Iran’s hypersonic missiles could trigger WWIII, experts reveal

Ira n’s new hypersonic missiles evaded one of the most sophisticated air defense systems on Tuesday, sparking fears the next attack could trigger World War III. The nation unleashed at least 180 missiles at Israel , stealthily bypassing the US-funded Iron Dome system , and claimed that 90 percent of the rocket-propelled weapons hit their targets. The arsenal included the Fattah-1 that travels 15 times the speed of sound and has a range of 870 miles, along with a surface-to-surface missile that can hit targets up to 1,200 miles away.

Israel, backed by the US, and Iran on Wednesday threatened each other with retaliation if attacked, leaving experts to believe the war in the Middle East could soon spillover into the rest of the world. Israel and Iran exchanged the hostile words on Wednesday while meeting with the United Nations Security Council. ‘Israel will defend itself. We will act. And let me assure you, the consequences Iran will face for their actions will be far greater than they could ever have imagined,’ Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon told the council.

Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saied Iravani said the missile attack on Tuesday was ‘to restore balance and deterrence.’ He said further escalation could be avoided if Israel stopped the war in Gaza and attacks on Lebanon. Tuesday’s attack and the brewing hostility has been discussed among officials in the US, with Republicans urging Israel to strike back. Former President Donald Trump has been vocal about the threats, saying that the world could be on the brink of WWIII if fighting in the Middle East escalates further ‘because of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.’

But the US State Department described Iran’s attack as ‘defeated and ineffective’ overall. Regardless, the Islamic nation holds the largest number of ballistic missiles in the entire Middle East, with approximately 3,000 ballistic missiles still left in reserve by US estimates. ‘Because they are sophisticated, [Israel’s] interceptor missiles are expensive,’ defense and security journalist Dan Sabbagh said, ‘and their stocks uncertain.’ But experts caution that these figures were calculated by the US two-and-a-half years ago, as the Islamic nation’s effort to amass their stockpile continued unabated.

‘Tehran will have wanted to retain the vast majority of its stock in case the conflict with Israel further escalates into a full-blown war,’ according to Sabbagh in The Guardian . The majority of Iran’s missile arsenal was ‘acquired from foreign sources, notably North Korea,’ according to the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace (USIP), founded and funded by Congress since 1984. But the institute’s April 2024 report also noted that Iran has made persistent progress developing its own indigenous missile tech.

That includes the Sajjil-2 ballistic missile , developed by Iran itself and designed with a tell-tale ‘baby-bottle’ shaped nosecone that can be retrofitted for nuclear-weapons delivery, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies . The 1,200 mile-range Sajjil-2 was the longest-range missile in world history ever to be put into production ‘without first having a nuclear weapons capability,’ according to USIP’s congressionally funded reports. However, no concrete evidence currently public confirms that any of Iran’s Sajjil-2’s or any of its other weapons are currently nuclear-equipped. And the Middle Eastern nation has long denied that it is still pursuing such weapons of mass destruction.

Iran’s homegrown missiles also include the Fateh-110 family of solid-fuel missiles — capable of the precision needed to reliably destroy key military and infrastructure . Some of these Fateh-class missiles, which have a range of closer to 310 miles according USIP estimates, appear to have a Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRVs) better. These Fateh-class missiles also deployed new solid-propellant fuel technology which Lewis said made them easier to maneuver and more accurate. Iran may have acquired the tech from North Korean, which has boasted of upgrading to solid-state fuel missiles over older liquid-propellant fuels that are much more volatile and must be loaded into the missile closer to launch time.

An expert on Iran’s missiles, Fabian Hinz with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said some of these more advanced Fateh missiles were launched Tuesday. Iranian state media confirmed their first-ever use , aided by a cyberattack launched concurrently with the missile strikes. But, as Hinz told Reuters, a mixture of older liquid-propellant missiles stockpiled by Iran under the names Emad, Badr and Khorramshahr were also likely used. This numerically high-volume launch of Iranian missiles — mixing high-tech solid-propellent the Fateh and Haj Qasem along with these lesser bombs — has been seen by some as the clearest sign Iran’s goal was to drain Israel counterstrike defenses.

With a range of 870 miles (1,400 km), the Haj Qasem can travel farther than earlier Fateh missiles with a warhead payload of 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms), comparable to the minimum weight of a first-generation nuclear warhead. Iran described its Tuesday assault strictly as a justified act of retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon. According to Behnam Ben Taleblu, a Senior Fellow at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Iran continues to develop underground missile depots complete with transport and firing systems, and subterranean missile production and storage centers. ‘Years of reverse-engineering missiles and producing various missile classes have also taught Iran about stretching airframes and building them with lighter composite materials to increase missile range,’ Taleblu wrote in his report.

The work includes the ability to launch missiles from silos hidden underground. According to Taleblu’s 2023 report, Iran fired its first ever ballistic missile from underground in June 2020. Iran’s missile projects have also worked symbiotically with its space program, which has successfully launched several small, crude satellites into low earth orbit. The nation’s Safir and Qased carrier rockets have helped to build a domestic rocketry industry and knowledge base that US experts believe could be redeployed for war. ‘The IRGC[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]-Aerospace forces assert that the next satellite launch will be done using an all-solid fuel booster configuration,’ according to the United States Institute of Peace. ‘In principle,’ the nonpartisan institute warned, ‘an all solid-fuel carrier rocket could be more easily transformed into a long-range ballistic missile.’

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