Iran has ‘several hundred’ missiles left in its arsenal

Tehran threatens missile strikes after Trump issues a nuclear ultimatum and deploys B-2 bombers.

 

By Yaakov Lappin 
 

As US President Donald Trump gives Iran a two-month ultimatum regarding its nuclear program and moves heavy stealth bombers into position to warn Tehran about the consequences of failing to reach a deal, it has increased its threats to fire missiles in response.

Trump issued a stark warning to Tehran during an NBC News interview on March 30, saying, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be a bombing.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded the same day, saying, “Direct negotiations have been rejected, but Iran has always been involved in indirect negotiations, and now too,” while confirming that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is allowing indirect contacts.

The Ayatollah regime has used Iran’s underground missile infrastructures in recent days to issue threats, with the state-run Tehran Times stating on March 31 that “Iranian missiles are loaded onto launchers in all underground missile cities and are ready for launch.”

RADM. (ret.) Dr. Eyal Pinko, a senior researcher at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan university, who served in the Israeli Navy for 23 years, estimated on Wednesday that Iran has “several hundred missiles” left in its arsenal, after firing some 300 missiles and drones at Israel on April 13, 2024, and another 200 missiles on October 1, 2024, constitution two of the largest missile strikes in history.

The attacks featured some of Iran’s most advanced missiles, including the liquid-fuelled Emad, a variant of the Ghader missile (itself a variant of the Shahab 3), the Khorramshahr 2 missile (a solid-fuel missile based on the Fateh 110), and likely use of the Fatah 1 Iranian hypersonic missile.

Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system intercepted the majority of the threats in both attacks, with the assistance of the United States and regional states, which also downed some of the threats.

Israel responded on Oct. 26 with broad waves of strikes in Iran, targeting Iran’s air defense systems and missile solid fuel factories, as well as, according to media reports, a site at Parchin linked to the nuclear program.

 “The Iranians produced hundreds—many hundreds—of missiles, of different types and ranges,” Pinko told JNS on Thursday. He added that “in the Iranian ballistic missile industry, more than ten thousand  engineers work in its various factories.”

Iran’s missile development, Pinko said, reflects and understanding of “the Israeli defense array that is built on three layers,” he noted. “There’s the Arrow system, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome. They understand the limitations and capabilities in general.”

Pinko added that Iran developed missiles with warheads that split off in the air as well as a missile “that looks like three or four missiles” due to dummy warheads, designed to make it more difficult for radar systems such as Arrow’s Green Pine to identify the true threat.

Pinko warned that Iranian warheads  “maneuver as they enter the atmosphere and start flying a certain path, not just falling like a regular ballistic missile.”

The Iranian ballistic missile launch network “is mostly mobile,” said Pinko, with mobile launchers, but also anchored by “silo sites buried in the ground.” Iran has built a network of tunnels under heavy concrete around the country, where they store all the missiles.

Iran can “fuel the missiles, prepare them, and do all the pre-launch checks inside the sites,” before rapidly launching above ground, and retreating underground, said Pinko. “They raise the missile on the launcher, three or four minutes, fire, and after a few minutes, once the launcher has cooled, they return underground.”

Defeating this network, Pinko stressed, would depend on “knowing where the tunnels are—entrances, exits, and their paths,” and would require the use of “very hard bunker-penetrating bombs,” noting that such a campaign would be “not trivial at all.”

Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Washington DC-based Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JNS that Iran’s arsenal of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) capable of striking Israel was already limited and had been significantly degraded by the Israeli operations in October 2024. “Presumably the number is worryingly low from Iran’s perspective,” Ruhe said, “even before its two major strikes last year.”

He noted that Iran’s reliance on a limited number of launchers added to its challenge. “Iran only has a finite number of launchers for these MRBMs, and the aboveground launch preparations for attacks can be detected fairly readily by the United States and Israel, as we saw twice last year.”

Looking ahead, now that Iran’s network of proxies has been severely degraded, Ruhe assessed that “Iran likely will focus on making its ballistic missiles more survivable against Israeli defenses, prioritizing quality over quantity by necessity.” He said Iran would try “to improve the maneuverability of its warheads, and to aim entire barrages at single targets.” According to Ruhe, “Iran’s October strike was more effective than its strike on Israel last April.”

Ruhe also pointed out the unique vulnerability of US bases and Arab allies in the Gulf, compared to Israel. “Iran has lots of short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) that can be launched in a ‘bolt from the blue’ from its underground missile cities at US bases and other targets throughout the Gulf and Iraq,” he said. “Unlike with Israel, many of these targets lack sophisticated, multi-layered defenses like Arrow and David’s Sling.”

Asked whether Iranian underground missile cities would be targeted in a future confrontation, Ruhe said, “‘Missile cities’ with ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles very likely would be targets, since these are Iran’s primary retaliatory capabilities.” He added that “other nodes of Iran’s missile production chain could be targeted as well, like Israel did last October.”

Ruhe affirmed that the regional air defense network had improved since Israel’s integration into CENTCOM, the US military organization in the Middle East, in 2021, enabling “Israel and Arab countries to coordinate on detecting and intercepting Iranian launches.” Though better integration is still needed, he said the collective response to Iran’s massive attacks last year “provided great proof of concept.”

Iran released new video footage on March 25 showing a massive underground missile facility, the fourth of its kind revealed publicly this year, according to the Washington DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The video featured Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, Tehran’s Armed Forces chief of staff, and Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, surveys rows of ballistic missiles.

Bagheri stated, “Iran’s iron fist is … ten times stronger than True Promise I,” [the name of the April 2024 attack by Iran against Israel] adding that “all the dimensions that are required for generating a [military] capability that is 10 times [stronger than] the one deployed during Operation True Promise II [the October 1 2024 attack, have] been created.”

The facility displayed various ballistic missile types, including the Ghadr H, Emad, Haj Qassem, Kheibar Shekan, Sejjil, and the Paveh land-attack cruise missile. Several of these were used in the April and October 2024 Iranian missile attacks against Israel.

Amid speculation about possible strikes, the US Air Force confirmed on March 31 that B-2 Spirit bombers had arrived at Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, with the US Air Force Global Strike Command noting that the bombers would support operations “to deter, detect and, if necessary, defeat strategic attacks against the United States and its allies.”