As Iran threatens Israel, the danger of Tehran’s long-vaunted missile program remains in question

A handout picture provided by the Iranian Army office on December 30, 2022, shows Iranian troops during a military drill in Makran beach on the Gulf of Oman, near the Hormuz Strait. (AFP)
A handout picture provided by the Iranian Army office on December 30, 2022, shows Iranian troops during a military drill in Makran beach on the Gulf of Oman, near the Hormuz Strait. (AFP)
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Updated 03 September 2024
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As Iran threatens Israel, the danger of Tehran’s long-vaunted missile program remains in question

As Iran threatens Israel, the danger of Tehran’s long-vaunted missile program remains in question
  • Israel is widely suspected of carrying out the assassination, though it has not claimed it
  • Retaliation had been expected for days after a suspected Israeli strike on April 1 hit an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, as well as a member of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: As Iran threatens to attack Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital, its long-vaunted missile program offers one of the few ways for Tehran to strike back directly, but questions loom over just how much of a danger it poses.
The program was behind Iran’s unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on Israel in April, when Iran became the first nation to launch such a barrage since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein lobbed Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.
But few of the Iranian projectiles reached their targets. Many were shot down by a US-led coalition, while others apparently failed at launch or crashed while in flight. Even those that reached Israel appeared to miss their marks.
Now a new report by experts shared exclusively with The Associated Press suggests one of Tehran’s most advanced missiles is far less accurate than previously thought.
The April assault showed “some ability to strike Israel,” said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who worked on the analysis. But “if I were supreme leader, I would probably be a little disappointed.”
If Iranian missiles are not able to hit targets precisely “that recasts their role,” Lair added. “They’re no longer as valuable for conducting conventional military operations. They may be more valuable simply as terror weapons.”
As an example, he recalled the harassing missile fire seen on cities in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Iran could fire a variety of missiles at a large city and hope some got through.
Iran has repeatedly said it will retaliate for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. Israel is widely suspected of carrying out the assassination, though it has not claimed it.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tacitly acknowledged the country’s failure to strike anything of importance in Israel.
“Debates by the other party about how many missiles were fired, how many of them hit the target and how many didn’t, these are of secondary importance,” Khamenei said. “The main issue is the emergence of the Iranian nation” and the Iranian military “in an important international arena. This is what matters.”
A fusillade of missiles and drones

Retaliation had been expected for days after a suspected Israeli strike on April 1 hit an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, as well as a member of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.
Footage aired on state television showed that Iran’s April 13 assault began with Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami speaking by telephone with Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajjizadeh, the commander of the Guard’s aerospace division.
“Start the ‘True Promise’ operation against Zionist regime’s bases,” he ordered.
As the missiles headed skyward, people across Iran stopped what they were doing and pointed their mobile phones at the launch noise from their cars and the balconies of their homes. Videos analyzed by the AP showed multiple launch sites, including on the outskirts of Arak, Hamadan, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Tabriz and Tehran.
Grainy footage later released through pro-Iranian military social media accounts showed missiles thundering off truck-based mobile launchers. Iran’s bomb-carrying Shahed drones, widely used by Russia in its war on Ukraine, leaped off metal stands, their engines whirring like lawnmowers through the night sky. Some were launched by pickup trucks racing down runways.
The triangle-shaped drones went first, taking hours to reach their targets. Then came the Paveh cruise missiles, taking a shorter time, and finally the Emad, Ghadr and Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles, which needed only minutes, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Drones and missiles also came from Yemen, likely fired by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli officials estimated that Iran launched 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 120 ballistic missiles. In Jordan, an AP journalist filmed what appeared to be a ballistic missile being intercepted above the Earth’s atmosphere, likely by an Israeli Arrow 3 missile, with the blast radiating out like a circle.
The US, the United Kingdom, France and Jordan all shot down incoming fire. The Americans claimed to have downed 80 bomb-carrying drones and at least six ballistic missiles. Israeli missile defenses were also activated, though their initial claim of intercepting 99 percent of the projectiles appeared to be an exaggeration.
The attack “was very clearly not something symbolic and not something trying 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 major attempt to overcome Israeli defenses.”
US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, told the AP they assessed that 50 percent of the Iranian missiles failed at launch or crashed before reaching their target.
Strike on air base
suggests poor accuracy
In the aftermath, analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies examined the strike on the Nevatim Air Base some 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Jerusalem in the Negev Desert. The center’s experts long have studied Iran and its ballistic missile program.
The base came into immediate focus after the suspected Israeli strike on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria. Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, claimed that the strike was conducted by Israeli F-35Is, which are based at Nevatim.
The air base also figured into Iranian military propaganda. Iranian state television aired footage in February of a Revolutionary Guard test that targeted a mock-up resembling F-35I hangars at Nevatim. Ballistic missiles, including some of the kinds used in the April attack on Israel, destroyed the mock-up.
In the attack, at least four Iranian missiles struck Nevatim, as seen in satellite images and footage released by the Israeli military.
The only debris found in the area — collected from the Dead Sea — suggests Iran used Emad missiles to target Nevatim, the analysts said. The liquid-fueled Emad, or “pillar” in Farsi, is a variant of Iran’s Shahab-3 missile built from a North Korean design with a reported range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That indicates the Emads were likely fired 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, the James Martin analysts assumed the likely target point for the Iranian fire would be a cluster of aircraft hangars. The position also serves as a near-central point within the Nevatim base itself.
That offers “a much more valuable target” than just “poking holes in the runway,” Lair said. But none of the Iranian missiles directly hit those hangars.
Assuming Iran targeted the hangars, the James Martin analysts measured the distance between the hangars and the impact zones of the missiles. That gave an average of about 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) for the “circular error probable” — a measurement used by experts to determine a weapon’s accuracy based on the radius of a circle that encompasses 50 percent of where the missiles landed.
That’s far worse than a 500-meter (1,640-foot) error circle first estimated by experts for the Emad. After a UN weapons ban on Iran ended in 2020, Iran separately advertised the Emad to potential international buyers as having a 50-meter (164-foot) circle — a figure that is in line with top missile specifications for systems deployed elsewhere, said Hinz, the IISS missile expert.
The results from April’s attack were nowhere near that precise.
“This means the Emad is much less accurate than previous estimates indicated,” Lair said. “This indicates the Iranians are a generation behind where previous assessments thought they were in accuracy.”
The poor performance may be attributable to electronic warfare measures designed to confuse the missile’s guidance system, as well as potential sabotage, poor missile design and the distances involved in the attack.
What’s next
In the past, Iranian threats to retaliate against Israel generally took the form of either attacks by Iranian-backed forces in the Mideast or assaults aimed at Israeli targets elsewhere, such as embassies or tourists aboard.
Geography limits the options for a direct Iranian military attack. Iran shares no border with Israel, and the two countries are some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) apart at the shortest distance.
Iran’s air force has an aging fleet led by F-14 Tomcats and Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets from the Cold War, but they would be no match for Israel’s F-35Is and its air defenses. That means Iran again would need to rely on missiles and long-range drones.
It could also enlist help from allied militias such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels to overwhelm Israel’s defenses. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged heavy fire on Aug. 25.
Always present in the background is the risk that Tehran could develop a nuclear weapon, a threat that Iranian officials have repeated 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.
US intelligence agencies said in a report in July that Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” However, building a weapon and miniaturizing it to put on a ballistic missile could take years.
“Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the region and continues to emphasize improving the accuracy, lethality and reliability of these systems,” the report from the director of national intelligence said. “Iran probably is incorporating lessons learned” from the April attack.
 

 


Sudan extends opening of Adre crossing for aid delivery

Sudan extends opening of Adre crossing for aid delivery
Updated 9 sec ago
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Sudan extends opening of Adre crossing for aid delivery

Sudan extends opening of Adre crossing for aid delivery

DUBAI: Sudan’s sovereign council said on Wednesday it would extend the use of the Adre border crossing with Chad, seen as essential by aid agencies for the delivery of food and other supplies to areas at risk of famine in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.
Experts determined earlier this year that while more than 25 million people across the country face acute hunger, several parts of the country are at increased risk of famine, and that one camp in the Darfur region was already in its throes, the consequence of war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Adre, which was closed by an order from the army-controlled government in February, was re-opened for
three months
in August until November 15, and it had not been clear whether that period would be extended.
Members of the government have protested against the opening, saying it allows for the RSF to deliver weapons.
However, the Sudanese army is not in physical control of the border crossing which lies within territory seized last year by the RSF, which controls most of Darfur.
Aid agencies decided against ignoring directives from the internationally recognized government, and had been bracing themselves for closure of the corridor, seen as a more efficient route than cross-line deliveries from army-controlled Port Sudan or the more remote Al-Tina border crossing.
The re-opening of Adre in August coincided with the rainy season and the destruction of several roads and bridges, meaning that
aid trickled in
at the start.
More than 300 aid trucks with supplies for more than 1.3 million people have since crossed into Sudan through Adre, according to UN humanitarian coordination official Ramesh Rajasingham in a briefing to the Security Council on Tuesday.
The World Food Programme on Saturday moved a convoy of 15 trucks across Adre with food and nutrition for 12,500 people in famine-stricken Zamzam camp, said spokeswoman Leni Kinzli to reporters on Tuesday.


Blinken: Israel has met its goals in Gaza, time to end the war

Blinken: Israel has met its goals in Gaza, time to end the war
Updated 55 min 47 sec ago
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Blinken: Israel has met its goals in Gaza, time to end the war

Blinken: Israel has met its goals in Gaza, time to end the war
  • He called for “real and extended pauses” in fighting to allow essential humanitarian aid to reach those affected by the hostilities

DUBAI: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Israel has achieved its objectives in Gaza and that it is now time to pursue an end to the ongoing war.

Blinken said that ending the conflict would be the most effective means of addressing the urgent needs of Gaza’s civilian population.

He called for “real and extended pauses” in fighting to allow essential humanitarian aid to reach those affected by the hostilities and said that Israel holds an ongoing responsibility to facilitate this assistance, urging sustained efforts to address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

Blinken also called for increased international pressure on Hamas, seeking “genuine, sustained, and effective pressure” to cease hostilities. He said that achieving peace requires cooperation from all parties involved, with humanitarian access as a central priority.


Russia asks Israel to avoid air strikes near Syrian base

Russia asks Israel to avoid air strikes near Syrian base
Updated 13 November 2024
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Russia asks Israel to avoid air strikes near Syrian base

Russia asks Israel to avoid air strikes near Syrian base
  • Israel has carried out intensive bombing of Syria but rarely targets Latakia
  • Latakia, and in particular its airport, is close to the town of Hmeimim that hosts a Russian air base

MOSCOW: Russia has asked Israel to avoid launching aerial strikes as part of its war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah near one of Moscow’s bases in Syria, a top official said Wednesday.
Syrian state media in mid-October claimed that Israel had struck the port city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad, who is supported by Russia and in turn backs Hezbollah.
Latakia, and in particular its airport, is close to the town of Hmeimim that hosts a Russian air base.
“Israel actually carried out an air strike in the immediate vicinity of Hmeimim,” Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy in the Near East, told the RIA Novosti press agency.
“Our military has of course notified Israeli authorities that such acts that put Russian military lives in danger over there are unacceptable,” he added.
“That is why we hope that this incident in October will not be repeated.”
Israel has carried out intensive bombing of Syria but rarely targets Latakia, to the northwest of Damascus.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of transporting weapons through Syria.
The two warring parties have been in open conflict since September after Israel’s year-long Gaza war with Hamas — a Hezbollah ally — escalated to a new front.
Lavrentiev said that Russia’s air base was not being used to supply Hezbollah with weapons.
Israel stepped up strikes on Syria at the same time as targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian government forces and groups supported by its arch-foe Iran, notably Hezbollah troops that have been deployed to assist Assad’s regime.
Israel rarely comments on its strikes but has said it will not allow Iran to extend its presence to Syria.


Lebanon says at least six killed in Israeli strike south of Beirut

Lebanon says at least six killed in Israeli strike south of Beirut
Updated 13 November 2024
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Lebanon says at least six killed in Israeli strike south of Beirut

Lebanon says at least six killed in Israeli strike south of Beirut

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike killed at least six people on Wednesday in a densely-packed area south of the capital Beirut, outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Aramoun killed six people” and wounded 15 others, the ministry said giving a preliminary toll, adding that “body parts were recovered from the site and their identities are being verified.”

The Israeli army on Wednesday told residents of parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs to leave, the third such warning in 24 hours.
“You are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah, against which the Israel Defense Forces (military) will act in the near future,” army spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a post on X that included a map of the areas in question.


Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns

Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns
Updated 13 November 2024
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Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns

Northern Gaza at grave risk of Israeli atrocities of ‘the most serious nature,’ UN warns
  • ‘Horrific possibility’ of famine cannot be separated from unrelenting Israeli attacks on the human rights of Palestinians, Security Council hears
  • Systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure is directly contributing to threat of starvation, human rights official tells council members

NEW YORK CITY: Not only are Israeli authorities seeking to clear northern Gaza of Palestinians by displacing them to the south of the territory, but their actions pose a grave risk of atrocities of “the most serious nature,” the UN warned on Tuesday. 

Ilze Brands Kehris, the organization’s assistant secretary-general for human rights, urged all states to assess their arms sales or transfers “with a view to ending such support if this risks serious violations of international law.”

Speaking during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the growing risk of famine in Gaza, she described the humanitarian and human rights situation for Palestinians across the battered enclave as “catastrophic.”

The meeting followed an alert issued at the weekend by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Famine Review Committee, which said there was “a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip.” It called for the international community to act “in days, not weeks” to address this threat.

Figures verified by the UN Human Rights Office reveal that almost 70 percent of those killed in Gaza since the war began in October last year were children, mostly between the ages of 5 and 9 years old, or women. According to the Palestinian health ministry, the total death toll from the conflict stands at least 43,000 Palestinians, and more than 100,000 have been injured.

However, these figures are likely to be “a serious understatement,” Brands Kehris told the Security Council, because the bodies of many other victims are thought to be buried under rubble.

Nearly 1.9 million people in Gaza have been displaced, many of them repeatedly, including pregnant women, people with disabilities, the elderly and children, she said. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes on shelters and residential buildings continue to kill unconscionable numbers of civilians, she added: women, men, young and old.

“Attacks on so-called ‘safe zones’ prove that nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Brands Kehris said.

The destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure by the Israeli military — including facilities that enjoy protected status under international law, such as hospitals, schools and vital services such as including power supplies, water and sewage — is directly contributing to the risk of famine, she added.

In addition, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of medical personnel, civilian police officers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers, including more than 220 UN staff, she said, and thousands of Palestinians have been taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded, where they are held incommunicado.

“Meanwhile, there is constant and continued interference with the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance, which has fallen to some of the lowest levels in a year,” Brands Kehris added.

“The cumulative impact of more than a year of destruction in Gaza has taken an enormous toll. Basic services for Palestinians in Gaza, the fabric of society, have been decimated. Conditions of life, particularly in northern Gaza, are increasingly not fit for survival.

“This horrific possibility cannot be separated from the unrelenting attacks on the human rights of civilians there.”

Over the past five weeks, she said, Israeli strikes have resulted in massive civilian fatalities in northern Gaza, particularly among women, children, the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities, many of whom are reportedly “trapped by Israeli military restrictions and attacks on escape routes.”

She added: “The pattern and the frequency of these reported attacks suggest the systematic targeting of locations known, or which should have been known, as sheltering significant numbers of civilians, coupled with the continued use of weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas.

“The Israeli military has also conducted repeated attacks on the three major hospitals in the area and on other vital infrastructure, while unlawfully restricting the entry and distribution of humanitarian assistance to northern Gaza.”

Brands Kehris echoed a call by the high commissioner for human rights for an end to the war, the release of Israeli hostages, and the urgent delivery and distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza “by all routes.”

There must also be “due reckoning” over allegations of serious violations of international law, she said, overseen by “credible and impartial judicial authorities.”

She added: “In line with the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and the General Assembly resolution, Israel must end its continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, allowing the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.”