Cheap, Accurate and Lethal: Iran’s Best Missile Is Getting More Dangerous
The Kheibar Shekan uses a combination of flight paths, maneuvers and speeds to confuse air defenses
- Iran is firing its Kheibar Shekan ballistic missiles in complex attacks against U.S. bases, using varying flight paths to confuse air defenses.
- The Kheibar Shekan can be kept fueled and launched quickly from vehicles to evade U.S. and Israeli warplanes.
- Analysts say the Kheibar Shekan is far cheaper than the U.S. and Israeli interceptors used to shoot them down.
The Kheibar Shekan missile is the workhorse of Tehran’s arsenal—a cheap, mobile, accurate weapon with a range of at least 900 miles. And recently, Iran has been using it in complex attacks, proving itself to be an adaptable adversary for the U.S.
Since the fighting picked back up this month, Iran has been firing the Kheibar Shekan at American bases, U.S. officials said. It is using a combination of different flight paths, maneuvers and speeds to try to confuse U.S. defenses, they say.
The U.S. and its partners have shot down most Kheibar Shekans throughout the war, one of the U.S. officials said, but some have gotten through.
Unlike Iran’s older missiles that require lengthy prelaunch fueling, military analysts say the Kheibar Shekans can be kept fueled and loaded quickly into trucks or other vehicles for launching in an attempt to evade U.S. and Israeli warplanes seeking to knock out Iranian missile sites.
In some variants of the missile, the nose section, which carries the explosive warhead and detaches during the final phase of flight, is equipped with a small engine that makes it capable of adjusting its direction as it nears its target at 6,000 miles an hour, according to analysts and officials.
Ballistic missiles travel into the upper atmosphere or space before plunging back down toward a target, but not all are capable of maneuvering. Military analysts who have studied the Kheibar Shekan said it can vary its trajectory more than some other ballistic missiles in an attempt to make it harder to detect and destroy.
Iran is also launching high-speed attack drones and less sophisticated missiles at the same locations it is targeting with the satellite-guided Kheibar Shekans, adapting its tactics throughout the war, the U.S. officials said.
Since the ceasefire collapsed, Iran has repeatedly targeted housing areas where U.S. troops stay at bases across the Middle East, officials say. Iran has also gone after the radars that underpin air defenses across the region, a strategy that puts American servicemembers at greater risk, they say.
“I think what it tells us is Iran is paying attention, and they’re learning and they’re looking at ways that they can get at us,” said retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who has led U.S. Central Command. “This is a military that has a well-developed drone capability, it’s had a missile program, a rocket program for a long period of time. They’ve got a lot of expertise in this area.”
Iran was believed to have 2,500 Kheibar Shekans and other medium-range missiles before the war began, according to U.S. and Israeli estimates. It might be assembling more from components stored in underground bases, but the production facilities where engines for the missiles were built have been destroyed, said Fabian Hinz, an independent missile expert.
“The Iranians kind of figured out during the war that the Kheibar Shekans are great because it’s pretty cheap to produce, it’s flexible with launch systems, and it’s pretty effective,” said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iranian strategy at Sciences Po in Paris.
Iran has fired Kheibar Shekans at Israel, which says it shot most of them down. Iran has also claimed that it targeted the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the headquarters of Israel’s air force commander using Kheibar Shekans. Last month, it announced another attack with the missiles, along with jet-powered drones. The results of those attacks couldn’t be determined.
The missile is named after the Battle of Khaybar, the 628 campaign in which the Prophet Muhammad’s forces conquered the fortified oasis of Khaybar, then held by Arabian Jews.
Iran hasn’t disclosed the cost of a Kheibar Shekan, but analysts said it is far cheaper than the U.S. and Israeli interceptors used to take them down at a cost of between $2 million and $15 million, depending on the system.
Iran seems to have improved its missile attacks, likely by studying previous launches and figuring out how to maximize the possibility the weapons will get through, Hinz said.
Iran “has seen what types of maneuvers are the most effective ones for overcoming missile defense,” Hinz said. “Every single combat use gives you some sort of data, so that’s very useful for the Iranians.”
Iran has long said the Kheibar Shekan can maneuver in the final stage of its flight to evade air defenses, he added.