Tehran: Even as negotiations get underway in Islamabad to try and end the Middle East crisis, fresh assessments suggest that Iran still retains significant military capability.
American officials, familiar with Intelligence reports, have told the Wall Street Journal that Iran continues to hold thousands of ballistic missiles, despite weeks of conflict.
The war that went on for nearly six weeks has reduced Iran’s military strength, but has not eliminated it altogether. While more than half of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed, damaged or trapped underground, many of the remaining launchers can be repaired or retrieved from underground storage sites, officials said.
Iran also continues to hold thousands of short and medium-range ballistic missiles that could be deployed if needed, despite its stockpile being cut roughly in half.
Iran still has more than 1,000 of the roughly 2,500 medium-range missiles it had at the start of the war, Israeli officials believe.
While US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has said Iran’s missile programme is “functionally destroyed” and nearly ineffective, intelligence assessments suggest otherwise, as reported by News 18.
It has been estimated that Iran’s drone capability has also been reduced. Officials say it now has well under half of the one-way attack drones it possessed at the start of the conflict. This is due to both heavy use and strikes on production facilities. Iran could, however, acquire similar systems from external sources such as Russia.
It has been reported that the country also retains a small number of cruise missiles, which could be used to target ships in the Persian Gulf or US forces if talks collapse.
Iran’s underground missile facilities have posed a key challenge for US and Israeli forces. Many of these are located deep inside mountains, making them difficult to destroy.
While air strikes have targeted tunnel exits to block launchers, the bases themselves remain largely intact. This has allowed Iran to preserve part of its capability.
