IRAN RESUMES BALLISTIC MISSILE PRODUCTION
PHOTO CAPTION: File photo of missiles inside an underground Iranian Revolutionary Guard facility. New reporting says Iran has resumed limited ballistic-missile production using surviving components at underground sites. IRGC/WANA handout via Reuters.
Iran has resumed producing ballistic missiles in underground facilities only months after U.S. defense officials declared the country's missile program functionally destroyed following Operation Epic Fury.
The new production is reportedly far smaller than Iran's prewar output and relies heavily on components that survived earlier U.S. and Israeli strikes. But the activity raises questions about how quickly Tehran can rebuild a capability Washington had described as effectively eliminated.
Reuters reported Sept. 10, citing a Wall Street Journal investigation, that Iran is once again assembling ballistic missiles from existing components at underground facilities. Officials from the United States and Middle East said production is occurring in more limited quantities than before the war.
The Journal reported that the activity includes both liquid-fueled and solid-fueled ballistic missiles. Solid-fueled weapons can generally remain stored in a ready-to-launch state, while liquid-fueled missiles normally must be fueled before firing.
The significance is not simply that Iran still possesses missiles.
During the opening weeks of the U.S.-Israeli campaign earlier this year, destroying Iran's ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles was repeatedly identified as a central American military objective.
On March 13, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran's ballistic-missile production capacity had been “functionally defeated [and] destroyed” and said U.S. strikes were ensuring Iran would have “no ability to make more.”
After a ceasefire was reached in April, Hegseth went further.
Speaking at the Pentagon on April 8, he said Operation Epic Fury had achieved its objectives and described Iran's missile program as “functionally destroyed,” including its launchers, production facilities and existing stockpiles. The Pentagon said at the time that rebuilding Iran's damaged defense-industrial base would take years or even decades.
The Trump administration had framed the destruction of Iran's missile-manufacturing capability as one of the war's principal goals.
An April White House summary said the objective was to destroy Iran's ballistic missile arsenal and its ability to manufacture replacements.
The latest intelligence does not mean Iran has restored its former production capacity.
According to the new reporting, Tehran is assembling weapons at a reduced rate, using stockpiled parts and shifting work underground after strikes damaged factories and other missile infrastructure.
That distinction matters.
There is currently no public evidence that Iran is manufacturing missiles at anything approaching its prewar pace, and the available reporting does not provide a verified total for how many new weapons have been completed.
But the resumption demonstrates that the capability was not permanently eliminated.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Iranian personnel have established or are using underground assembly locations as Tehran tries to preserve missile production while making the facilities harder to attack.
Iran's ballistic-missile infrastructure was heavily targeted during Operation Epic Fury, which began Feb. 28.
U.S. Central Command said the initial strikes targeted Iranian missile and drone launch sites along with command-and-control facilities, air defenses and military airfields. Subsequent strikes pushed deeper into Iran's missile-industrial network.
By early April, Pentagon leaders were publicly describing the campaign as a decisive military victory.
The latest intelligence suggests that while those strikes caused extensive damage, Tehran retained enough components, personnel and protected infrastructure to restart at least some missile production within months.
For the United States, the question now is whether Iran can continue expanding that output — and whether Washington will again target the facilities being used to rebuild it.
Sources: Reuters; The Wall Street Journal; U.S. Department of War; White House
(Source: Reuters; The Wall Street Journal; U.S. Department of War; White House)
