Iranian Revolutionary Guards Tout Success Turning Israeli Air Defences to Destroy Each Other

Following a second day of ballistic missile strikes on Israeli territory, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps which operates the country’s arsenal has reported the use of “new methods” to accelerate the depletion of Israeli air defences. This was achieved by making anti-missile systems’ surface-to-air missiles shoot down one another, thus also increasing the success rates of missile attacks against Israeli targets. “During this operation, thanks to the use of new methods and capabilities in intelligence and equipment, the multi-level defense command and control systems of the enemy failed and began to attack each other,” the Guard Corps announced. The credibility of these claims, and whether any anti-ballistic missiles have hit one another, or simply been wasted, remains uncertain. Missile strikes began to be launched from Iran in response to Israeli air strikes on multiple Iranian targets on June 13, including government agencies, the residences of scientists and officials, military bases, and nuclear power plants. The Guard Corps has born the brunt of responsibility for launching retaliatory strikes, and operates Iran’s entire ballistic missile arsenal, as well as the bulk of its fleet of attack drones.

The relatively small size of Israeli territory and the very high concentration of missile defence assets both on land and at sea makes it one of the most densely defended targets in the world, posing a significant challenge to the Guard Corps’ missile arsenal. Iranian missiles have nevertheless been able to penetrate Israeli air defences at a considerable rate, despite significant support being provided by U.S. Army THAAD anti-missile systems deployed in Israel, and U.S. Navy AEGIS destroyers at sea. The successful evasion of this multi-layered air defence network in very limited prior Yemeni missile attacks, however, set an unfavourable precedent and reportedly shook Israeli confidence in its defences. Israel has requested greater support from its strategic partners in the Western world to intercept Iranian missile attacks, with the U.S. Navy expected to dispatch more destroyers armed with SM-3 and SM-6 anti-ballistic missiles to the Eastern Mediterranean for this purpose. The possibility of greater American support being provided beyond intelligence, aerial refuelling, arms supplies and missile defence has been widely speculated.

The growing success rates which Iranian missile strikes have reportedly had has been interpreted by a number of analysts as an indication that Israeli air defences have begun to falter, either due to growing shortages, or as Iran has begun to utilise some of its more advanced missile classes with superior evasive capabilities. Iran not only has a medium range missile arsenal estimated to be an order of magnitude larger than the number of suitable surface-to-air missiles deployed in Israel, but its missiles cost significantly less than Israeli and American interceptors to produce, and in most cases just a fraction as much. This combined with the fact that multiple interceptors are usually required to shoot down a single missile places the Revolutionary Guard Corps in a strong position to cause massive damage to Israeli targets by sustaining missile barrages, and depleting Israel’s missile defences arsenal to exhaustion. The Israeli Air Force and its limited special forces on the ground in Iran are as a result under significant pressure to seek to either cause sufficient damage in major population centres to force Tehran to yield, or to sufficiently devastate the Iranian missile arsenal by attacking major bases and storehouses.