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International Desk //

The situation in the Middle East is gradually deteriorating. Recently, Iran launched another missile attack on Israel. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called it the “minimum punishment” for Israel’s crimes.

Analyzing the strategic aspect of this attack, the American Institute for the Study of War says that such a large number of missiles have been fired in such a way that it has overwhelmed Israel’s defense system. Israeli forces have sought to prevent attacks on densely populated areas first, and relatively less densely populated areas are at risk.

That is why Israel could not ensure the security of several airfields in relatively less densely populated areas. An Iranian missile was also able to hit the headquarters of the intelligence agency Mossad near Tel Aviv.

Tehran said in a statement that the attack was in response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July and the killing of a top Hezbollah leader in Beirut.

Iran was already a big headache for Israel or America. Iran’s involvement in arming Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, or various armed groups in Syria and Iraq has repeatedly come up.

Western concerns about Iran’s armed forces or weapons have long been there. Despite having a strong defense system including the Iron Dome, Israel could not completely prevent the Iranian attack. But how is Iran, which has been under many sanctions for a long time, getting or building weapons?

To understand the factors behind Iran’s current weapons capabilities, we need to start a little further back.

The history of Iran’s military is two and a half thousand years old. However, the beginning of the modern army or arming began at the hands of Reza Khan or Reza Shah Pahlavi, who rose from army commander to prime minister and king in the 1920s.

After becoming the commander of the military, he formed the Artesh Army which is seen as the beginning of a modern armed force. He wanted to transform Iran into a regional power. He therefore sent thousands of officers to military academies abroad, while expanding his own army and recruiting Western officers to train them (source: The Middle East Institute).

During World War II, Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran. Reza Shah was replaced by his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was known to be pro-Western for most of his reign, because of his good relations with Nazi Germany.

The West’s eyes were on Iran’s oil, with that oil money, many modern weapons were bought mainly from America during the 60s and 70s. Although the last Shah of Iran or King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took initiative to modernize the country, the revolution started in various contexts such as disunity and dictatorship. The reality of riots, strikes and protests forced Shah and his family to flee the country. However, due to its weapons purchase, military training, etc., the Iranian army was one of the strongest military forces in the region during the 1979 revolution.

The history and capabilities of Iran’s military are detailed in a report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

Neither the return nor the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had a problem with the Islamic revolution, which came to a head a few months later when a group of students loyal to him took over the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage. Their demand was to bring Desantari Shah to Tehran for trial. The US severed relations with Iran due to this crisis which lasted for 444 days.

Iran was then largely isolated and militarily weakened. That is what can be called the ‘first arms embargo’ due to which Iran did not get the supply of the remaining weapons until then. Along with the military forces left by Shah Pahlavi, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, or Revolutionary Army, was created under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In 1980, Iraq attacked Iran. Although initially weak, the professionalism of the newly formed Revolutionary Guard gradually increased. In 1982, Iran counterattacked by defeating Saddam Hussein’s forces.

At first, if we deal with the previous US weapons, but if we are damaged in the war, we have to start joining at some point, like putting the parts of one fighter F-Forty to another, said Dr. BBC Bangla. Hushang Hassan Yari, a military and Iran affairs analyst and an emeritus professor at the Royal Military College of Canada.

Dr. Yari said, by bringing Scud missiles and parts made by the Soviet Union from Libya, reverse engineering them and trying to make them themselves. US President Reagan also secretly sold some weapons in what is known as the Contra Scandal. Israel gets some weapons, even missiles from North Korea. Gradually, various researches were carried out with them to meet the needs and they entered into a long process of illegally importing weapons.

A cease-fire was forced in 1988 due to lack of sufficient support and logistics, but the war had long-term effects on Iran’s military and security policies. Western sanctions, war casualties, all spurred Iran to increase its self-reliance and combat capability in the following decades.

After the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war, Iran’s defense system changed, according to Parham Ghobadi, a senior correspondent for the BBC Persian Service. The emphasis is on ballistic and cruise missiles in particular, and “North Korea continues to take training from the Koreans, the Chinese and the Russians and develop its own missiles,” Ghobadi said.

Throughout the 1990s, Iran continued to strengthen its network with Shia groups and potential allies across the Middle East. For more than four decades, the country has been subject to various sanctions. America has imposed more than 600 sanctions on Iran since Joe Biden became president.

Israel’s Ebarka attack used about 200 ballistic missiles that can strike in much less time. U.S. officials have also said they are somewhat difficult to stop because of their speed.

Ghobadi noted that this is a big difference compared to the attack Iran carried out on Israel in April. Earlier attacks used weapons like cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones.

Parham Ghobadi pointed out that Iran claimed to use hypersonic missiles in this attack compared to the drones that take 6-7 hours to reach Israel, which takes an average of 10 minutes to reach Israel. He thinks that he has been able to hit more than before by covering a distance of about two thousand kilometers in such a short time.

Looking only at missiles, Iran has a variety of short- and long-range missiles. For example, Shahab-3 is capable of traveling up to 2,000 kilometers, that is, the missile can cross Israel, Egypt, Europe, Russia, India or China.

Although Russia is the major supplier of Iran’s weapons equipment, Iran has provided self-made drones to Russia in the Ukraine war.

Many say that once Iran gets a chance to see something and think it might be good for them, they can build it. “After they shot down an American drone a few years ago, they started making drones and now drones are an important part of their defense along with missiles.

However, citing an April report by Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency, Reuters reported several more long-range missiles. For example: Haj Qasem – can travel 1400 km, Khyber – 2000 km and Sezil – 2500 km, which can run at a speed of more than 17 thousand km per hour.

The US states that Iran has the largest ballistic missile capability in the Middle East. Iran has many types of weapons in addition to a fleet of many types of missiles.

Army has many types of weapons like guns, tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers. The Navy has many types of warships, naval mines or explosives, submarines, helicopter carriers and patrol ships.

The Air Force has helicopters, fighter jets and many types of drones. Iran has also developed cyber power considerably. Besides, for a long time there was the aspect of enriching nuclear weapons, about which Joe Biden recently said that he does not support Israel’s attack on any nuclear facility in Iran.

According to data from Global Firepower, Iran ranks 14th out of 145 countries in terms of military capability, ahead of Israel (17th). Among them, Iran has 551 military aircraft, 129 helicopters, 65,765 armored vehicles, 1,996 tanks, 101 warships and 19 submarines.

However, complete information about Iran’s weapons is not available there either. For example, Iran’s navy is said to have no aircraft or helicopter-carrying capability, although photos released of Iranian military exercises in 2021 show a helicopter carrier named the Makran.

But the question is how did it build this capability despite Western sanctions. Iran has spent billions of dollars to enrich its weapons. Parts are smuggled in from western countries. Besides, there is Russia, they also depend on China and North Korea, said Dr. Hushang Hasan Yari.

According to the data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in April 2024, only in 2023, Iran spent 10.3 billion dollars, i.e. more than 1 billion dollars, on weapons. A budget of 9.95 billion dollars is allocated annually to the military sector as global firepower.

But Dr. According to Yari, because Iran’s weapons are not as sophisticated as the West’s, they have increased the variety of missiles that can be seen in recent attacks.

There are several scholars in Iran who work to improve science and technology, who do research and work on various types of technological capabilities, starting from nanotechnology, said Dr. Razia Sultana is a Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies. He has written extensively on Hezbollah in Iran, the Middle East, and Lebanon. He said that Iran also exports various technology products.