Western officials told the Financial Times that a series of Israeli–American strikes has had a clear impact on the capabilities of Iran’s ballistic missile program. They noted that the frequency of missile launches has decreased since the start of the war last Saturday.

The officials said the strategy of Washington, D.C. and Tel Aviv—using military aircraft to monitor and destroy missile launchers (Israel said today it has destroyed about 300) and weapons stockpiles inside Iran—appears to be working.

“We’re beginning to see a reduction in Iranian missile attacks, and that’s due to the work the U.S. and Israel are doing to destroy those launchers and strike these systems,” one official told the newspaper.
“However, we estimate that Iran still has several days of capability left to continue its operations.”

Former British government intelligence adviser Lynette Nusbacher said the drop in Iranian ballistic missile launches may be because it has become more difficult for the country to fire them.

“Iranian missile commanders launch, relocate, set up, refuel and launch again as quickly as they can. The problem is that what they could once do quickly has now become slower,” she said.
“The Americans and Israelis destroyed launch platforms, missiles, liquid rocket fuel and the diesel used to power launch platforms. All of that has been depleted.”

Could this be a strategic maneuver by Tehran?

However, the newspaper points to another possible scenario: the reduced rate of missile launches “may be a deliberate Iranian strategy to preserve its ammunition for a longer war.”

Israeli military officials described Iran’s slow but steady missile launches on Saturday as a “cloud strategy,” suggesting they are designed to wear down interceptor missiles used in air-defense systems.

“The reduction in launch rates may indicate a policy of conserving them, similar to what we saw at the end of last June’s war” between Israel and Iran, one analyst commented.

In fact, the low launch rate could itself be a “war strategy,” according to Decker Eveleth, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. However, he said Iran “had few options other than to adopt this approach,” noting that “this is not a strategy of choice; it is the only available strategy given the likely lack of launch platforms and the failure to secure its airspace.”

In the same context, Fabian Hoffmann, a researcher at the University of Oslo, said:
“I tend to believe that Iran’s launch capability has most likely been severely damaged,” adding that the sharp decline in launches seen in the statistics is too abrupt to be merely tactical.

With ballistic missile launches decreasing, Tehran now appears to be relying more heavily on low-cost Shahed “suicide drones.” These attack drones can easily be hidden and launched from almost anywhere, making them less vulnerable to military strikes by the United States and Israel.

Data compiled by the Institute for National Security Studies show that Iran has already launched 571 missiles and 1,391 drones since the start of the conflict, many of which have been intercepted by air-defense systems belonging to the United States, Israel and Gulf countries.