The IRGC announced its 66th wave of attacks on Thursday — 66 waves in 21 days, averaging more than three per day since hostilities began on 28 February. This salvo deployed what the IRGC described as "super-heavy multi-warhead" Qadr missiles alongside Khorramshahr, Kheibar Shekan, and Zolfaqar systems, targeting positions in Israel and at US military bases across the region.
The sustained tempo runs directly counter to American and Israeli damage assessments. Netanyahu claimed on 19 March that Iran can "no longer make ballistic missiles" — a statement the IAEA has not corroborated and no independent agency with inspection access has confirmed. US officials have estimated Iranian capacity is down 90%. Yet the IRGC continues to fire multi-system salvos at a rate that shows no deceleration from the war's first week. Minutes before his death on Thursday, IRGC spokesman Naeini had publicly insisted Iran was still manufacturing missiles — his final public statement before an airstrike killed him in Tehran.
The weapon systems in this wave each serve distinct tactical functions. The Khorramshahr is Iran's longest-range liquid-fuelled Ballistic missile, with an assessed range of 2,000 kilometres and a warhead capacity of approximately 1,500 kilograms — built for strategic targets deep in Israeli territory. The Kheibar Shekan, a solid-fuelled medium-range system first unveiled in 2022, requires significantly shorter launch preparation, making it harder to detect and destroy on the ground. The Zolfaqar is a tactical precision missile used operationally against ISIS positions in eastern Syria in 2017 and again during the April 2024 strikes on Israel. The Qadr variant now described as "super-heavy multi-warhead" — if carrying functional multiple re-entry vehicles — would complicate interception by forcing defence systems to track and engage several warheads per incoming missile rather than one.
The IRGC claimed on 15 March that most missiles fired so far were produced "a decade ago" and that weapons manufactured after the initial strikes remain unused. If accurate, Iran's pre-war stockpile depth exceeds what three weeks of intensive US targeting has depleted. The cost asymmetry compounds the problem for defenders: Israel's emergency NIS 2.6 billion interceptor procurement buys Arrow and David's Sling rounds at $2–3 million each, while Iranian ballistic missiles cost a fraction of that to produce. At Iran's current firing rate, each wave imposes cumulative inventory and financial pressure on Israeli and Gulf air defences regardless of interception success rates — a dynamic that favours the side with cheaper munitions and deeper magazines in any prolonged exchange.
