Israel Made Missiles To Simulate Iran’s Arsenal, Then Fired Them At Tehran

By Paul Iddon

Israel most likely relied heavily on air-launched ballistic missiles for conducting its unprecedented October 26 strikes against Iran, targeting the country’s air defenses and ballistic missile program. Ironically, Israel developed its ALBMs from missiles initially designed for simulating Iranian ballistic missiles to test the effectiveness of its advanced Arrow anti-ballistic missile interceptors.

Aside from testing and honing Israel’s missile defense capabilities, these ALBMs have now played an offensive role against Iran’s missile program. Iran denies that these strikes have hindered its missile production.

“ALBMs can be highly efficient and strategically advantageous, especially for rapid, deep-strike capabilities in contested environments where time, precision, and flexibility are crucial,” Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, told me.

“They allow for more radar evasive maneuvers to hit their targets,” he said. “Fighter jets or bombers can carry ALBMs closer to targets, allowing these missiles to cover greater distances than ground-launched equivalents.”

These distinctions, Khoueiry added, make these ALBMs “uniquely adaptable to Israel’s regional security strategy, while Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles - capable of heavier warheads - remain central to its own deterrence and projection of power.”

The Sparrow series of air-launched missiles—consisting of the Black Sparrow, Blue Sparrow, and Silver Sparrow—began life as ballistic missile defense targets for the Arrow missile. They were designed to simulate Scud missiles, like the ones Iraq fired at Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Iran’s Shahab series of ballistic missiles. For example, Blue Sparrow simulated various characteristics of Iran’s liquid-fueled Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missiles.

Israel’s Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptor missiles played a critical role in intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles during the April 13 and October 1 barrages. Training against Sparrow missiles over the years undoubtedly helped prepare these defenses for those unprecedented barrages. Nevertheless, some Iranian missiles did impact, especially during the latter attack, which was more ferocious and came with less forewarning.

Israel discreetly retaliated to the April 13-14 attack less than a week later, launching a lone strike against Iran’s central Isfahan region. Debris uncovered in neighboring Iraq indicates that Israel may have used a Blue Sparrow, or a similar missile, to target the radar of one of Iran’s Russian-built S-300 air defense missile systems based near the Natanz enrichment facility. With an estimated 1,250-mile range, Israeli aircraft likely launched the missile while remaining outside Iranian airspace.

The October 26 attack was much more significant and saw Israel attack at least 20 targets, including three S-300 systems, suggesting that it destroyed, or at least significantly damaged, all four systems Iran acquired from Russia.

Iran received these missiles in 2016 as part of a $1 billion deal, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s arms transfer database. The S-300 remains the most advanced air defense system Tehran ever imported. And with its commitment to the Ukraine war, Moscow will unlikely be capable of, or willing to, replace or replenish them anytime soon.

More debris uncovered from Iraq of ALBM boosters indicates these missiles again played a significant role in the attack, reducing the need for Israel to deploy crewed, or at least non-stealth, aircraft inside Iranian airspace.

Newer Israeli ALBM, like the Rocks, incorporate elements from the Sparrow series, such as a similar booster to the Blue Sparrow and missile body to the Black Sparrow. Classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked in the lead-up to the October 26 attack indicated Israel was preparing a hitherto unknown ALBM referred to as Golden Horizon.

While initially designed to simulate ground-launched ballistic missiles while in flight, such ALBMs have some notable advantages over their ground-based counterparts.

“Israeli ALBMs offer more operational flexibility compared to Iran’s SRBMs simply because they can be deployed from the air, allowing for an overall longer reach as the launching aircraft can obviously get closer to the target compared to a ground launcher,” Federico Borsari, a defense expert at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told me.

“While Iran can try to covertly move its SRBM launchers closer to Israel through Iraq and Syria, that would be highly risky given Israel persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and ability to destroy weapons shipments in the region,” he said.

“That’s why Iran has MRBMs, so the comparison should be between ALBMs and MRBMs.”

Here, the comparison is not as straightforward.

“While originally designed to mimic them, Israel’s ALBMs certainly outmatch Scuds across the board, while the technological edge may be less significant with the improved Shahab-3 and derivatives (e.g., Qadr and Emad), which are MRBMs and have much better circular error probable and maneuvering re-entry vehicle warheads,” Borsari said.

Furthermore, the CEPA analyst believes comparing these missiles makes little sense, noting that Israel designed its ALBMs for use in “synergy” with other capabilities, such as intelligence, electronic warfare, suppression, and destruction of enemy air defenses.

In all these areas, he concluded, Israel has “a decisive advantage” over Iran.

Paul Iddon is a freelance writer and journalist who writes regularly and extensively about Middle East conflicts, military affairs, geopolitics, and history. He has had

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