Iran has been using Kheibar Shekan missiles in recent strikes against US assets across the Middle East, and the weapons are built for speed, mobility, and survival against the very systems meant to stop them. Solid-fuel and medium-range, they can be kept fueled and loaded quickly onto trucks or other vehicles for launching, which makes them easier to move and harder for warplanes to catch before launch. Military experts said that sets them apart from older Iranian missiles that require prelaunch fueling, a slower process that leaves more time for the other side to hunt them down.
The State Monopoly on Both Sides
The missiles are described as cheap, mobile and accurate, with a range of at least 1,400 kilometers. Some variants have small engines in the nose section that carry the explosive warhead and detach during the final phase of flight, allowing the missile to adjust direction as it approaches its target at about 10,000 kilometers per hour. That kind of engineering is not about liberation. It is about making a weapon harder to kill before it kills something else.
Iran is combining Kheibar Shekan launches with high-speed attack drones and less sophisticated missiles, targeting radars supporting air defenses across the region and housing areas for US troops at bases across the Middle East. US officials said Iran has been using different flight paths, maneuvers and speeds to confuse US defenses. While the US and its allies have shot down most of the Kheibar Shekans throughout the war, one US official said some have gotten through. The machinery works both ways. One side launches, the other intercepts, and civilians live under the debris of both systems.
Army Gen. Joseph Votel, who has led US Central Command, said, “I think what it tells us is Iran is paying attention, and they’re learning, and they’re looking at ways that they can get at us.” He added, “This is a military that has a well-developed drone capability; it’s had a missile program, a rocket program for a long period of time. They’ve got a lot of expertise in this area.” Fabian Hinz, an independent missile expert, said Iran likely studied previous launches in order to maximize their chances of their missiles reaching their targets. Hinz also said, “Iran has seen what types of maneuvers are the most effective ones for overcoming missile defense. Every single combat use gives you some sort of data, so that’s very useful for the Iranians.”
Who Pays for the Arsenal
Iran hasn’t disclosed the cost of a Kheibar Shekan, but analysts told the Wall Street Journal that they are far cheaper than US and Israeli interceptors used to stop them, at a cost between $2 million and $15 million, depending on the system. That price gap matters. It means the war machine can keep grinding even when the defenders are spending far more to swat missiles out of the sky.
Israel said it shot most of the Kheibar Shekans fired at it by Iran, which claimed it targeted the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as another attack with the missiles last month. The official language stays neat. The reality is uglier. Missiles fly, interceptors launch, and the people underneath don’t get a vote.
The Jerusalem Post said Iran retaliated by firing across the Middle East at Gulf nations and US military bases in the region. It said 39 IDF soldiers and 23 civilians have been killed, and at least 7,693 more injured in ballistic missile attacks across Israel since February 28. It also said 18 US soldiers were killed, according to CENTCOM. Those numbers are the human ledger of state conflict: soldiers, civilians, bases, and cities all folded into the same machinery of escalation.
Regime Change, Then Ceasefire
Israel and the US launched Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury on February 28, with the stated aim of creating conditions for regime change. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by an Israeli strike on a Tehran bunker, and Iran’s defense minister and several IRGC generals were also killed in the largest-ever aerial attack by the IAF. A ceasefire deal was announced on April 7 and went into effect on April 8.
That sequence says plenty. States announce operations with grand names, speak of regime change as if populations were chess pieces, and then call it peace when the shooting pauses. The missiles keep their own logic. So do the governments that launch them.