Updated US intelligence assessments indicate that Iran has managed to preserve about half of its missile launchers, as well as thousands of suicide drones, CNN reports, citing three sources familiar with the intelligence assessments.
According to these assessments, about 50% of Iran's missile launchers remain intact, a figure that includes launchers buried underground by strikes but not destroyed. In addition, about 50% of Iran's drone capabilities remain intact, and a large portion of its anti-ship missiles, which threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, were not hit at all.
Israeli military assessments present a somewhat different picture. According to them, only about 20% to 25% of Iran's missile launchers are still operational. The difference stems from the fact that Israel considers launchers remaining in the "missile cities" and tunnels targeted in the strikes to have been removed from Iran's launcher inventory, while the US assessment still includes them.
According to the report, the US and Israel have now shifted to striking tunnel entrances and engineering equipment such as bulldozers intended to restore access to them.
The report said that while the Iranian navy has been largely destroyed, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy retains about half of its capabilities. According to one of the sources, it still has "hundreds and perhaps thousands" of small boats and unmanned vessels. US Central Command said that more than 155 Iranian vessels have so far been destroyed or damaged.
One of the central challenges, according to the report, is Iran's ability to make use of the tunnel network it has built over decades. According to two of the sources who spoke to the network, Iran has also managed to operate its mobile launchers successfully, firing and then fleeing the area immediately afterward.
In an address to the nation this week, Trump said Iran's launch capability had been "badly hurt" and that it had "almost no launchers left," estimating that the operation would be over within two to three weeks. One of the sources who provided the assessments to CNN rejected that timeline: "You're crazy if you think this will be over in two weeks."
The White House and the Pentagon rejected the report. "Ballistic missile and drone attacks are down 90%, the Iranian navy has been eliminated, two-thirds of production facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and the US and Israel have complete control of the skies," the White House said. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the report "completely false" and said that "the US has delivered a series of crippling blows to the Iranian regime."
