A chilling new threat triggered global concern this week, with Israel claiming Iran possesses ballistic missiles capable of hitting European cities, including London.
“The IDF revealed that the Iranian regime has intentions to develop missiles with a range of 4000km, which pose a danger to dozens of countries in Europe, Asia and Africa. The Iranian regime denied this,” the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) wrote on X.
“We have been saying it: The Iranian terrorist regime poses a global threat. Now, with missiles that can reach London, Paris or Berlin.”
The warning came after two ballistic missiles were fired towards the joint US-UK Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, nearly 4000km from Iran.
British Minister Steve Reed said one missile “fell short” while another missile was “intercepted”.
Israel and the UK claimed Iran was behind the foiled attack, which would mark the nation’s “furthest ever” attempted missile strike, according the Institute for the Study of War.
However, Tehran has denied the allegations, dismissing it as a “Israeli false flag” attack.
Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, UK time, UK Defence Secretary John Healey declined three opportunities to confirm or deny whether Iran has missiles capable of striking London.
“(There is) no assessment that Iran has any plans to attack,” he said when pressed for the third time.
“We have the resources, we have the alliance in place to be able to defend Britain and we do that with allies and we do that with NATO.”
His comments came after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told CBS Newsthat NATO “cannot confirm” whether Iran fired the missiles, but said it was, at the very least, “very close” to having the capability to bomb European cities.
“This case with the UK base, Diego Garcia, we are still assessing. But if it is true, it means they already have that capability. If it is not true, we know they are very close to having that capability,” he said.
“And that is exactly why I feel in Europe, that most politicians, it resonates with them. What the President is doing here, which is taking out – degrading Iran’s capability to be, again, an exporter of chaos, sheer chaos to the region, to the world.”
Speaking to news.com.au, Dr Oleksandra Molloy, a drone warfare expert and senior lecturer in aviation at the University of New South Wales, believes Iran’s missile capability is just out of reach of striking London now.
But she warned the strikes send a “strategic message” that Tehran has been working on its intercontinental ballistic missile capability.
“If it were true (that the missiles were fired by Iran), Iran showed it has moved beyond regional deterrence, where it’s referring only to Israel, the Gulf and the Middle East, to intercontinental reach,” she said.
“It is a signal of the possible capability of their modified systems … It’s the strategic message that we are developing. We have this capability.”
For this reason, she believes the missiles may never have been intended to successfully strike the Diego Garcia base.
“It was a no-impact but big signal (attack) that raises those strategic concerns and wider escalation warnings. So it may have been done with the intent of demonstration rather than the intent to heavily damage that base.”
Dr Molloy said the alleged Iranian strike is also a sign the nation is “no longer constrained” by what she described as a “soft cap” on ballistic missiles, which was self-imposed by Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“It is signalling to the world that the new leadership in Tehran is willing to push its reach and warn them that nowhere is particularly safe with this range and with this limit,” she said.
The 2000km limit was imposed by Mr Khamenei – who was killed in US-Israeli air strikes last month and replaced by his son – in 2017 to avoid confrontation with Europe. The range includes much of the Middle East and US and Israeli military facilities in the region, but does not extend to the US or Europe.
However, despite the self-imposed limit, Dr Molloy noted Iran possesses Khorramshahr ballistic missiles, which have ben reported to have a capability of 3000km.
One of the largest missile arsenals in the Middle East
Iran currently possesses one of the largest and most diverse missile arsenals in the Middle East, believed to currently produce around 40 to 60 missiles per month.
“The number and particular capability will be classified, but what we hear from reports is that before the US-Israel-Iran conflict, they had approximately 3,00 ballistic missiles, and half of that has already been used,” she said.
Dr Molloy said Iran is transitioning from rockets to precision-guided munitions, which are more effective at striking targets at shorter ranges.
Their fleet consists of short-range ballistic missiles, which can fly from about 500 to 1000km, including Fateh and Shahab-2 systems as well as medium-range ballistic missiles, which have ranges of about 1000km to 3000km, including the Shahab-3 and Khorramshahr systems.
“When we think about why Iran has got so advanced, it’s because for decades, Iran has had sanctions, so it’s forced them into engineering and producing domestically. So you get that domestic innovation continuously and they also turn to North Korean designs,” Dr Molloy said.
As well as precision-guided ballistic missiles, Iran also relies on drones – of which they were able to produce 12,000 a month before the war – to try to overwhelm US air defences.
“Iran reportedly use five drones for every one ballistic missile … It’s really the saturation tactic designed to drain both the US and Israeli inventory of expensive interceptors.”
How long can Iran go before it runs out of missiles?
Earlier this month, the White House claimed Iran’s ballistic missile capacity has been “functionally destroyed” in the ongoing war and there was “complete and total aerial dominance over Iran”.
However, US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told press on Thursday Iran still retained some missile capability.
“Clearly they came into this fight with a lot of weapons. This is why we continue to be as aggressive and assertive as we can against their ballistic missile capability, both their medium range ballistic missile capability and their short range missile capability,” he said.
“So, we are continuing to hunt and find them and kill them, and we will continue to do so.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Iran’s missile and drone arsenals were “massively degraded”.
“Hundreds of their launchers have been destroyed. Their stockpiles of missiles are being hit hard, and so are the industries that produce them,” he said at a press conference on Thursday.
With Iranian stocks draining, Dr Molloy predicts its own ballistic missile stockpile could be exhausted within the coming weeks.
“Iran first of all has moved to their concept of a distributed manufacturing model. What it means is that their drone and missile parts are made in small decentralised workshops across the country, potentially underground as well, making it impossible for US and Israel’s air strike to shut down those production entirely,” she said.
“However, if we think about under heavy bombardment and continuous strikes, maybe high volume drone launches they could sustain for a month. But their supply of high and ballistic missiles would likely be exhausted sooner, which is weeks of total war,” she said, adding that the time frame could be extended if Iran was working with allies.
How concerned should Europe be?
Dr Molloy said while it may be theoretically possible for Iran to develop enough capability to strike London, a successful attack on Europe is not very likely.
“Accuracy of missiles degrades with extreme ranges. There is also air defence and air missile defence that would potentially intervene before anything happened,” she said.
However, she warned drones in particular can be launched from different platforms and could potentially be used to strike targets in the Gulf or Europe.
“Because drones can be launched from anywhere and anytime under different conditions, whether this would be some shipping containers that would be travelling in the seas and oceans around Europe or US. Or as we’ve seen with (Ukraine’s) Operation Spiderweb, they can be launched internally inside the country. So this is a big threat,” she warned.
“Their reach is becoming longer, their speed is becoming faster, and those faster threats are very difficult to intercept.”
