scramjet powered cruise missile

The World’s First Hypersonic Cruise Missile Will Fly 20 Times Faster Than the Competition

Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) will be the first scramjet-powered weapon to enter production.

• Unlike most cruise missiles, however, this one travels way faster than the speed of sound , with the capability to fly at speeds in excess of Mach 5.
• Exactly how fast the new Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile will be remains a mystery.

The Pentagon has plenty of cruise missiles in its arsenal, from the long-serving Tomahawk to the new JASSM-ER . But a new missile set to enter service in 2027 is radically different: the new Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) will fly up to 20 times faster, giving adversaries little time to escape its wrath. HACM will be the first mass-produced weapon to use air-breathing scramjet engines.

Raytheon and Northrop Grumman won a contract worth $985 million to develop the world’s first hypersonic cruise missile. HACM, developed for the United States and Australia, is an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile designed to quickly strike targets on the ground. Under the terms of the contract, the Pentagon should see the first operational missiles in 2027.

In 2020, the U.S. and Australia jointly began the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment partnership, or SCIFiRE. Named after the constellation that appears on Australia’s national flag, SCIFiRE was meant to develop an air-breathing hypersonic weapon system designed to be carried on both U.S. and Australian aircraft, including the F/A-18 Super Hornet , F-35A Joint Strike Fighter , P-8A Poseidon aircraft, and others. The contract will mature the Raytheon SCIFiRE prototype into an actual weapon system.

HACM is a tactical weapon designed to be used on day one of a large-scale conventional conflict . “HACM will provide our commanders with tactical flexibility to employ fighters to hold high-value, time-sensitive targets at risk while maintaining bombers for other strategic targets,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said in an Air Force statement last week.

Traditional cruise missiles are basically pilotless aircraft. Like many aircraft, turbofan engines power cruise missiles, propelling them at subsonic speeds. Cruise missiles fly low to avoid radar detection, and a slower speed helps them fly lower and hug the ground. Tomahawk cruise missiles , for example, fly at an altitude of between 98 and 164 feet at a speed of 550 miles per hour.

HACM is a hypersonic weapon, which means it flies at Mach 5 or faster—but we don’t know exactly how much faster it will fly. Most missiles that remain in the atmosphere, like air-to-air missiles , top out at around Mach 3+. SCIFiRE was descended from the earlier HIFiRE program , which tested a scramjet engine at speeds up to Mach 8.

HACM will be the world’s first operational weapon system to use a scramjet engine . Like turbofan engines, scramjets scoop up oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere to use as fuel. One key difference between the two is that a turbofan engine scoops up oxygen at subsonic speeds, while a scramjet scoops it up at supersonic speeds. More oxygen means more fuel for the scramjet engine, which enables it to propel the missile even faster. According to NASA , scramjet engines should work to at least Mach 15. That translates to 11,509 miles per hour, or fast enough to circle Earth in about two hours.

Hypersonic weapons are the new hotness in warfare. Most of the avowed nuclear powers have technically had hypersonic weapons for a half-century or more, as the ballistic missiles that carry nuclear warheads travel at hypersonic speeds, impacting their targets at up to 15,000 miles per hour. This new generation of hypersonic weapons is different in that it is non-nuclear in nature—at least so far—and would be used immediately in a conventional war.

There’s a lot we don’t know about HACM. We don’t know how fast it really flies, or how far it flies. All we know is it is small enough to be carried by a fighter jet and will be ready by 2027. One thing is for sure: HACM is awkward and we need a better name for it.

Kyle Mizokami is a writer on defense and security issues and has been at Popular Mechanics since 2015. If it involves explosions or projectiles, he's generally in favor of it. Kyle’s articles have appeared at The Daily Beast, U.S. Naval Institute News, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Combat Aircraft Monthly, VICE News , and others. He lives in San Francisco.

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Scramjet-Powered Cruise Missile Emerges As New U.S. Priority

Fielding an operational scramjet-powered cruise missile has emerged as a new priority for the U.S. Defense Department’s proliferating portfolio of maneuvering hypersonic weapons.     

Senior defense officials are putting together a program to develop an operational follow-on to DARPA’s Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), which currently supports competing scramjet-powered missile demonstrators designed by Lockheed Martin/Aerojet Rocketdyne and Raytheon/Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems teams. 

• Pentagon officials seek hypersonic air-breathing weapon follow-on
• Awareness of boost-glide challenges sinks in

“We are in the process of trying to figure out what [an operational program] would look like,” says Mike White, assistant director for hypersonics in the office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering. 

As the U.S. military rushed after 2017 to respond to Russian and Chinese hypersonic advances, air-breathing hypersonic cruise missiles fell to the bottom of the priority list. Funding for operational programs favored boost-glide technology over the seemingly less mature field of weapons powered by scramjets (supersonic combustion ramjets). 

But that assumption is being challenged. Along with the flight-test experience accumulated a decade ago by the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) X-51 scramjet vehicle, recent ground tests and simulations indicate scramjet technology is more advanced than previously understood. In September, the AFRL announced it had achieved thrust levels over 13,000 lb. with a Northrop-designed engine at speeds “above Mach 4” in a hypersonic wind tunnel. In June, Raytheon reported the maturity of its scramjet-powered HAWC demonstrator had exceeded that of its boost-glide design.

In December 2018, Michael Griffin, under secretary of defense for research and engineering, described hypersonic cruise missiles as “further out” than boost-glide weapons. But the technology advanced so quickly that another official, Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper, concluded seven months later the HAWC program would be “a nearer-term not a far-term capability.”

“We’d like to see HAWC transition to a fully operational system,” says Mark Lewis, the Defense Department’s director of research and engineering for modernization. “It’s probably the issue that our hypersonic team is spending most time on right now.”

Awareness is also growing for the technical challenges still facing medium-range boost-glide missiles in the class of DARPA’s Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) missile demonstrators. The Air Force’s 2017 decision to launch the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), an operational follow-on to the TBG, helped legitimize the Defense Department’s revived interest in hypersonic weapons, White says. 

“I think people underestimate the importance of this decision of the Air Force [to launch ARRW] in the hypersonic community,” he says. “We’ve always been kind of stuck in the [research and development] realm. The Air Force in 2017, they were the first service that said: ‘Hey, we want hypersonic weapons.’”

But the TBG-derived ARRW represents a particularly difficult technical challenge. The design uses a higher lift-over-drag ratio wing shape, which has never been successfully tested by the U.S. government. By contrast, the axisymmetric shape of the lower lift-over-drag glider developed for the Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB)—the front-end designed for the Air Force Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and the Navy’s Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike (IRCPS)—has logged several successful flight tests since the late 1970s. The winged TBG’s greater maneuverability, albeit with shorter range, makes it far more challenging to design. 

“It’s DARPA-hard, and TBG is hard,” Lewis says.

Ongoing studies by the Air Force’s Warfighting Integration Capability are also starting to highlight the operational benefits of cruise missiles compared to medium-range boost-glide systems. A cruise missile still requires a booster rocket to accelerate to hypersonic speed, but it does not need to carry as much oxidizer and fuel as a boost-glide rocket because it remains within the atmosphere. Air-breathing cruise missiles’ smaller size means a single aircraft, such as a Boeing B-52, can carry them in much greater numbers.  

“For a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle you can get two, maybe four, on a B-52,” White says. “But you can get 15 or maybe 20 hypersonic cruise missiles [on a B-52] because the size is much smaller.So you can carry them internally in the rotary rack. There are significant advantages for the air breathers, but they offer different technical challenges.”

The smaller size and increased packaging advantages of air breathers would give the Air Force significant tactical advantage, Lewis adds. “The No. 1 question we should be asking is: ‘How do we deliver lots of these things?’ In my mind, one way to do that is to fit a lot of them in a weapons bay. Getting 15-20 per bomb bay is a lot, but if I’m [launching them from] a single mobile launcher, I’m not sure I can deliver the numbers I need. We are not interested in capability when we build two and declare it a success—that doesn’t do anything.”

The Pentagon’s hypersonic weapons portfolio emerged in a blur of bureaucratic activity between 2017 and 2018. The first step was the Air Force’s decision to launch the medium-range ARRW program in 2017 as the follow-on to TBG. Shortly afterward, the Air Force also decided to launch the longer-range HCSW. In November 2017, the Navy conducted a successful test of the proposed C-HGB, which prompted the Navy and the Army to support funding toward the operational prototypes of the IRCPS and LRHW—for submarine and ground launch, respectively.

As it stands now, the portfolio includes air-launched medium-range and long-range boost-glide systems, an intermediate-range submarine-launched missile and a long-range weapon launched from a tractor trailer. If an operational follow-on of the HAWC is approved, with Air Force and Navy concepts under consideration, new air- and surface-launched options for medium-range targets could become available. 

In addition to the offensive programs, the Defense Department’s road map also includes development of a counter-hypersonic system—starting with the Missile Defense Agency’s Regional Glide-Phase Weapon System as well as multiple programs for booster development and continued funding of basic science and technology. Additional DARPA programs include the ground-launched Operational Fires, which seeks to integrate a TBG front-end on a two-stage booster stack that includes a throttled upper stage, and the Advanced Full-Range Engine, a dual-mode ramjet that could power a future hypersonic aircraft. 

Such a diverse yet overlapping  road map has prompted criticism. In July, the chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), warned defense officials that they “need to better define the strategy for the investment in these systems.” Visclosky’s committee proposed cutting some funding for the Army’s hypersonic program, but a joint conference committee of Congressional appropriators ultimately restored the funding and added more for other hypersonic programs. 

Lewis believes the development of a multitude of hypersonic missile programs is justified.

“Too many people think hypersonics is just one thing,” Lewis says. “They think, for example, [it’s just for the long-range, conventional prompt strike mission]. But no, it’s a range of capabilities.

“Even at the tactical level it’s, for lack of a better phrase, a high-low mix,” Lewis adds. “We should probably have a mix of air breathers and boost-glide systems. They probably have different capabilities, different ranges and so on. We have F-16s and F-15s, and they have different roles, and that should be the same with tactical hypersonic systems as well.”

Steve covers military aviation, missiles and space for the Aviation Week Network, based in Washington DC.

Guy is a Senior Editor for Aviation Week, covering technology and propulsion. He is based in Colorado Springs.

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Raytheon wins $985M contract to develop hypersonic missiles

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force on Thursday awarded a $985 million contract to Raytheon Technologies to develop and demonstrate scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missiles .

The contract starts to move the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, or HACM, program out of the prototyping phase and into becoming an operational weapon that could be used in combat. It also cuts the number of companies vying to make the weapon from three to one.

Under the deal, the HACM program will take Raytheon’s prototype design and prepare it to be integrated into a fighter aircraft that could then be used in combat, the Air Force said in a release Thursday. Raytheon will also deliver two HACMs, the release said.

The Air Force said HACM will be an air-launched standoff weapon that can hit high-value targets in contested environments and could be fired from beyond the reach of enemy air defenses. The service hopes to have a HACM weapon that could be used in combat by fiscal 2027.

Hypersonic weapons such as the HACM can fly multiple times the speed of sound and can maneuver mid-flight, making them hard for enemies to track and shoot down.

In a future war against an adversary with advanced air defenses, such as China, the weapon could be used to strike valuable targets well within those defenses and otherwise out of reach. A fighter armed with such a weapon could fly to the edge of where the adversary’s defenses could reach and then fire the weapon. Once the HACM’s scramjet pushes the aircraft to about Mach 5, it could then outrun and evade air defenses on its way to the target, without putting the fighter pilot at risk.

“HACM is a powerful example of developing and integrating combat capabilities alongside our partners from the beginning,” Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said in the release. “HACM will provide our commanders with tactical flexibility to employ fighters to hold high-value, time-sensitive targets at risk, while maintaining bombers for other strategic targets.”

The contract marks the end of more than a year of competition between major defense contractors to prove their concept will work.

The Air Force and Australia teamed up in 2020 to develop air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile prototypes under a bilateral project arrangement called the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE.

In June 2021, the Air Force awarded 15-month SCIFiRE contracts to Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin to finish their preliminary designs for a hypersonic cruise missile.

The Air Force said in Thursday’s release the U.S. and Australia will keep collaborating on HACM’s design and development under the SCIFiRE agreement.

Part of this continued collaboration will include using Australia’s test infrastructure for HACM’s first all-up-round flight tests.

A lack of sufficient infrastructure to test hypersonics has been a major hindrance for developing these weapons in the United States, industry officials told Pentagon leaders earlier this year. Lawmakers and DoD officials have sought to expand American testing capabilities to fix this.

Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.

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DARPA taps Raytheon for next phase of air-breathing hypersonic program

By Mikayla Easley

July 17, 2023

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected Raytheon and its partner Northrop Grumman to continue the development and maturation of its scramjet-powered hypersonic missile known as the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept (HAWC).

Raytheon received an $81 million contract to work on the More Opportunities with the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept, or MoHAWC, the Pentagon announced Saturday . The new effort is a successor to the HAWC program — a joint initiative between DARPA and the Air Force to develop and demonstrate an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile — that wrapped up in January with its final successful flight test.

The follow-on effort aims to continue development, integration and demonstration of technologies to prove the effectiveness and efficiency of air-launched hypersonic cruise missiles, Salvatore Buccellato, DARPA program manager, told DefenseScoop in an email.

“These technologies include advancing hydrocarbon scramjet-powered propulsion operation, upgrading aircraft integration algorithms, and improving manufacturing approaches,” Buccellato wrote.

Under the new contract, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman will build and fly additional HAWC flight vehicles, applying data and lessons learned during the original program to mature the weapon’s design, a company press release said. The team will add manufacturing improvements to the original vehicle’s design and flight tests to “expand its operating envelope while validating system performance models,” the release added.

DARPA’s budget request for fiscal 2024 includes $30 million for MoHAWC. The program’s estimated deadline is January 2026, according to the contract announcement.

MoHAWC is one of the many hypersonic weapons programs currently underway within the Pentagon. Able to travel at speeds of Mach 5 or greater through the atmosphere and maneuver mid-flight, hypersonic missiles are much harder to detect and intercept when compared to conventional ballistic missiles that fly predictable flight paths.

Raytheon served as a prime contractor for DARPA’s original HAWC program and conducted several flight tests of a missile propelled by a Northrop Grumman air-breathing propulsion system. Also called a scramjet, air-breathing engines achieve hypersonic flight by pulling oxygen in from the atmosphere.

“We applied learnings from each successful HAWC flight test to ensure that it is the most sophisticated system of its kind,” Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology for Raytheon, said Monday in a statement. “Continuing this important program will expand our knowledge of hypersonic flight and allow us to deliver the critical capability our warfighters need.”

Lockheed Martin also worked on the HAWC program, partnering with Aerojet Rocketdyne. However, Buccellato confirmed to DefenseScoop that Raytheon will be the only performer on the follow-on MoHAWC effort. 

While HAWC was a joint effort with the Air Force, MoHAWC will bring in both the Air Force and the Navy for collaboration “to meet future technology insertion dates for service programs of record,” Buccellato noted.

The Air Force has two different hypersonic programs: the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) and the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM). After ARRW failed an all-up-round prototype test in March, the service decided to scrap its procurement plans for the weapon and instead focus on the more successful HACM.

Raytheon is also the prime contractor for HACM and received a $985 million contract from the Air Force in September. Like HAWC, the weapon is a cruise missile — which the service has had a bit more success with compared to boost-glide hypersonics such as ARRW . The airframe and engine designs of HAWC are very close to HACM’s, meaning that program will also directly benefit from MoHAWC’s advancements, according to Raytheon.

The Navy, however, has focused its hypersonic development efforts on Conventional Prompt Strike — a sea-launched weapon to be installed on Zumwalt-class destroyers in fiscal 2025 and Virginia-class submarines in fiscal 2028. The sea service is also pursuing the Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive Anti-Surface (HALO) weapon, although Navy program managers have indicated the weapon might not actually reach hypersonic speeds .

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DARPA's scramjet-powered hypersonic missile completes third test

The Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept successfully completed its third test earlier this month, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced today .

This was the second successful test with a Raytheon Technologies-built vehicle using a scramjet built by Northrop Grumman, the Monday news release states. The missile traveled at hypersonic speeds for more than 300 nautical miles and reached altitudes above 60,000 feet.

The HAWC missile was launched from an aircraft and accelerated to hypersonic speeds using its scramjet engine, according to a release from Northrop Grumman . Engineers designed the test to “intentionally stress the weapon concept to explore its limits and further validate digital performance models,” it states.

“The test demonstrated how we’ve rapidly matured affordable scramjet technology, which is the basis for air-breathing weapons,” President of Advanced Technology for Raytheon Missiles & Defense Colin Whelan said in a news release. “Our second HAWC flight test success is an important milestone for our nation as we advance hypersonic systems.”

The scramjet engine compresses incoming air before it is combusted to propel the missile at speeds above Mach 5, according to DARPA. The missiles are designed for speed and maneuverability for quick strikes and defense evasion.

Raytheon and Northrop, which began a partnership in 2019 to work on HAWC, first tested their missile in September . Partners Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne tested their variant of HAWC successfully this past spring .

DARPA, in its fiscal year 2023 budget justification document , asked for $60 million to fund a project its calling MoHAWC. The program is intended to “build upon” HAWC.

“MoHAWC will develop, integrate, and demonstrate technologies to increase effectiveness and producibility of an air-launched hypersonic cruise missile,” the justification document states.

No funds were requested to further HAWC.

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DARPA’s HAWC scramjet missile completes first free flight test

The test was conducted last week in partnership with the US Air Force.

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The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has completed the first free flight test of its scramjet-powered Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) missile.

During the test flight, the Raytheon Missiles & Defense-built HAWC missile was released from an aircraft.

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After a few seconds, the missile’s Northrop Grumman scramjet engine ignited and propelled it at a speed greater than Mach 5.

During this process, the supersonic combustion ramjet engine uses high vehicle speed to forcefully compress incoming air mixed with its hydrocarbon fuel before igniting the speeding airflow mixture to reach hypersonic flight.

The test validates HAWC’s airframe and propulsion system ability to cruise at hypersonic speeds.

The latest step marks a major milestone toward potentially delivering a cruise missile prototype system to the US Department of Defense (DoD) that can travel at more than five times the speed of sound.

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Travelling at these speeds will allow hypersonic weapons such as HAWC to reach their targets more quickly when compared to traditional missiles.

DARPA Tactical Technology Office HAWC programme manager Andrew Knoedler said: “The HAWC free flight test was a successful demonstration of the capabilities that will make hypersonic cruise missiles a highly effective tool for our warfighters.

“This brings us one step closer to transitioning HAWC to a programme of record that offers next-generation capability to the US military.”

In June 2019, Raytheon Technologies and Northrop Grumman signed a teaming agreement to develop, produce and integrate Northrop’s scramjet engines into Raytheon’s air-breathing hypersonic weapons.

Raytheon Missiles and Defense advanced technology vice-president Colin Whelan said: “This is a history-making moment, and this success paves the way for an affordable, long-range hypersonic system in the near term to strengthen national security.

“This test proves we can deliver the first operational hypersonic scramjet, providing a significant increase in warfighting capabilities.”

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U.S. details Pentagon’s role in defending Israel from Iranian attack

As Iran launched its much-anticipated attack on Israel on Saturday , the night sky was filled with deadly threats. More than 100 ballistic missiles were fired, senior U.S. officials said, complemented by about 30 cruise missiles and more than 150 explosive drones.

Israel’s vaunted missile defense systems ramped up to engage the munitions as they were launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But they were flanked by U.S. and British fighter jets, a Patriot missile defense system manned by U.S. troops in Iraq and U.S. destroyers off the coast of Israel, each ready to assist.

The result, a senior Biden administration official said Sunday, was a “spectacular defeat” of Iran’s attack, even though it was larger than U.S. officials had anticipated.

“You can imagine those tense moments,” the official said, speaking to reporters Sunday on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Among the U.S. forces that participated were the 494th Fighter Squadron, with headquarters in Britain; and the 335th Fighter Squadron, of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. Combined, the two squadrons used their F-15E Strike Eagles to take down about 70 attack drones heading to Israel, and received a phone call after from President Biden . The jets are designed for both air-to-air combat and deep interdiction, the Air Force says.

A senior military official, speaking on the same call, said that the USS Carney and USS Arleigh Burke, destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, shot down between four and six ballistic missiles in the attack. U.S. troops manning the Patriot missile defense system in Irbil, Iraq, took down another missile that had violated Iraqi airspace on its vector to Israel, the official said.

All told, Israeli and U.S. officials said that 99 percent of the incoming munitions were intercepted, suggesting just a few may have struck their intended targets in the Jewish state. At least one ballistic missile readied by Houthis in Yemen was destroyed on the launch pad, officials said, pointing to the coalition presence that has surveilled militant activity in the region in the last few months.

“There’s virtually no infrastructure damage to Israel at all,” the senior administration official said. That, he said, was despite Iran’s intent to cause “significant damage and deaths in Israel.”

Middle East conflict

Iranian drones similar to those used in the attack have been deployed by Russian forces to target Ukrainian infrastructure, and a key strategy there is to exhaust Kyiv’s costly air defense with cheaper and plentiful weapons to make future attacks easier, said Samuel Bendett, a member of the Russia studies program at the Center for Naval Analyses, a policy institute based in Arlington, Va. Tehran has almost certainly taken note, Bendett said.

It was notable that some of the drones used are slower and less sophisticated than jet-powered drones they also have in their inventory, he said, and it was likely Iran knew those drones would be destroyed relatively easily.

But the attack still imposed new challenges on Israel, Bendett suggested. To achieve a 99 percent interception rate required defenses that are probably “much costlier than the total number of threats arrayed against Israel,” he said.

“In this case, the mission was accomplished,” he said. “Israel had to get its aircraft in the air.”

Iran’s success overall was hit-and-miss, said Tom Karako, director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There was no strategic surprise, and the overall defeat of the threat demonstrated the value of diverse air defense systems that handle numerous types of weapons, he said.

Yet the size of the operation itself prompts questions about the stocks now available for air defense systems, Karako said, which are finite and expensive.

“The concern here is that Israel shot a lot of stuff. And so that speaks to their capacity issues,” Karako said. “You don’t take out 100 ballistic missiles of any type without dipping into capacity. So that’s going to be an issue here for the next steps.”

Retired Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who oversaw U.S. forces in the Middle East before retiring in 2022, said on Sunday that Iran, too, expended a lot of resources in the attack that will affect its ability to carry out anything similar soon. Speaking on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” McKenzie said that Iran has more than 3,000 missiles of various types scattered across the country, with a little more than 100 in western Iran, where they can target Israel.

“Based on what the Israelis are saying, I believe they fired most of those weapons at Israel,” McKenzie said. “The Israelis, obviously, were able to intercept most of them. Iran could not replicate last night’s attack tonight, if they had to.”

McKenzie called the attack a “maximum effort,” and said there was “nothing moderate” about it. Iran used its “most important capability,” ballistic missiles, in the assault, and it still failed, he assessed.

“So I think Israel this morning is now much stronger than they were yesterday,” McKenzie said. “And Iran is relatively weaker than it was yesterday.”

Israel-Gaza war

The Israel-Gaza war has gone on for six months, and tensions have spilled into the surrounding region .

The war: On Oct. 7, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival . (See photos and videos of how the deadly assault unfolded ). Israel declared war on Hamas in response, launching a ground invasion that fueled the biggest displacement in the region since Israel’s creation in 1948 .

Gaza crisis: In the Gaza Strip, Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars , killing tens of thousands and plunging at least half of the population into “ famine-like conditions. ” For months, Israel has resisted pressure from Western allies to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclave .

U.S. involvement: Despite tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some U.S. politicians , including President Biden, the United States supports Israel with weapons , funds aid packages , and has vetoed or abstained from the United Nations’ cease-fire resolutions.

History: The roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mistrust are deep and complex, predating the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 . Read more on the history of the Gaza Strip .

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• Mapping the wide-scale Iranian drone and missile attacks April 14, 2024 Mapping the wide-scale Iranian drone and missile attacks April 14, 2024
• Homes burned, animals killed: Palestinians describe Israeli settler rampage April 16, 2024 Homes burned, animals killed: Palestinians describe Israeli settler rampage April 16, 2024

Maps show how US, Israeli weaponry was used against Iran's aerial attack

Israel is weighing its response to an Iranian attack carried out by an estimated 300 drones and missiles Saturday, Iran’s first direct strike against Israel ever and a move that could lead to open warfare between the two nations.

The attack caused relatively minor damage, officials said. About 99% of the Iranian weapons were shot down with the help of the U.S., U.K. and Jordan, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military and a defense force post on Instagram.

The attack is an escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran and could spark a military escalation that could involve the U.S. and other countries and alter the  Israel-Hamas war  in the  Gaza Strip .

U.S. and European military forces intercepted more than 80 uncrewed one-way attack aerial vehicles and at least six ballistic missiles, the U.S. Central Command said Sunday.

In the Mediterranean Sea, two U.S. guided-missile destroyers, the USS Carney and the USS Arleigh Burke , shot down four to six ballistic missiles , the U.S. Naval Institute reported Sunday.

Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them.  

F-15E Strike Eagles from two squadrons shot down about 70 attack drones , according to The Washington Post.

Most of the drones and missile were fired from inside Iran. A few penetrated Israeli defenses, seriously injuring a 10-year-old girl with shrapnel and causing minor damage to a military base, Israeli officials said.

Did Israel bomb the Iranian Embassy in Syria?

Iran said it launched the attack in retaliation for an airstrike by Israeli warplanes on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1. Iran said seven of its military advisers, including three senior commanders, were killed in the attack. Israel never confirmed it was behind the attack.

Iran said Sunday that it would not retaliate further unless Israel counterattacked.

What weapons did Iran use?

According to Israeli officials, aerial weapons used in the attack included:

• 170 Shahed-136 drones
• 120 ballistic missiles
• 30 cruise missiles

Ballistic missiles are powered by one or more rockets that lift the missile into the atmosphere on an arching trajectory . The rockets then shut down and the unpowered missile descends to its target.

Cruise missiles are powered by jet engines. They can be launched from the ground, air or sea. The missiles can fly very low and are difficult to detect.

Cruise missiles are self-guiding but can be controlled by remote operators with cameras.

How the Iranian attack unfolded

The attack started at about 3:30 p.m Eastern time, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War . It consisted of at least three waves over several hours.

Drones were launched first; ballistic missiles were fired about an hour later so they would strike Israel at about the same time, according to a statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps that was reported by the BBC.

The Defense Department said U.S. forces from undisclosed bases in the region intercepted dozens of missiles and drones launched from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Military forces from the U.S., U.K., Jordan and Israel began intercepting drones and missiles outside Israeli airspace between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern, the war study institute said.

Israeli defense systems helped thwart the attack

Israel's Iron Dome and Arrow 3 systems were credited with shooting down most of the drones and missiles from Iran.

The Iron Dome is a mobile all-weather missile defense system, designed to detect and shoot down short-range rockets fired into Israel. It’s also used against enemy artillery and drones.

How the Iron Dome system works:

Iron Dome can detect and engage rockets up to 40 miles away. Each of its 10 batteries can protect a 58-square-mile area.

It’s a portable system, towed by trucks. The batteries are units with three main elements:

• ELM 2084 Multimission Radar (MMR):  Radar that detects incoming threats from Palestinian territories and Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.
• Battle management and weapon control system (BMC):  A computer that tracks a rocket’s trajectory and calculates whether it will hit an inhabited area. Rockets presenting the greatest threat are targeted. Rockets that will fall into uninhabited regions are ignored.
• Tamir missiles and launchers:  Each battery has three to four launchers, each with up to 20 Tamirs. The control system launches a missile that will intercept and destroy the incoming rocket.

Work on the Iron Dome began in 2007. It became operational in March 2011 and has been upgraded over the years. Its success rate has  exceeded 90% , says its manufacturer, Raytheon says.

Iron Dome is designed as protection against rockets at low altitudes. It's part of Israel's three-tiered air defense system that includes:

◾   David's Sling :  Defense against short-range ballistic missiles, large-caliber rockets and cruise missiles.

◾ Arrow-3 :  Defense against medium-range ballistic missiles.

Israel also uses U.S. Patriot missiles to defend itself from enemy aircraft and drones.

SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; U.S. Department of Defense; Institute for the Study of War ; Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; U.S. Naval Institute

How Israel managed to intercept '99 per cent' of Iran's drone and missile attack

Over five hours of missile and drone strikes on Saturday night, Iran launched an attack on Israel unlike anything the world has seen. 

The skies were alight, sirens blared and fighter jets roared as waves of strikes were launched towards Israeli territory.

But despite  more than 300 munitions being fired in Iran's unprecedented blitz , Israel says more than "99 per cent" were intercepted. 

The minimal damage was being attributed to Israel's multi-layered defence systems and a "coalition" of allies that came together for the first time to counter Tehran's attack.

Analysts say it's unlikely any other country could have withstood such an onslaught, and the attack is a lesson in how to prepare for future conflicts. 

Only one direct target hit

Last week,  the US warned Tehran was planning a "significant attack"  in response to several Iranian military leaders being killed at the start of April in an air strike – believed to have been launched by Israel –  on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria.

And late on Saturday night, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel from its territory. 

The Israeli military said hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles were fired by Iran. 

But the majority were intercepted while travelling the more than 1,770 km to Israel.

US officials said Iran's intent was to "destroy and cause casualties" and that if successful, the strikes would have caused an "uncontrollable" escalation.

At one point, at least 100 ballistic missiles were in the air with just minutes of flight time to Israel, the officials said.

Just a few missiles made it through defences and the only damage was reported at the Nevatim air force base in southern Israel's Negev desert.

It was reported to be "lightly hit" and the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the base was "still functioning".

The only serious injury reported within Israel was a seven-year-old who was hurt by shrapnel.

Most of the attacks were launched from Iranian territory, but the Pentagon said US forces intercepted "dozens of missiles" and drones from Iraq, Syria and Yemen that were headed toward Israel.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon said it had fired two barrages of rockets at an Israeli military base in the annexed Golan Heights.

Iranian forces also operate in Syria and Iran is allied with militant groups in Iraq and Yemen.

How were the strikes intercepted?

Israel's multi-layered air defence capabilities were readied for the attacks, and they managed to shoot down most of the projectiles with help from the US, Britain, France and Jordan.

Israel's air defences are made up of three key systems that the US has been helping to develop, providing $US3.4 billion ($5.2 billion) in funding since 2009. 

• Iron Dome:  Intercepts short-range surface-to-surface rockets (bottom layer)
• David's Sling:  Intercepts short to medium, and medium to long range surface-to-surface missiles (middle layer)
• Arrow-2 and 3:  Intercepts medium to long range, and long-range missiles (upper layer)

Malcolm Davis, senior analyst in defence capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), said Israel has the most sophisticated integrated air and missile defence systems in the world.

The US comes close, but it doesn't have anything comparable to Israel's Iron Dome, he said.

Director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) Moshe Patel told politico that 40 years of investment in Israel's Star Wars missile defence program had paid off. 

"All of the defence systems proved themselves well," he said.

Israel's Iron Dome has been described as one of the most effective air defence systems on the planet.

It was designed to respond to short-range threats from Gaza and southern Lebanon, and has intercepted thousands of rockets since it became operational in 2011.

Israel has 10 Iron Dome batteries deployed around the country.

They are equipped with a radar that detects rockets and uses a command-and-control system and its own interceptors to quickly thwart threats. 

It can provide city-sized coverage against rockets with ranges of between 4 and 70 kilometres, according to the Israel Defense Force (IDF). 

David's Sling

Developed with the US, David's Sling is meant to intercept medium-range missiles, such as those possessed by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It is designed to shoot down rockets fired from 100km to 200km away.

It was first successfully deployed in May 2023 during cross-border fighting with Gaza militants.

The long-range Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 system, developed by Israel with an Iranian missile threat in mind, is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the Earth's atmosphere, using a detachable warhead that collides with the target.

On October 31, Israel's military said it had used the Arrow aerial defence system for the first time since the October 7 outbreak of the war with Hamas to intercept a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea fired towards its territory.

Israel helped by how the attack unfolded 

Dr Davis says what was seen from Iran was "something entirely new".

"Certainly this is one of the largest attacks we've seen involving ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and also drones," he told the ABC.

He said the sophistication of Israel's air defence systems played a major role in stopping the barrage from reaching targets, but how the attacked played out also gave them an advantage. 

Iran was expected to launch drones first — the slowest of the weapons — followed by the cruise missiles, then the ballistic missiles last.

This would have meant they were timed to reach Israel simultaneously and overwhelm air defence systems, Dr Davis said.

"What actually happened was that the Iranians launched the ballistic missiles quite early in the piece," he said.

"And because they're a lot faster, it allowed the US the UK, France, as well as the Israelis, to attack each component of that attack sequentially, rather than having to deal with it simultaneously." 

He said it could be argued this was due to Iran's "incompetence" but it seemed more likely to be a deliberate decision, to give Israel less justification to retaliate.

But if that was the strategy, it didn't work.

On late Monday local time, the Israeli military said the attack "will be met with a response".

International coalition played a 'crucial' role

Israeli leaders credited a "strong fighting" international military coalition led by the US for its ability to thwart the Iranian attack. 

"This was the first time that such a coalition worked together against the threat of Iran and its proxies in the Middle East," Rear Admiral Hagari said.

It is unknown which Middle Eastern countries were involved, but Jordan was named by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in a video message posted to X on Sunday.

"Thanks to an international coordinated effort, which the UK participated in, almost all of these missiles were intercepted, saving lives not just in Israel but in neighbouring countries like Jordan as well," Mr Sunak said. 

However, Jordan said its actions were in self defence.

"There was an assessment that there was a real danger of Iranian marches and missiles falling on Jordan, and the armed forces dealt with this danger," Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi said in an interview on Al-Mamlaka state television.

President Joe Biden lauded American forces who helped Israel down "nearly all" of the drones and missiles fired by Iran.

The US, supported by US European Command destroyers, took out more than 80 one-way attack drones and at least six ballistic missiles aimed at Israel from Iran and Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Monday.

This included a ballistic missile on its launcher vehicle and seven unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) destroyed on the ground prior to their launch in areas controlled by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, CENTCOM said in a post on X.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement the US took out dozens of the attacks, but did not provide details on ships or aircraft involved in the operation that commanders had been preparing for over the past two weeks.

Mr Sunak said British fighter jets had shot down "a number of drones".

The UK's Royal Air Force (RAF) had deployed several jets to the region in response to Iranian threats. 

The drones were intercepted in Syrian and Iraqi airspace, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) did not specify how many RAF Typhoons were airborne. 

Dr Davis said the international support in the attacks was "crucial".

"The fact that Israel had UK, US, France there shooting down ballistic missiles as they were coming in, and shooting cruise missiles, really allowed the Israelis to concentrate on the slower cruise missiles and drones," he said.

A lesson for future conflicts

Iran's onslaught gives an indication of what can be expected of future warfare, where the battle space is flooded with large numbers of attack drones, Dr Davis said.

And countries need to start better preparing their defence systems. 

Iran reportedly used many of its one-way Shahed attack drones during the weekend strikes.

They are the same "kamikaze drones" Iran has supplied to Russia throughout its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

They have been used to exhaust Ukrainian air defences and hit infrastructure far from the front lines. 

"What we saw in the skies of Israel was ironically a fairly small attack compared to what could happen," Dr Davis said.

"Particularly in a major power war, for example involving China, who have large numbers of drones."

He said Australia was among the countries that should be taking note to start building integrated air defence missile systems. 

"It's an area really Australia is completely lacking in and after the events of the weekend," he said.

"I think the government should be lighting a fire under Defence to get them to move more swiftly on integrated air and missile defence."

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Middle East conflict

April 14, 2024 - Iran's attack on Israel

By Jerome Taylor, Heather Chen , James Legge, Sophie Tanno, Emma Tucker , Kaanita Iyer , Paul LeBlanc , Catherine Nicholls, Maureen Chowdhury , Antoinette Radford and Eve Rothenberg, CNN

Our live coverage of Iran's attack on Israel has moved  here .

India calls on Iran to release 17 Indian crew members on board seized container ship 

From CNN's Sandi Sidhu in Hong Kong 

India has called on Iran to release 17 Indian crew members on board a container ship seized by Iran on Saturday. 

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that he spoke to his Iranian counterpart Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian and "took up the release of 17 Indian crew members of MSC Aries."

Four Filipino seamen were also on board the ship, according to the Philippine Department of Migrant Workers.

The department said it was working with its government, the ship owner, and the operator to release the captured seafarers.

On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked container ship in a helicopter operation near the Strait of Hormuz, state news agency IRNA reported. 

Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) said there were 25 crew members on board.

Japanese prime minister condemns Iran's attack on Israel

From CNN's Junko Ogura in Tokyo 

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday said he "strongly condemns" Iran's missile and drone attack on Israel.

"(The attack) further aggravates the current situation in the Middle East. We are deeply concerned and strongly condemn such an escalation," Kishida told reporters.

Kishida said Japan would continue diplomatic efforts to "prevent the situation from worsening and to calm the situation down," and "respond in cooperation with other countries."

Blinken calls British and German counterparts following Iran's attack on Israel

From CNN's Philip Wang 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with his counterparts from the United Kingdom and Germany on Sunday following Iran's attack on Israel, according to readouts from the State Department. 

All parties agreed "the importance of condemning Iran's attack in the strongest possible terms and preventing further escalation," the readout said. 

Blinken earlier held phone calls with his counterparts from Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia , in which he emphasized the importance of avoiding escalation in the Middle East and of "a coordinated diplomatic response."

US forces destroyed more than 80 attack drones from Iran and Yemen, Central Command says

From CNN's Philip Wang

US forces intercepted more than 80 one-way attack drones and at least six ballistic missiles from Iran and Yemen during its attack on Israel, according to a statement from the Central Command.

The operation included destroying a ballistic missile on its launcher vehicle and seven drones on the ground in Iranian-backed Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, CENTCOM said. 

"Iran's continued unprecedented, malign, and reckless behavior endangers regional stability and the safety of U.S. and coalition forces," the statement added. 

Israeli and Iranian ambassadors trade accusations during UN Security Council session

From Abel Alvarado in Atlanta

Israel and Iran’s United Nations ambassadors condemned each other’s actions during Sunday’s UN Security Council emergency session called to address Iran’s attack on Israel.

Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan said Iran "must be stopped before it drives the world to a point of no return, to a regional war that can escalate to a world war." Erdan accused Iran of seeking world domination and that its attack proved that Tehran "cares nothing, nothing for Islam or Muslims" before pulling out a tablet to show a video of Israel intercepting Iranian drones above Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Erdan called on the UN Security Council to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terror organization.

“Action must be taken now, not for Israel's sake, not for the region's sake, but for the world's sake. Stop Iran today."

Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said his country’s operation was "entirely in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defense, as outlined in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations and recognized by international law."

Iravani said:

"This concluded action was necessary and proportionate," adding that the operation was “precise and only targeted military objectives” to reduce the potential of escalation and to prevent civilian harm. “Iran is never seeking to contribute to the spillover of the conflict in the region, nor does it to escalate or spread the tension to the entire region," he said.

Tehran’s attack had been anticipated since  a suspected Israeli strike  on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria earlier this month.

Iravani added Iran has “no intention of engaging in conflict with the US in the region” but warned Iran will use its “inherent right to respond proportionately” should the US initiate a military operation against “Iran, its citizens or its security.”

Israeli war cabinet says it's ready to respond to Iran's attack but delays immediate action. Here's the latest

From CNN staff

The hours-long Israeli war cabinet meeting ended Sunday night without a decision on how Israel will respond to Iran’s missile and drone attack , an Israeli official said.

The cabinet is determined to respond — but has yet to decide on the timing and scope and the official said the military has been tasked with coming up with additional options for a response.

Separately, a senior Biden administration official told reporters that an Israeli official told the United States that it's not looking to significantly escalate the showdown with Iran.

CNN analyst Barak Ravid said Israeli ministers Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot advocated for swift action, but US President Joe Biden's phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led to a decision to delay the response until the next day. 

Here are the latest headlines:

• Retaliation is over, Iran told US: Iran privately messaged the United States that its retaliation against Israel had concluded, echoing what Tehran said publicly, according to a senior administration official. Late Saturday, Iran said its attack on Israel is a response to Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, and "the matter can be deemed concluded." However, President Ebrahim Raisi said any “new aggression against the interests of the Iranian nation will be met with a heavier and regrettable response,” according to Iran’s state news channel IRIB. 
• United Nations response: UN Secretary-General António Guterres  called for a de-escalation of violence after Iran’s attack. Guterres said the United Nations and member countries have a “shared responsibility” to engage “all parties concerned to prevent further escalation.” He also called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict. “Neither the region nor the world can afford more war,” he said.
• G7 and others: Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in response to Iran's attack, the G7 nations said they would work together to "stabilize the situation" in the Middle East, according to a statement from Biden. Also, Jordan summoned Iran's ambassador in Amman on Sunday after it intercepted Iranian drones over the country.
• Meanwhile in Gaza: As thousands of Palestinians were turned away from returning to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, a 5-year-old girl was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers, her mother said. Video showed a man carrying a 5-year-old girl named Sally Abu Laila, who was bleeding from her head, with people crowding around her in panic trying to cover her wound.

Also on Sunday:

• Israel decided to lift its restrictions on large gatherings and to reopen schools on Monday.
• The US Department of Homeland Security has not identified any “specific or credible threats” to the US since Iran attacked Israel.

Blinken calls Turkish, Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi counterparts following Iran's attack 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday spoke with his counterparts in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia following Iran's attacks in Israel, according to readouts from the State Department. 

During his phone calls, Blinken emphasized the importance of avoiding escalation in the region and the importance of "a coordinated diplomatic response."

In his conversation with Jordan and Egypt, Blinken also underlined the significance of achieving an "enduring end to the crisis in Gaza."

Iran will be held responsible if any action is taken against the US or Israel, deputy ambassador warns

From CNN’s Abel Alvarado

The United States warned Iran against taking any action against the US or Israel during the UN Security Council emergency session over Iran’s attack on Israel.

“Let me be clear, if Iran or its proxies take actions against the US or further action against Israel, Iran will be held responsible,” US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood said Sunday.

The United States is “not seeking escalation, our actions have been purely defensive in nature,” adding that the “best way to prevent such escalation is an unambiguous condemnation of the council of Iran’s unprecedented large-scale attack,” he said.

The envoy reiterated US support for Israel and condemned Iran’s attack. “Iran’s intent was to cause significant damage and death in Israel,” Wood said.

Wood also said the UN Security Council had an “obligation to not let Iran’s actions go unanswered.”

“For far too long, Iran has flagrantly violated its international legal obligations,” he said before listing occasions Iran has violated UN Security Council resolutions and international law.

Wood accused Iran of being in a “broad sense complicit” of the October 7 attack on Israel by providing “significant funding and training for the military wing of Hamas.”

He added the US will explore "additional measures to hold Iran accountable here in the UN.”

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Iran missile and drone attack on Israel – what we know so far

Israel’s military has reported minor damage after Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles towards it late on Saturday

• Iran attack on Israel – live updates
• Full report: Iran launches drones and cruise missiles against Israel

Iran launched hundreds of drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel , in the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Jewish state, in response to the 1 April strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in the Syrian capital, Damascus, which killed a senior figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and eight other officers.

Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet, said that Israel will exact a price from Iran in response to its mass missile and drone attack when the time is right. His comments came ahead of a war cabinet meeting alongside Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Tehran has warned it will strike again with greater force if Israel or the US retaliate for the Iranian strike on Israel by more 300 drones and missiles on Saturday night. The air raids , the Islamic Republic’s first ever direct attack on the Israeli state, brought a years-long shadow war into the open and threatened to draw the region into a broader conflagration as Israel said it was considering its response.

However, the attack, mostly launched from inside Iran, caused only modest damage in Israel as most were shot down with the help of the US, Britain and Jordan. An air force base in southern Israel was hit, but continued to operate as normal and a seven-year-old child was seriously hurt by shrapnel. There were no other reports of serious damage. Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari said that 99% of the launches had been intercepted.

Most of the Iranian drones flying over Syria’s airspace during Tehran’s strikes overnight were downed by Israeli and US jets before reaching their targets in Israel, two western intelligence sources told Reuters .

The UN security council will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday at the request of Israel’s ambassador to the UN, the council’s president said in a statement.

Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source has told Reuters . The source also said that the US conveyed to Iran via Ankara that its operation must be “within certain limits”. These reports come after Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian , said in a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Tehran that Iran had informed the US that its attacks against Israel will be “limited” and for self-defence only.

John Kirby, the White House’s top national security spokesperson, told ABC’s This Week programme on Sunday that the US will continue to help Israel defend itself, but does not want war with Iran. “We don’t seek escalated tensions in the region. We don’t seek a wider conflict,” Kirby said. News outlet Axios reported that Joe Biden , the US president, had told Netanyahu that he would oppose an Israeli counterattack against Iran and that the prime minister should “take the win”.

UK Royal Air Force fighter jets and refuelling aircraft were also involved in Israel’s defence, taking off from bases in Cyprus. Their role, according to the UK Ministry of Defence, was to fill in for the US air force in the sorties against Islamic State normally carried out over Iraq and north-eastern Syria, but also to intercept Iranian drones if they came into the UK area of operations.

World leaders have condemned Iran’s attack, with regional powers including Saudi Arabia and Egypt calling for restraint. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “I am deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation. I urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East.”

Jordan’s prime minister, Bisher Khasawneh , warned that any escalation in the region would lead to “dangerous paths”, joining a chorus of condemnation from world leaders to the attack. Other countries including the UK, Spain, the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China, have called for restraint amid fears of a regional escalation of conflict across the Middle East. Iran’s foreign ministry has summoned the ambassadors of the UK , France , and Germany to question what it referred to as their “irresponsible stance” regarding Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, the semi-official Iranian Labour news agency reported .

Major airlines across the Middle East, including Emirates Airlines and Qatar Airways , announced they would resume some of their operations in the region after cancelling or rerouting some flights in response to Iran’s attack on Israel. Israel said it had reopened its airspace as of 7:30am local time on Sunday morning, with Beirut airport also reopening this morning. Several Iranian airports, including Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International, however, have cancelled flights until Monday.

• Middle East and north Africa
• US military

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Russia's firing new, long-range Kh-69 cruise missiles, war experts say, piling on the misery for Ukraine's dwindling air defense

• Russian forces have deployed a new cruise missile, the Institute for the Study of War said.
• The Kh-69 was used in an attack on a major power station near Kyiv this week.
• The Kh-69 is a leap forward in Russian tactical munitions.

Russian Forces are deploying a new, long-range cruise missile, known as the Kh-69, as it steps up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The Washington DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), noted in its Friday report that the new air-to-surface missiles were part of Russia's "continued efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine's degraded air defense."

Russia has renewed its attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure in recent weeks, exploiting Kyiv's dwindling air defense systems.

"We need air defense systems and other defense assistance, not just turning a blind eye and having lengthy discussions," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

The post was in response to a Russian missile attack overnight on April 11 that destroyed the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant. The plant is one of the primary energy suppliers to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. The plant was hit by the new Kh-69 missiles, according to the Ukrainian military.

"ISW has not previously observed the Russian use of Kh-69 missiles in Ukraine," it said.

"Russian forces have reportedly launched Kh-69 missiles from 400 kilometers away from their targets, exceeding a previous estimated range of 300 kilometers and the 200-kilometer range of the most recent Kh-59MK2 variant," wrote the ISW.

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Illia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Air Force, confirmed on Friday that Russia had launched the new missiles during its massive aerial assault on Thursday.

"This is an improved system of the Kh-59 version," Yevlash said.

"We are currently establishing what kind of missile it was, what type it was. These are fresh missiles with parts manufactured in 2023. That is, we can see that Russia is constantly trying to produce new missiles."

Yevlash said Russia was manufacturing the Kh-69 domestically, but that continued production relied on the ability to source key components from abroad. ISW analysts noted that while the Russian stockpiles and production capability of these Kh-69 missiles are unclear, "Russia is unlikely to be able to produce them at a significantly greater speed or quantity than its other domestically produced missiles."

The Kh-69 is Russia's latest cruise missile

Reports that Russia was employing the Kh-69 first appeared on Ukrainian Telegram channels in early February.

On February 7, a Ukrainian military blogger posted a photo on Telegram purporting to show the destroyed rear fins of a Kh-69. A Ukrainian war monitor account, which tracks Russian aviation activity, claimed that three Kh-69s were fired at Ukraine overnight on February 7-8.

In September last year, the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank reported that the Kh-69 was still undergoing testing. It described the missile as an "air-launched land-attack cruise missile likely akin to the European Storm Shadow or Taurus KEPD 350 missiles."

According to The War Zone, the Kh-69 was developed by Raduga, part of Russia's Tactical Missile Corporation. The missile weighs around 1,700 pounds, has an operating speed of up to 621 miles per hour, and has the option of either a penetration or a cluster warhead weighing up to 680 pounds. The missile's shape offers some degree of reduced radar signature.

Russian forces can launch the missiles from Su-34 and Su-35 tactical aircraft rather than solely from strategic bombers.

Watch: Ukraine says it shot down 6 hypersonic missiles over Kyiv during 'exceptional' night of attacks

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• Vajiram --> (current)

Indigenous technology cruise missile

Recently, defence research and development organisation (drdo) conducted a successful flight-test of indigenous technology cruise missile (itcm)..

About Indigenous technology cruise missile:

• It is equipped with advanced avionics and software to ensure better and reliable performance.
• It is developed by Bengaluru-based DRDO laboratory Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) along with contribution from other laboratories and Indian industries.
• It was monitored by several range sensors like radar, Electro Optical Tracking System (EOTS) and telemetry deployed by ITR at different locations to ensure complete coverage of the flight path.

What is a Cruise missile?

• It is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets, that remains in the atmosphere (unlike ballistic missiles) and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed, before hitting the target.
• Precision: High, up to a few metres — fit for small, moving targets.
• Subsonic Cruise missiles:  These cruise missiles travel at less than Mach 1.
• Supersonic Cruise missiles:  Cruise missiles travelling at supersonic speeds are called supersonic cruise missiles.
• Hypersonic Cruise missiles:  Cruise missiles powered using scramjet engines to realise speeds greater than Mach 5 are designated as hypersonic cruise missiles.

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What Weapons Did Israel Use to Block Iran’s Attack?

Israel’s Iron Dome defense system intercepts rockets that fly in high arcs, while its Arrow 3 system can stop ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere.

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By Cassandra Vinograd and Matthew Mpoke Bigg

• April 14, 2024

Israeli forces used two main defensive weapons, the Iron Dome and the Arrow 3, to shoot down most of the more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles fired at its territory by Iran, while others were shot down by the United States and other allies.

Here’s a look at the two Israeli systems:

Israel’s Iron Dome defense system can intercept many types of rockets that fly in high arcs, making them difficult to stop. It became operational in 2011 and got its first big test over eight days in November 2014, when Gaza militants fired some 1,500 rockets at Israel. While Israeli officials claimed a success rate of up to 90 percent during that conflict, outside experts were skeptical .

The system’s interceptors — just 6 inches wide and 10 feet long — rely on miniature sensors and computerized guidance to zero in on short-range rockets. Israel’s larger interceptors — the Patriot and Arrow systems — can fly longer distances to go after bigger threats.

The Iron Dome was upgraded in 2021, but the details of the changes were not made public.

Just two days after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Israeli government asked the United States to provide more precision-guided munitions for its combat aircraft and more interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system, according to a U.S. official.

As the death toll in the war in Gaza has climbed, Democrats have called for President Biden to cut off the flow of American arms to Israel — or impose conditions on their use. Mr. Biden recently hinted that he could put some restrictions on weapons sales if his warnings to limit civilian casualties in Gaza are not heeded but said defensive weapons like the Iron Dome would never be in jeopardy.

The Arrow 3, which represents the top tier of Israel’s multilayered air defense system, is designed to intercept ballistic missiles armed with nuclear and other nonconventional warheads outside the earth’s atmosphere.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s chief military spokesman, said on Sunday that the Arrow 3 had “proved itself against a significant number of ballistic missiles” fired by Iran.

The system, developed with substantial funding from the United States, is a project of Boeing and the government-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and its subsidiaries, in cooperation with the missile defense agencies of the two countries.

The Arrow 3, tested in 2015 when it intercepted a missile flying just above the atmosphere, is an improvement on its predecessor system, the Arrow 2. The newer version is faster and can maneuver in space, according to Israeli officials.

Israel said last August said that the U.S. government had approved its request to sell the Arrow 3 system to Germany, setting in motion a $3.5 billion agreement.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg is a correspondent covering international news. He previously worked as a reporter, editor and bureau chief for Reuters and did postings in Nairobi, Abidjan, Atlanta, Jakarta and Accra. More about Matthew Mpoke Bigg