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What we know about the state of Iran’s drone and missile capabilities
Addressing media at the United Nations, Israel’s ambassador took aim at Iran and its response to U.S. and Israeli attacks.
“It is a regime lashing out like a rabid animal, dangerous to everyone around it,” said Danny Danon. “This is not strategy, it is desperation.”
More and more, though, it seems desperation has led Iran precisely to its strategy. Experts say Tehran will likely try to inflict collateral damage in neighbouring countries and exhaust U.S. and Israeli defences by using cheap kamikaze drones in order to try and save the regime.
As a joint U.S.-Israeli strike killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many top government officials on the first day of war, Iran deliberately took aim at America’s “soft underbelly” — military bases and diplomatic missions within easy reach, said Robert Malley, a former special envoy for Iran in the Biden administration.
With few other options, he said “this is one where they could show they have retaliatory power.”
Iran’s armaments have flown at U.S. installations in at least nine countries, from the Persian Gulf to Cyprus in the Mediterranean. Dozens of people were injured and some killed, mostly local citizens. Drones have also hit American embassies and consulates in Riyadh, Dubai and Kuwait City, sparking fires.
Most of Iran’s neighbours had lobbied the U.S. to avoid war, not because of sympathy for its regime, but to keep from becoming collateral damage.
Now, Iran’s goal is to inflict just enough pain to push them to lobby U.S. President Donald Trump to stop, said Galip Dalay, a Mideast expert at Chatham House, a think-tank in London.
“The only person that can call off this war or end the war is Trump, and I think that is the actor that Iran is aiming at [through its attacks],” he said.
Drone warfare
There may also be a second plan at play by the leaders left alive in Tehran: to force the U.S. and Israel to use up their costly defensive missiles quickly in trying to shoot down Iran’s innovative Shahed line of kamikaze drones.
The unmanned devices can carry powerful explosives as far as 2,000 kilometres, and they’re programmed to hit specific targets. That’s what damaged three U.S. diplomatic missions in the past days.
Iran was the first country to develop these, though they have been successfully adopted by Russia in its war against Ukraine.
But it’s the drones’ low cost that makes them a challenge for big military powers like the U.S. and its allies. One drone costs between $20,000 and $50,000 US, while a single Patriot interceptor missile often used to shoot it down costs about $4 million US and takes much longer to replace.
“This is the core of Iran’s strategy,” Kelly Grieco posted on social media. She is a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think-tank. “For every $1 Iran spent on drones, the U.A.E. spent roughly $20–28 shooting them down.”
The U.S. has recently copied these Iranian-designed drones, naming them LUCAS and fast-tracking their development. It’s also working on cheaper alternatives for interception.
The Iranian drones are easy to transport and even launch from the back of ordinary-looking trucks, said Justin Crump, CEO of Sibylline, a British risk and intelligence consultancy.
“You pull back the cover and they fire out. That is obviously much easier, much less detectable than a ballistic missile launcher,” he said.
Iran’s missile arsenal
Ballistic missiles are Iran’s other strength. They are such a threat to Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Iran be forced to give them up in the talks leading up to this war.
Iran’s arsenal — the biggest in the Mideast — consists of more than 20 kinds, most assembled in Iran from domestic and foreign parts. Many were fired at Israel in June, and many others were destroyed by Israeli strikes during the conflict before they could be used.
Video obtained exclusively by CBC News shows an Iranian missile breaking through Israel’s Iron Dome defence system and hitting a Tel Aviv neighbourhood on Saturday, killing one person, according to the Israel Defence Forces.
But Iran’s network of underground depots, with production and storage centres, and even firing systems, likely means they have been replenished, said Crump. He estimates Iran now has about 2,000 long-range missiles and as many short-range missiles.
At the rate they are being used, Crump said Iran had about 10 to 12 days’ worth of supply when this war started.
Between the missiles and the drones, the air war could stretch out for weeks, despite continued U.S. and Israeli air strikes.
Crump said the attacks and loss of leadership are taking their toll on Iran, with signs the powerful Revolutionary Guard is splintering: Individual units are often making their own decisions on when to fire and what to attack.
It has started to “run away” from the central command, he said. “Original aims are lost, accidents and miscalculations are more likely to happen.”
And what kind of Iran will that leave once the war ends?
“Its goal at this point is to show at the end of this war that it is still standing,” said former special envoy Malley. “What we’re going to see is a more fragmented, more chaotic, but still standing regime.”