Smoke rises after airstrikes in Tehran, Iran on March 13, 2026. Photo / Getty Images
Four of Iran’s key ballistic missile manufacturing locations and at least 29 ballistic missile launch sites have been damaged in the first four weeks of the US-Israeli offensive, undermining Iran’s central military strategy, according to a Washington Post review and analysis by experts.
Since the war began, the US and Israel have conducted thousands of strikes across a range of military targets. The Post’s examination provides a comprehensive accounting of the damage to ballistic missile sites, as well as what it means for the future of the overall programme.
Strikes have destroyed aboveground launching facilities, temporarily blocked access to missiles stored underground and halted Iran’s ability to immediately build new missiles, according to satellite imagery, and Iranian military and defence experts who reviewed the findings. But the experts cautioned that Iran’s ballistic missile programme has not been destroyed.
“They’re still shooting. That’s a key indicator,” said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defence Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, referring to Iran’s continued use of missiles.
Some experts said they doubted the missile programme could ever be completely destroyed, citing the regime’s record of rebuilding after prior attacks and access to foreign supply chains that can replenish destroyed manufacturing equipment. Mobile missile launchers are also being used, and the number of those is unknown.
“I don’t see Iran making a fundamental change to their missile strategy if the regime survives,” Nicole Grajewski, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, said. “Missiles are still going to be the ultimate deterrent against attackers and the foundational military strategy.”
The Trump administration has identified the destruction of Iran’s missile programme as a central goal of the war.
At a press briefing on March 19, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said US attacks destroyed “the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programmes”. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the same day that Iran’s missile and drone arsenals have been “massively degraded” and that these attacks, compared to the ones of June last year, are destroying the factories that “produce the components to make these missiles”.
The US and Israel have not publicly identified all the specific missile sites they have hit.
In his briefing, Hegseth said that Iranian retaliatory missile attacks against its neighbours had decreased by 90% since the beginning of the war on February 28. General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged that Iran still retains missile capabilities.
Israel claimed on March 21 that for the first time, Iran fired intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the joint UK-US Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, almost 3218km away.
The manufacturing, development and testing of ballistic missiles is sustained through a network of campuses overseen by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s Ministry of Defence, according to Iranian military experts.
Four of the most important sites, which make fuel for the ballistic missiles, the experts said, have suffered severe damage in attacks by the US and Israel that is greater than what was inflicted during the 12-day war with Israel last June and in October 2024, when Israel attacked Iran.
The sites – Khojir, Parchin, Hakimiyeh and Shahroud military complexes – house the production of critical missile propellants and assemble the weapons for use.
“If you don’t have propulsion, the missiles aren’t going anywhere,” Jim Lamson, senior research associate at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, said. Four experts who reviewed satellite imagery of the sites at the Post’s request said the damage has most likely halted Iran’s ability to produce short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles until facilities can be rebuilt.
Satellite imagery shows four main areas at the Khojir missile complex, just east of Tehran, were hit by the US or Israel. The strikes targeted complex production systems that make solid and liquid fuel necessary to power the ballistic missiles, according to Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Centre.
Ballistic missiles are fired miles into the air before returning to the ground at extremely high speeds. Those in the Iranian arsenal are fuelled by either solid or liquid propellants, according to experts. Solid fuel is the most common, typically used for shorter-range munitions and more efficient during war. Liquid propellants typically power the longest-range missiles, but have more time-consuming fuel-loading processes, which makes them more vulnerable to attack.
In total, at least 88 structures were destroyed at Khojir, according to satellite imagery taken on March 24.
The IRGC’S Shahroud production complex in northeast Iran houses the research, development and mass production of solid fuel. It was heavily attacked by the US or Israel, satellite imagery shows, leaving at least 28 damaged or destroyed structures.
At the Parchin military complex east of Tehran, where solid propellant is made, 12 structures were hit, according to March 12 imagery. On the outskirts of the capital, 19 structures were hit at the Hakimiyeh military complex, including facilities that make liquid propellant and launchers, March 14 imagery shows.
Sean O’Connor, an imagery analyst at the security intelligence firm Janes, told the Post in an email that if Iran is unable to rebuild its missile forces, it will lose one of its most important defensive strategies in the Middle East.
At least 29 missile launch bases have been hit by airstrikes, according to imagery, severely undermining Iran’s ability to fire ballistic missiles, experts told the Post. Experts said the exact number of ballistic missile launch sites in Iran is not known but estimated there to be about 30. Most of these bases include underground missile storage facilities that are accessed through tunnels cut into mountainsides, according to experts. US and Israeli strikes have hit many of these tunnel entrances, blocking access to where the missiles are kept, satellite imagery shows.
“These strikes will significantly hamper operations,” Lair said. Citing the destruction of base infrastructure, he added, “it now takes longer to set up launchers, which gives the US and Israel more time to identify and destroy them”.
Bases in central and western Iran are mobilised for medium-range strikes on Israel, while those along the Persian Gulf have been used to fire short-range missiles at the Gulf states, Lamson said.
The Khorgu missile base along the Gulf has been struck at least twice by Israel or the US, according to imagery. At least 15 facilities were flattened and two tunnel entrances were hit.
Imagery of the Imam Ali missile base in western Iran shows nine above-ground structures and at least two tunnel entrances were hit, impeding access to the weapons underground, O’Connor of Janes said.
However, many experts said this impact is likely temporary. “It seems hard to permanently knock those bases out,” said Jeremy Binnie, another analyst at Janes. “You can neutralise them in theory but Iran will just keep digging them out and repairing.”
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