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Iran’s weapons industry still churning out missiles despite war: IRGC

Al Mayadeen | March 20, 2026

Iran is producing more missiles amid the United States-Israeli war on the country, spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Naeini, emphasized.

For Iran, ballistic missiles serve as the backbone of its deterrence and retaliatory doctrine, enabling it to offset conventional military asymmetries through highly survivable, mobile, and scalable systems capable of delivering significant damage to adversary assets. One of the main focuses of the aggression on Iran has been its missile program, which the US and “Israel” seek to “obliterate”.

After firing hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles at US and Israeli targets in the occupied territories, the Gulf, and the wider region, Naeini underlined that there should be “no concern” over Iran’s missile industry or its stockpiles.

The IRGC spokesperson also promised Iran’s adversaries “surprises”, saying that Iran’s retaliation will be more “remarkable and increasingly complex.”

“Our people in the streets want the war to continue until the enemy is fully exhausted,” he said, adding, “The end of this war will come only when the specter of war is lifted from Iran.”

Complete destruction?

A major claim of the Israeli regime and the Pentagon is that their forces have destroyed Iran’s missile industry facilities. In one briefing, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that a primary goal of the US aggression is not just to target Iranian missiles but to ensure Iran “has no ability to make more.”

On March 10, Hegseth said that Iran’s ballistic missile production capacity had been “functionally defeated” and “destroyed”, including every company that builds missile components. By mid-March, Hegseth toned his statements down and described the Iranian defense industrial base as “nearing complete destruction.”

Meanwhile, Iran has substantially increased its rate of ballistic missile fire since Wednesday, when the US-Israeli regimes launched an aggression on vital gas infrastructure. Iran met the escalation with retaliation against energy targets in the Gulf and occupied Palestine, forcing US President Donald Trump to publicly deny any involvement in the attack on Iran’s gas fields.

It is worth noting that Iran possesses a broad and diversified arsenal of ballistic missile systems, deliberately varying types and capabilities to sustain a prolonged confrontation against technologically superior, nuclear-armed adversaries. Its inventory includes both liquid-fueled and solid-fuel missiles, offering flexibility in deployment and readiness. These systems are equipped with either unitary high-explosive warheads or submunition payloads designed to penetrate layered air defenses and maximize impact on strategic targets.

A central pillar of Iran’s missile industry is its emphasis on scalable production, cost-efficiency, and operational effectiveness. Despite sustained external pressure, the sector has achieved notable technological advances, with systems such as the Fattah hypersonic-class missiles and the Khorramshahr-4 reflecting progress in propulsion, guidance, and payload delivery. Tehran has also worked to diversify its supply chains while localizing the production of critical components, many of which are manufactured in fortified, deeply buried underground facilities to ensure continuity during wartime.

March 20, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Militarism | Iran, Middle East