In what may be a first in the ongoing Iran-Israel war, Iran launched a ballistic missile with cluster munitions in a devastating strike on Israel, indicating that it is unlikely to back out and is far from being crippled.
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) Home Front Command confirmed that Iran launched a ballistic missile carrying a cluster bomb warhead aimed at targets in central Israel on June 19. It stated that the warhead split at an altitude of 7 kilometres while descending, and then spread out about 20 sub-munitions across a radius of 8 kilometres.
One of the small explosives, about the size of a small rocket, inflicted some damage on a house near the central town of Azor.
An unidentified Israeli military officer told The Times of Israel that although the explosion from each cluster bomb is substantially smaller, such a missile threatens a far larger area than Iran’s other ballistic missile warheads.
The army advised the civilians to notify authorities right away if they see any missile wreckage on the ground and to avoid approaching any such wreckage.
The conflict between Israel and Iran began on June 13 with unprecedented IDF strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and its top military leadership.
Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated soon after the first round of air strikes by the IDF, and has launched dozens of missile and drone strikes on Israel, breaching its air defenses and hitting strategic assets like the Mossad Headquarters.
The IDF initially thought it would cripple Iran by assassinating the West Asian nation’s top military leadership and nuclear scientists. It said that the strike was launched to set back Iran’s nuclear program by several years–an objective that it has not achieved, as noted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently.
Earlier this week, Israel said that it had managed to establish complete air superiority over the Iranian skies and destroyed several missile launchers, hinting that Iran’s missile barrages will likely slow down and eventually come to a halt.
In contrast, the Iranians continue to unleash ballistic missiles, including the heavier Sejjil, Fattah-1 hypersonic missiles, and now unidentified ballistic missiles with multiple warheads that are much harder to intercept.
The EurAsian Times could not identify the exact Iranian type of missile that was carrying the cluster munition warhead. Last year, when Iran launched an air strike on Israel in April, the state IRNA news agency had published footage (seen below) that it attributed to the release of cluster munitions of Qadr missile warhead on IDF’s Nevatim Air Base.
The proud moment of the release of cluster munitions of #Iran's Qadr missile warhead on the Zionist Nevatim base, which made Israel's defense systerm ineffective. pic.twitter.com/fk2kyCNeTV
— IRNA News Agency (@IrnaEnglish) April 17, 2024
Iran has already demonstrated cluster munition warheads that are, at least externally, similar to those seen on older ballistic missiles, particularly Shahab-3 liquid-fueled MRBM derivatives and modifications.
Notably, the use of cluster munitions has drawn widespread condemnation from Israel and pro-Israel experts and analysts, because these bombs are often considered lethal for use on urban settlements due to their dispersal across large areas, and are banned in about 100 countries across the world, though Iran and Israel don’t prohibit their use.
The United States, Israel’s chief patron, itself has a dismal record of using cluster munitions across different battlefields. During the Vietnam War, for instance, the US military extensively used cluster bombs, such as the CBU-24 and BLU-26, dropped by aircraft over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Years later, during the 1991 Gulf War, the US forces used cluster bombs like the CBU-87 to devastate Iraqi armored divisions, destroy vehicles and personnel across large areas, and significantly weaken their ability to mount a meaningful counterattack.
The Soviet Union was no less.
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, AO-1SCh bomblets and other cluster munitions were dropped from the sky and delivered by artillery to combat Mujahideen fighters in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.
Later, Russia deployed cluster munitions in its war against Chechen fighters, during the 2008 invasion of Georgia, and in the civil war in Syria, etc.
Iran’s use of cluster munitions has been projected by pro-Israeli and Western media as an unprecedented escalation. The use of these sub-munitions comes as Israel is allegedly running low on missile interceptors, as reported by the Wall Street Journal recently.
Why Are Cluster Munitions Condemned So Widely?
In a nutshell, cluster munitions are weapons that release multiple smaller submunitions, or bomblets, over a wide area. They can be used to target personnel, vehicles, or materiel across a broad space, making them effective against dispersed or moving targets.
These munitions are typically deployed from aircraft, artillery, or missile systems. They can also be dropped as bombs, fired as rockets, or launched via shells.
Once released, the munition’s canister opens in mid-air, dispersing dozens to hundreds of submunitions over a designated area.
Cluster munitions are considered to be extremely dangerous because those tiny bomblets make no distinction between military or civilian targets.
They cause massive civilian casualties and collateral damage, and their use is now seen as a deliberate attempt at human rights violations. A key issue with cluster munitions is their high dud rate, where some submunitions fail to explode on impact. These unexploded ordnances (UXOs) remain hazardous, posing risks to civilians long after conflicts end.
The 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, production, and stockpiling of cluster munitions. It has been signed by over 100 countries due to its indiscriminate nature and long-term risks.
However, Iran and Israel, as well as the US, Russia, and China, are not signatories.
Despite their potential to cause civilian harm, cluster munitions are still used because the dispersal of mini-bomblets over a large area makes them highly effective against dispersed targets like airfields, where a single-point explosion would be less effective.
The simultaneous detonation of multiple bomblets overwhelms enemy defenses. These small bomblets have low radar signatures, making them difficult for air defenses to intercept individually.
Moreover, even the most advanced air defense systems with high interception rates, such as Israeli Arrow or the US THAAD, are designed to target the missile itself, not the dispersed submunitions.
Additionally, the use of cluster warheads in larger salvos would also create a decoy-like effect, making it harder for defenses to prioritize targets.
By using cluster warheads, Iran can increase the chances of some submunitions reaching their targets, even if the primary missile is intercepted.
More importantly, since the Israel-Iran war now hinges on whether Iran runs out of ballistic missiles first or Israel exhausts its interceptors, Tehran may want to inflict maximum damage to stop Israel and get them to negotiate.
For now, Iran’s use of cluster munitions in missile attacks on Israel enhances its ability to target large areas, overwhelm air defenses, and disrupt civilian life, as proportionate retaliation to Israeli strikes that killed its top military leadership and caused huge military losses. It remains to be seen whether this was an isolated incident or more cluster bombs are headed for Israel.
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