“The U.S. and Israel are pounding Iran's missile-launching sites, hitting some over and over across almost a month of war. But the missiles keep flying.
Tehran shifted to firing from deeper inside its territory with longer range missiles, military analysts and former U.S. officers said, after airstrikes early in the war inflicted a heavy toll on Iranian bases and truck launchers near the Persian Gulf coast. Iran is firing far fewer missiles than early in the war -- down to around a dozen a day -- but they have turned them against less-defended targets in Israel and Gulf Arab states, causing greater damage in some cases.
Even in small numbers, the weapons have helped Tehran achieve its goal -- prolong the conflict, raise the economic costs on oil-exporting Gulf countries and in the U.S., and survive to fight another day.
"They're not doing the big volleys like they were doing in the early days, but they don't need to," said retired Gen. Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. Central Command. "All they really have to do is get something through, and they get a big bang for the buck."
The resilience of Iran's missile systems to sustained U.S.-Israeli bombing raises the prospect that a key war aim -- preventing Tehran from threatening the Middle East with missiles and drones -- will remain unfulfilled, with President Trump looking for a speedy end to the war in the coming weeks.
Iran is "begging" with the U.S. for negotiations to end the war, Trump said Thursday at the top of a cabinet meeting. "Of course they're negotiating, they're obliterated. Who wouldn't negotiate?"
Trump wrote on social media Thursday that he was pausing strikes on Iran's energy sector for 10 days so peace negotiations can take place. His previous deadline was Friday.
Trump's top Iran envoy Steve Witkoff said Thursday during the cabinet meeting that the U.S. sent Iran a 15-point plan to end the war.
Iran is open to the possibility of talks but deems the U.S. proposal excessive, with demands that it dismantle most of its nuclear program, end support to regional allies and cap its missile program, people familiar with the matter said. Iranian and Arab officials said Tehran ruled out discussing Iran's missile program as a starting point to the talks. Iran also doesn't want to commit to ending enrichment of uranium forever, they said.
Halting the war with Iran's missile arsenal damaged but still intact would allow it to rebuild over time, some analysts said. "If you cut the operations short, then the regime or any rump state that survives would almost certainly go and extract those missiles and launchers in a postconflict scenario," said Behnam Ben Taleblu, director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington nonprofit that favors overthrowing the Tehran government.
The difficulty is illustrated by continued U.S. strikes on Iran's Imam Hussein Strategic Missile headquarters near the city of Yazd, an important hub for the regime's Khorramshahr missile, a weapon with a massive warhead that can travel more than 1,200 miles. Satellite photos show that on Saturday the underground facility appeared partly caved in and smoke rose from the base -- the aftermath of U.S. strikes.
U.S. and Israeli war planes attacked at least three times at the site dug into the mountains south of the city, including once early in the war when airstrikes demolished buildings on the surface and damaged several hillside entrances. It is unclear whether Iran has been able to continue firing from Yazd, but strikes over several weeks suggests Iran is finding ways to adapt to the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, military analysts said.
A desert city 500 miles from the coast, Yazd is a challenging target for the U.S. and Israel. During its 12-day war with Iran last summer, Israel first tried to take out the facility in a daylight strike, one of the farthest attacks inside Iran that it conducted. Yet the U.S. or Israeli war planes returned to the facility at least twice since the Feb. 28 start of the war.
There are signs that the relentless bombardment is taking a toll: Iran upgraded the latest version of Khorramshahr in 2017 with a more stable propellant, reducing the amount of time it takes to prepare the missile for launch. Yet several blew up during launch, a person familiar with the incidents said.
Other Iranian bases have been struck multiple times. At Hajiabad, another missile facility in southern Iran, there are signs of escalating airstrikes. A picture of the base by the commercial-satellite company Planet Labs on the second day of the war showed three destroyed vehicles outside tunnels leading into the underground facility. A video released by Central Command on March 20 showed the location being hit again with heavy munitions.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries said they are methodically taking out Iran's missile capabilities. U.S. and Israel warplanes hunted Iran's missile-carrying mobile launchers and circled over dozens of cavernous bases, striking when the vehicles emerge to fire. Waves of heavy bombers dropped munitions on the sites, entombing the Iranian weapons below ground in some locations.
The result is that Iran no longer appears capable of launching missiles and drones by the hundreds as it did in the opening week of the war. Its missile-production facilities have been decimated, making a quick rebuild of its arsenals a far steeper task.
Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the top commander in the region, said Wednesday that the U.S. has hit 10,000 targets in Iran and Israel has hit "thousands more," noting that Iran's drone and missile launch rates are down by more than 90%. Over two-thirds of Iran's missile, drone and navy-ship production facilities are destroyed.
Israel's military said it destroyed or disabled about 330 of Iran's estimated 470 mobile missile launchers. About half of those were destroyed in strikes, and another half were rendered unusable after it struck tunnel entrances to underground facilities where the launchers are kept hidden before surfacing before an attack.
Israel estimated Iran had as many as 2,500 ballistic missiles before the war started.” [1]
1. Iran's Missiles Still Wreak Havoc, Despite Pounding by U.S., Israel --- Tehran has kept firing, prolonging conflict and raising the economic cost. Cloud, David S; Lieber, Dov; Czerny, Milan. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 27 Mar 2026: A1.
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