The rain of missiles launched by Iran against Israel on the night of the 1stAhem of October 2 constituted, according to most military experts, a show of force but also a revealer of Iranian military weaknesses. Following Tehran’s response to the Israeli offensive in Lebanon and the elimination, in recent weeks, of the Hezbollah hierarchy – one of its most powerful replacements in the Middle East – the Iranian arsenal seems as feared as it is limited and poses a series of questions about the risks of the conflict evolving.
While in April, during a first response in the form of attacks against Israel, Iran seemed to have retained its strength and, above all, tried to assert itself, this time the analysis is completely different. By firing about 200 ballistic missiles – compared to 120 in the spring – Tehran “intended to harm and kill Israelis”estimates Tom Karako, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American research center.
Thanks to its different layers of anti-missile defense – Iron Dome, Slingshot system and David’s Arrow – Israel was able to counter a good part of these projectiles. The United States also contributed. On October 2, the Pentagon said it had fired a dozen interceptors from destroyers deployed at sea between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Oman. But some Iranian missiles still penetrated Israeli defenses, digging clearly visible craters. With this offensive, Iran was able to demonstrate the credibility of its arsenal, developed largely in the shadow of international sanctions that have been tightened against the regime since 2006.
A large stock
Launched in 1983, in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) to respond to Iraqi missile attacks, the Iranian missile program is today made up of dozens of types of rockets, ballistic and cruise missiles, whose stock is estimated at several thousand units. . Organized around buried sites, sometimes 500 meters underground, according to the Iranian regime, it is one of the most diverse and important in the Middle East. An arsenal probably ” built with “foreign aid” according to Mr. Karako, and who is he? “a threat to Israel but also to other countries in the region, such as Saudi Arabia”continues this missile defense specialist.
Iran has demonstrated this during attacks targeting several countries in the region. In September 2019, its drones and cruise missiles damaged the Khurais oil site and the giant Abqaiq refinery in Saudi Arabia, defeating the country’s missile defenses, including American Patriot systems. Since 2020, Tehran has also launched dozens of attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria using different types of weapons, including ballistic missiles.
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