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31-10-2024
TEHRAN/ DUBAI: Iran’s missile production has not been disrupted following Israeli air strikes on the Islamic Republic on Oct. 26, Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh was quoted as saying on Wednesday by state media.
On Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant congratulated Israeli pilots for damaging Iran’s production capabilities in airstrikes meant to respond to Iran’s Oct. 1 missile barrage against Israel.
“Their supplies are now set, and this affects their calculus. Both their attack and defensive capabilities have been weakened,” Gallant said.
Two American researchers told Reuters last week that Israeli air strikes hit buildings that Iran used for mixing solid fuel for ballistic missiles and that this “may have significantly hampered Iran’s ability to mass produce missiles”.
“The enemy has sought to hurt both our defensive and offensive systems but was not very successful because we had made arrangements and were in the know,” Iran’s defence minister said on Wednesday.
“The (production) knowledge is indigenous, so there is no disruption in the manufacturing process of missiles,” Nasirzadeh said, also implying that a defence system may have been damaged in the attack as he said it was “replaced the day after”.
Iranian state media also reported on Tuesday that Nasirzadeh said the country was still able “to carry a dozen more missile barrages” against Israel as seen on Oct. 1 and April 13. Iran is at a disadvantage that can be exploited in the future after Israeli airstrikes over the weekend, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said two days ago. “You have conducted accurate strikes on their radars and air defence systems, which creates a huge disadvantage for the enemy when we will want to strike later,” a statement released by Gallant’s office quoted the defence minister as saying during a meeting with air force chiefs.
“You have also damaged their production capabilities, which changes the balance of power. Their supplies are now set, and this affects their calculus. Both their attack and defensive capabilities have been weakened.”
Iran has said Saturday’s airstrikes caused limited damage. A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday that Tehran would “use all available tools” to respond.
Israel’s air strikes responded to an Iranian missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, the Iranian ballistic missile attack against Israel on Tuesday was larger, more complex and involved more advanced weapons than the strikes in April, experts say, putting greater stress on missile defences and allowing more warheads to get through.
Although debris from the more than 180 missiles is still being collected and analyzed, experts say the latest attacks appear to have used Iran’s Fattah-1 and Kheybarshekan missiles, both of which have a reported range of about 1,400 kilometres (870 miles).
Iran has said both missiles have manoeuvring warheads, which can make defence more difficult, and use solid fuel, meaning they can be launched with little warning.
“Shorter launch prep means those missiles arrive all at once to further stress the defence,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The (warheads) can manoeuvre a bit to complicate interceptor allocation and manoeuvring means they can strike with better accuracy to actually hit targets after they are through.” (Int’l News Desk)
