Destruction at Iranian missile impact sites (IDF spokesperson, June 19–20, 2025)
Destruction at Iranian missile impact sites (IDF spokesperson, June 19–20, 2025)
A cluster bomb found on the ground after the Iranian missile impact (Home Front Command website, June 19, 2025)
The Khorramshahr-4 (Mehr News Agency, June 22, 2025)
Overview
- The Iranian regime has used terrorism against Israeli targets for many years to promote its interests, including deterrence and revenge. Its global terrorist attacks deliberately target civilians and it continuously supports a series of proxy terrorist organizations in the Middle East and provides them with weapons with which to attack the home front in Israel.
- The recent Israel-Iran War revealed an additional aspect of Iran’s use of terrorism against Israel, involving the direct firing of surface-to-surface missiles at population centers. Iran deliberately targeted the home front despite its claim that the missiles allegedly targeted strategic installations and military bases.
- The most glaring example of Iranian surface-to-surface missile terrorism was the use of the Khorramshahr-4 missile, publicly unveiled in Iran in 2023, defined as a long-range strategic ballistic missile which carries approximately 80 small cluster bombs, which scatter indiscriminately and cause extensive damage. During the war, Iran conducted the missile’s first operational use, causing widespread damage.
- In ITIC assessment, the concept behind developing surface-to-surface missiles like the Khorramshahr-4 and launching them at Israeli territory was to cause maximum damage to civilians and serve as a tool of terrorism to sow fear and disrupt daily life. As such, the Khorramshahr-4 is another form of Iranian terrorism targeting civilian populations, setting a dangerous international precedent in the use of long-range cluster surface-to-surface missiles as a form of state terrorism.
Iran’s Use of Terrorism
- For decades the Iranian regime has used various forms of anti-Israel terrorism as a tool for deterrence and retaliation for actions attributed to Israel, against both Iran itself and its proxies. The most obvious manifestation of Iranian terrorism Tehran’s direct involvement, sometimes in collaboration with Hezbollah, in attacks on Israeli or Jewish civilian targets around the globe. Notable examples include the bombings of the Israeli embassy in Argentina (March 1992), the Jewish community center in Argentina (July 1994), the attack on a bus of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria (July 2012), and the exposure of attempted attacks on Israeli tourists and business people in Turkey and Cyprus in recent years (INSS, April 2025).[1]
- In addition, Iran is considered the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, having reportedly spent around $700 million per year to support terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen. The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the Iranian entity primarily responsible for providing financial and material support to those groups (United States State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, 2019).
- A central aspect of Iran’s export of military knowledge to the above organizations is the transfer of advanced weapons such as rockets, missiles and UAVs, enabling its proxy terrorist groups to pose a significant threat to Israel’s home front without directly encountering IDF forces. That has been apparent during the Gaza Strip War since October 2023, with the launch of rockets, ballistic missiles and UAVs at Israeli territory by Hamas and the PIJ from Gaza, Hezbollah from Lebanon,[2] the Houthis from Yemen, and the pro-Iranian militias from Iraq.
How Iran Uses Its Array of Surface-to-Surface Missiles
- Iran currently possesses thousands of missiles capable of threatening a wide range of targets across the Middle East, from Israel and American military targets to the energy infrastructure of the Arab Gulf states, giving Iran the ability to cause serious damage. Tehran exploits that ability to deter attempts to destabilize the regime and as a tool for advancing its strategic regional goals. For instance, Iran launched ballistic missiles at ISIS targets in Syria in response to major attacks in Tehran in 2017 (Al Jazeera, June 19, 2017); at American military targets following the assassination of Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020 (Al Jazeera, January 8, 2020); and at targets in the Kurdish region suspected of serving Israel in 2024 (Arab News, January 17, 2024).
- During the Israel-Iran War (June 13–24, 2025), 591 ballistic missiles were launched at Israel, 86% of which were intercepted. Over 50 missile impact sites were documented across the country, with 29 fatalities and extensive property damage (IDF spokesperson, June 27, 2025; INSS database, June 24, 2025).
Destruction at Iranian missile impact sites (IDF spokesperson, June 19–20, 2025)
Cluster Surface-to-Surface Missiles as a Form of State Terrorism
- On June 22, 2025, Iranian media reported the first-ever launch of a Khorramshahr-4, a cluster surface-to-surface missile, also called Kheibar, at Israel (Mehr News Agency, June 22, 2025). Three days earlier, the IDF had announced that the first Iranian cluster surface-to-surface missile had hit a site in the greater Tel Aviv area. Analysis showed that the missile released small bombs at an altitude of about 7 kilometers (a little over four miles), each weighing about 2.5 kg, which dispersed in an 8-kilometer (about five miles) radius and exploded upon ground impact (Israeli media, June 19, 2025).
A cluster bomb found on the ground after the Iranian missile impact
(Home Front Command website, June 19, 2025)
- The Khorramshahr-4 missile, first unveiled in May 2023, is one of the heaviest and most powerful missiles in Iran’s surface-to-surface missile arsenal. It has a range of around 2,000 kilometers (about 1,243 miles) and a warhead weighing about 1.5 tons. It carries a payload of 80 small cluster bombs which scatter indiscriminately over a wide area (Mehr News Agency, May 29, 2023).
- An article published following the announcement of the missile’s first launch at Israeli territory was titled “Kheibar Storm: Khorramshahr-4 — The Zionists’ Nightmare in Its First Launch.” It stated that the missile was a strategic weapon that played a key role in Iran’s “defense doctrine,” and that its high speed, accuracy, and resistance to interception made it an ideal response to regional threats, especially from “the Zionist regime” (Mehr News Agency, June 22, 2025).
The Khorramshahr-4 (Mehr News Agency, June 22, 2025)
- Conventional military doctrine, which is criticized internationally, considers cluster munitions as a tactical means of disrupting enemy ground maneuvers in defined combat zones. However, the rationale does not apply to the range of the Khorramshahr-4, which far exceeds the scope relevant to disrupting ground movements. Therefore, the launch of a long-range cluster surface-to-surface missile represents a departure from classical military tactical use and clearly reflects the intent of its developers to employ the weapon in a manner consistent with the definition of terrorism, i.e., extensive, indiscriminate harm to the enemy’s civilian home front, without distinction between military and civilian targets.
[1] For further information, see the August 2012 ITIC report, The Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, spearheads Iran’s global terrorist campaign.
[2] For further information, see the July 2024 ITIC report, Hezbollah’s Policy for the Use of Force against Israel; and the January 2025 report Weapons Used by Hezbollah Against Israel, October 8, 2023 to November 27, 2024
