April 6, 2026

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Iran’s Missile and Drone Arsenal Remains Potent Despite Five Weeks of Intensive Strikes

(AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)

At the outset of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump defined one key objective of the operation as “destroy[ing] their missiles and raz[ing] their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally again obliterated.” Trump’s video announcement that day made no mention of Iran’s arsenal of armed drones, which Tehran has used in conjunction with its ballistic missiles to expand the war throughout the region and pressure the U.S. and Israel to end their attacks. Yet five weeks into the operation, and after striking more than 13,000 Iranian targets — many of which focused on Iran’s missile and drone stockpiles, launchers, and production sites — U.S. intelligence assesses that the U.S. and Israel have degraded only about half of Iran’s arsenal of missiles and drones. On Thursday, CNN quoted sources familiar with U.S. intelligence that roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact, and thousands of one-way attack drones, such as the Shahed, remain in Iran’s arsenal. Israeli military officials put the total number of Iranian launchers remaining operational at a lower number, roughly 20 to 25 percent, but U.S. and Israeli intelligence bodies apparently differ in the criteria they use for assessing the extent of the destruction.

Public statements by the U.S. Department of War are more positive about the effect of the U.S. and Israeli strikes, possibly because Department officials cite the number of missiles and drones launched by Iran, rather than what has been destroyed. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a press briefing on March 19 that “ballistic missile attacks against our forces [are] down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVs, think kamikaze drones, down 90 percent.”

But Iran is still able to conduct multiple missile and drone attacks per day on Israel and the Gulf states. The number of missiles in each barrage has diminished compared to the start of the war, yet Iran is still firing as many as 20 missiles a day at Israel in one or two-missile volleys. A Western official told journalists that Iran still can fire 15 to 30 ballistic missiles at all targets combined, and 50 –100 one-way attack drones per day.  The Financial Times reported that on Friday, the UAE recorded the highest number of Iranian attacks since March 8 — eighteen ballistic missiles and four cruise missiles were fired on the country in a 24-hour period.

Although numerically lower than early in the war, Iran’s missile and drone strikes are increasingly precise and lethal, and able to avoid interception, particularly against the Gulf states, which are a short distance away from Iran. Iran’s shorter-range missiles, as well as armed drones, have inflicted significant damage on energy infrastructure targets in the Gulf.  A recent Iranian attack forced a 17 percent reduction in output from Qatar’s Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants — damage that reportedly might take years of repair to return to previous production levels. On Friday, Iran struck a desalination plant in Kuwait, threatening the country’s supply of drinking water. A strike last week on the sprawling Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia destroyed a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry, a valuable early warning and control aircraft, of which there are limited numbers in the U.S. inventory.  Also on Friday, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said that falling debris “following the successful interception [of an Iranian missile] by air defense systems” caused two blazes to break out at the Habshan gas facility, the country’s largest natural gas processing site. One person was killed in the attack. Iran has also been using cluster warheads on its missiles bound for Israel, enabling Iran’s launches to cause widespread damage there, although not necessarily destroying any strategic facilities.

Girding itself for a prolonged war of attrition, Tehran appears to be using a variety of tactics to ensure its missile and drone arsenal remains available beyond the two-to-three week timeframe Trump mentioned in his bloviate address on Wednesday. U.S. officials assess that Iran is deliberately keeping its launch rate low to preserve its inventory. Other intelligence sources explain Iran has had success in shooting and moving its mobile platforms, making it difficult to track the launchers. The U.S. faced similar difficulties destroying mobile platforms in the 2025 Operation Rough Rider campaign against Yemen’s Houthi movement and against Iraq’s Scud-based missile arsenal in the 1991 Desert Storm operation to liberate Kuwait. Other reports quote assessments by U.S intelligence agencies that Iran is keeping more of its launchers in bunkers and caves to protect them from attacks. Some of the launchers destroyed are also believed to have been decoys, according to a variety of reports.

The New York Times reported that some of the U.S. strikes military leaders perceived as successful were only partially effective. U.S. strikes on Iran’s deeply buried missile and drone storage sites, including its “missile cities,” generally target entrances and ventilation shafts, and do not necessarily destroy the missiles or drones directly. One such missile city, outside the central Iranian city of Yazd, extends more than 1,500 feet into a mountain consisting of a type of granite that can withstand crushing pressures. According to U.S intelligence reports, Iran has been able to dig out the bombed entrances and return the sites to full operation hours after an attack. A recent CNN investigation found that while 77 percent of visible tunnel entrances had been hit, activity at those sites resumed quickly. Experts at the Royal United Services Institute estimated that penetrating hardened underground facilities may require multiple strikes on the same point, detailed intelligence on internal layouts, and sustained follow-up attacks to prevent rapid repair. It is also likely that Iran’s inventory of drones and missiles was underestimated by U.S. and Israeli intelligence before the war.

U.S planners have sought to hinder Iran’s ability to reconstitute its arsenal by targeting missile and drone production sites. Iran will require time and money to rebuild its missile production facilities, but armed drones are relatively inexpensive and can be produced quickly. Experts note that many drones can be produced in civilian facilities. And, defending against armed drones costs many times more than launching them, raising concerns that Iran’s drones will be a major factor in a prolonged war of attrition with the U.S. and Israel that is fundamentally based on cost asymmetry, rooted in its defense doctrine.

Despite its strategic benefits, Iran’s missile and drone arsenal also has limitations. Tehran’s missile and drone attacks on the Gulf states have not, to date, compelled Arab Gulf state leaders to openly break alliances with the U.S. or reach a separate peace with Iran. Gulf leaders, while expressing resentment that the U.S. unilaterally launched a war that has brought them harm, have accused Iran of aggression against the very neighboring states that had advised Trump not to attack. Gulf leaders vilify Tehran for derailing years of patient diplomacy that built Iran-Gulf ties in the interests of regional stability. Iran has launched more missiles and drones on sites in the UAE than it has on Israel, reportedly prompting UAE leaders to consider joining U.S. offensive action against Iran. Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammad bin Salman, is reportedly encouraging Trump to “finish the job” against Iran, although it is not clear whether he is suggesting a major U.S. ground offensive that would be needed to remove the regime from power. Yet the Gulf states might also look to recalibrate security relations with the U.S. after the war.  As The Soufan Center has written, some Gulf officials may reassess the utility of American military bases on their territory, which, as this conflict has demonstrated, have neither acted as a deterrent nor protected these states from the impact of missiles and drones.

Experts add that it is not necessarily Iran’s missile and drone arsenal that has proved its most effective tool in this war and at the negotiation table. Iran’s ability to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — which has caused global oil prices to nearly double, jet fuel prices to escalate even more sharply, and shortages of petroleum-related products — represents Iran’s most significant strategic gain in the war to date.  The closure has been accomplished primarily by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy fast attack craft employing direct fire against tankers in the Gulf — without necessarily requiring the use of missiles or drones. The IRGC attacks have caused global shipping companies to anchor their vessels in place and not transit the Strait, unless by prior agreement with Tehran. The Strait closure has provided Tehran with leverage against the United States in the reported indirect talks taking place to de-escalate the conflict. Iranian leaders assess that their ability to close the Strait again might ultimately serve as a more significant deterrent than does a reconstituted missile and drone arsenal.