Iran's missile launchers forced to pull back from danger zone

Three types of weapon, including hypersonic missiles, are now too far away to hit Tehran's enemy

Iran's surface-to-surface Fateh-1 missile. Following Israeli air strikes in western Iran, these have been forced out of range of Tel Aviv and other cities. AFP

Israeli air strikes in western Iran have forced Tehran to move its ballistic missiles to central areas to avoid destruction.

In doing so, three of its weapons have been left unable to reach targets within Israel.

Besides the 20-missile barrage that struck an Israeli hospital on Thursday, Iran has been unable to mount large-scale or effective strikes.

The military has been forced to fire from the Isfahan area of central Iran, about 1,600km from Israeli targets.

Its more advanced missiles, the Fatah-1 and Haj Qasem, would now fall short with a range of only 1,400km, as well as the Kheibar Shekan, which can reach distances of 1,450km.

The Fatah-1 has been touted as a hypersonic missile with the capability to fly at very high speeds – approaching 18,600kph – while being able to manoeuvre mid-flight, making them difficult to intercept.

Firefighters at the scene of an Iranian missile attack on Israel. Reuters

Liquid missiles

These missiles are also the more precise medium-range weapons and, being solid fuel, are easier to transport, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iranian-American analyst based in the US.

“Iran doesn't have many medium-range ballistic missiles on the higher end of the range cap that are solid fuel, so they are now using the liquid-fuel ones,” he said.

Liquid-fuel missiles are less accurate and take more time to launch because they have to be filled with propellant on-site as transporting them already fuelled is too dangerous.

“That makes them more vulnerable to launch and that's why the Israelis have had a lot of success as you can actually spot these things being launched. You can destroy them there before they even take off,” Mr Ben Taleblu added.

Launchers down

The situation further deteriorated for the Tehran regime after Israeli claims that it has destroyed half of all its launchers and up to 40 per cent of its missile stockpile.

Iran is now left with using the Emad (1,700km range) and Ghadr (1,950km range) weapons, which use liquid fuel and are vulnerable and difficult to transport.

At 2,000km, the solid-fuelled Sejjil-1 has the greatest range and was used in a solitary attack for the first time on Wednesday, which “may reflect Iran’s need to launch longer-range missiles from deeper inside Iranian territory”, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said in a report.

“Iran has recently used fewer missiles to attack Israel because it is having difficulty co-ordinating large attacks on Israel, not because Iran is conserving its remaining ballistic missile stockpile,” it added.

In its first retaliation attack responding to Israel’s surprise operation on Friday last week, Iran fired 200 missiles, followed by 75 the next day and 94 on Sunday, which in total resulted in 24 Israeli civilian deaths.

But on Monday it managed only 22, another 47 on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, before Thursday’s 20-rocket barrage.

Furthermore, Israel has targeted ballistic missile factories to prevent Iran from replenishing its dwindling stockpile.

Analysts believe Iran will now be reluctant to use up its remaining long-range stockpile unless it comes to view the conflict with Israel as an existential threat.

Mr Ben Taleblu argued that Iran’s missile stockpile was now probably below 1,000, as Tehran “needs to preserve something in terms of their capability and capacity to defend the regime in their mind, in a post-conflict scenario”.