 2,000 kilometers. That suggests the Emads were likely fired from the Shiraz area, which is within estimated limits of the missile's likely range, the analysts said.

Since the Iranian focus was on the F-35I, James Martin analysts assumed the likely target point for Iranian fire would be a cluster of aircraft hangars. The location also serves as a near-central point within the Nevatim base itself.

This offers “a much more valuable target” than simply “drilling holes in the runway,” Lair said. But none of the Iranian missiles hit these hangars directly.

Assuming that Iran attacked the hangars, James Martin analysts measured the distance between the hangars and the missile impact areas, yielding an average of about 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) for the “circular error probability value” – a measure used by experts to determine the accuracy of a weapon, using the radius of a circle that encompasses 50% of the missile impact areas.

That's far worse than the 500-meter error range that experts initially estimated for the Emad. After the UN arms ban on Iran ended in 2020, Iran separately promoted the Emad to potential international buyers with a 50-meter error range – a figure that matches the highest missile specifications for systems deployed elsewhere, said Hinz, the IISS missile expert.

The results of the April attack were nowhere near as precise.

“This means that the Emad value is much less accurate than previous estimates,” Lair said. “This suggests that the Iranians are a generation behind the accuracy that previous estimates assumed.”

The poor performance may be due to electronic warfare measures designed to confuse the missile's guidance system, but other reasons include sabotage, poor missile design and attack distance.

What happens next?

In the past, Iranian threats of retaliation against Israel have generally taken the form of attacks by Iranian-backed forces in the Middle East or attacks on Israeli targets elsewhere, such as embassies or tourists abroad.

For geographical reasons, the possibilities of a direct Iranian military strike are limited. Iran does not share a border with Israel and the two countries are about 1,000 kilometers apart at the shortest distance.

The Iranian Air Force has an ageing fleet led by Cold War-era F-14 Tomcats and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighters, but they would be no match for Israel's F-35Is and air defenses, meaning Iran would once again have to rely on missiles and long-range drones.

In addition, Israel could enlist the support of allied militias such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi rebels to overwhelm Israeli defenses. Israel and Hezbollah engaged in heavy firefights on August 25.

In the background, there is always the risk that Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon. This threat has been repeated by Iranian politicians over the past few months. While Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, Western intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency claim that Tehran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.

US intelligence agencies said in a July report that Iran had “undertaken activities that put it in a better position to produce a nuclear weapon if it chooses to do so.” However, building a weapon and miniaturizing it for use on a ballistic missile could take years.

“Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the region and continues to prioritize improving the accuracy, lethality, and reliability of these systems,” the report from the director of national intelligence said. “Iran is likely considering the lessons learned from the April attack.”

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Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support for its nuclear safety coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Outrider Foundation. All content remains the responsibility of the AP.

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