On 5 March, a post appeared on the X account of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, managed by his staff after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on 28 February. The tweet featured a stark piece of propaganda: a gleaming, oversized missile arcing across the sky as a city below is engulfed in flames. The caption read: “Khorramshahr moments are on the horizon.”
The Khorramshahr missile, Iran’s most advanced ballistic missile, is believed to be capable of carrying a cluster warhead dispersing up to 80 submunitions. Since that post, it has come to loom large in Israeli threat assessments, a persistent concern for a country equipped with a multi-layered missile defence system that is widely regarded as the world’s most sophisticated.
The latest attack using cluster munitions occurred on Sunday, when an Iranian ballistic missile struck central Israel, injuring 15 people.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, roughly half of the missiles launched from Iran since the escalation have carried cluster warheads.
The Guardian, which reviewed the impact of dozens of Iranian strikes alongside statements from Israeli officials, has identified at least 19 ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads that penetrated Israeli airspace and struck urban areas since the beginning of the war with Iran on 28 February. Those attacks have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens, reflecting a broader shift in Iran’s tactics that appears to have exposed a vulnerability in Israel’s air defences. Since the start of the war, Iran’s cluster munitions – which disperse dozens of bomblets mid-air – have tested Israel’s highly advanced, multi-tier missile defence network, including Iron Dome, which is designed to counter threats across ranges, altitudes and speeds, exposing gaps that interception alone has struggled to close.
It’s fascinating (in a horrific kind of way) that literally all participants in this war are monstrous. Seriously, there are no good guys. This is turning into WWIII, but I always figured that when it happened, there would be clearly identifiable victims and aggressors.
How naive of me. Everyone involved is victim and aggressor simultaneously.
I don’t see how the US is anything other than the aggressor. Both Iran and Israel suck and they have no concern for human life, but I can see how they can claim to be victims. Not the US.
How can Israel claim to be the victim in this war against Iran?
Well Iran has been attacking them for decades through Hezbollah and Hamas. It’s not like they’ve been keeping to themselves playing Rummikub in this conflict
Iran has been arming resistance to Israeli colonialism for decades, but that does not in any way make Israel a victim. Palestinians and Lebanese have the right to defend themselves, and Iran has the right (and, like the rest of the world, moral duty) to help them defend themselves.
You’re actually a Hamas apologist. Wow.
you’re actually a zionist supremacist/terrorism and war crimes apologist. Even bigger Wow. Why not stand on the side of universal human rights for all, eh? Maybe if Israel did that just once they’d have some legs to stand on. But they keep raping and killing women and kids, and keep stealing land, dont they. So yeah, that gets people pretty mad, including Hamas, yeah. Funny how that works.
Would you be so silly to claim Hamas has no reason to seek violent redress for what Israel has done to them? I’m shocked its not 1000x worse than what Hamas and Hezbollah are doing. Did you really think there would be no paybacks?
Because I say both sides are bad for continuing the violence over the last decade? And I specifically called out Isreal on its atrocities? Wtf? Are you really that ignorant and closed minded?
