Iran has nearly replenished ballistic missile arsenal – report

Iran will soon possess 2,000 ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel, according to report, bringing its arsenal back to the ante bellum level.

By World Israel News Staff

The Iranian military has nearly restored its ballistic missile stockpile to the prewar level, Israel’s Channel 13 News reported on Friday.

On the eve of the 12-day June war between Israel and Iran, the Islamic Republic was estimated to have upwards of 2,000 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israeli territory.

Over 500 missiles were launched toward Israel during the war, with additional projectiles destroyed by Israeli airstrikes.

Now, however, just five months later, Iran is on track to bring its arsenal back up to 2,000 ballistic missiles. Within several months, according to the report, Iran is expected to top that figure, boasting an arsenal larger than on the eve of the war.

The report claimed that few ballistic missiles were destroyed by Israel’s strikes on Iran, with many projectiles stored in tunnels merely being temporarily cut off as a result of cave-ins caused by the airstrikes.

Iran has since worked to retrieve and repair the missiles impacted by the tunnel cave-ins.

Last week, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, boasted that Iran has significantly bolstered its ballistic missile arsenal in terms of not only quantity, but also quality.

“Our missiles are in a better position, quantity-wise and quality-wise,” Araghchi told The Economist in an interview published on Thursday.

Araghchi added that his country was now “better” prepared for a war with Israel than it was five months ago, stating that Iran has learned “many lessons” from the 12-day conflict.

“We have learned many lessons during the 12-day war. We understood our weak points and our points of strength, and the Israelis’ weak points.”

“We have worked on all of them and we are fully prepared even better than the previous time.”