Iran carried out several waves of ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel in the evening of Friday, June 13 and into the morning of June 14. This was in response to the attack by Israel in the early morning hours of June 13.
Tehran has dubbed its strikes Operation True Promise III. This follows the other two attacks on Israel by Iran in October and April of 2024. In the April attack, it used around 500 munitions of various types, most of them ballistic missiles and drones. In October, the attack was primarily by hundreds of ballistic missiles.
Iranian state media on June 14 celebrated the attacks. Iran has taken losses over the last two days but it is trying to respond. It says it has successfully hit targets in response to “Israeli aggression.” Iran says 78 Iranians were killed in the Israeli attacks. It has sent its envoy to the UN to try to get international condemnation of Israel. Tehran also appointed new commanders to replace the ones killed by Israel. Iran claims Israel is being “pummeled” by its strikes.
The Islamic Republic has thousands of ballistic missiles and likely has a large number of drones. Not all of them have a range that can reach Israel, however. The drones are mostly of the delta-wing Shahed 136 or a similar type that Iran developed in recent years. This is a kamikaze drone where the drone itself is the warhead. It is likely pre-programmed for flight and doesn’t require a communications link, making it hard to jam. However, it is slow moving, so it can be shot down by any conventional weapon. It can also likely be downed by laser air defenses.
Iran has many types of ballistic missiles, both liquid and solid fueled. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement to Tasnim News that it had carried out an operation against Israel in which “the missile and drone units of the IRGC Aerospace Force employed a combination of precision-guided and smart missile systems to strike military centers, airbases used as launch sites for the criminal aggression against our nation.”
It is not clear which types of missiles Iran has used against Israel. However, Fabian Hinz, an expert on drones and missiles pointed out in a post on X/Twitter that one of the targets of Israel’s strikes in Iran appeared to be a Haj Qasem missile launcher. In a post about a photo of a debris of an Iranian missile, he noted it could be a “Fattah or Kheibar Shekan solid-propellant medium-range ballistic missile rear section.” Iran used such a solid-fuel missile to strike Syria in January 2024, unveiling its capabilities. It had first announced this missile back in February 2022.
What kind of missiles does Iran have in its arsenals?
IN APRIL 2024, it is believed Iran may have used several types of missiles, including the Emad, Ghadr-110, Kheiber Shekan and one of its Shahab missiles. Iran’s Press TV claimed that in the October attack on the Jewish state, Iran used many kinds of missiles, including “the Ghadr missile family, introduced in 2005..., an improved variant of the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile, which Iranian military forces have used since 2003.
“It is a two-stage rocket with a liquid-fuel first stage and a solid-fuel second stage, produced in three types: Ghadr-S with a range of 1,350 km., Ghadr-H with 1,650 km., and Ghadr-F with 1,950 km. The Ghadr missile measures between 15.86 and 16.58 meters in length and has an airframe diameter of 1.25 meters, with an overall weight of 15 to 17.5 tons.” It said the Emad liquid fueled missile, which it calls an improved version of the Ghadr, was also used.
It also claimed Iran may have used the Fattah-1 “hypersonic” missile. In a January 2024 article at the BESA center, Uzi Rubin noted that the Ghadr is a more advanced version of Iran’s Shahab 3. A senior researcher at the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA Center), Rubin is a former founder and director of the Arrow project in Israel’s Defense Ministry and an expert on missile defense systems. He noted that the Shahab is based on a North Korean design, and described the Emad as the “precision version” of the Ghadr, noting that the Ghadr was not very accurate.
“Unlike the two types mentioned above,” Rubin pointed out, “the Khaibar Shekan (the name of which translates to ‘Destroyer of the Jews’) is not of North Korean origin. It comes from Iran’s own military industry. This missile is an enlarged version of the Fatah 110 precision rocket, which, in turn, is a precision version of the Zelzal heavy unguided rocket that starred in the 2006 Lebanon War.”
Iran has improved the guidance for the Fatah 110 and has used these missiles in attacks on Kurdish dissidents in Iraq. Tehran also has long-range cruise missiles, such as the Quds family. It used the Fateh 313 and Qiam ballistic missiles in its attacks on Al-Asad base in Iraq in 2020 when it targeted US troops.