On November 12, 2011, at 1:30 p.m., the eastern suburbs of Tehran were shaken by the shockwave of a massive explosion that reverberated throughout the city. A huge column of smoke and fire rose in the distance, about 50 kilometers from the Iranian capital.
As the hours passed, Iranians learned that the incident had occurred at the Ghadir missile base and that among the 17 victims - all members of the Revolutionary Guard - was a particularly significant figure for the Ayatollah regime: Hassan Moghaddam.
Tehran denied that the event was the result of foreign agents' actions - despite accidents in oil facilities being common at that time - and attributed it to an error in the ammunition transfer.
Although doubts about the origin of that bloody incident were never dispelled - many international media outlets attributed it to sabotage by Israeli intelligence services - the pompous funeral given to Moghaddam, attended by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself, and Tehran's subsequent gestures regarding this figure dispelled any doubts about the importance of the former Revolutionary Guard general.
"More famous in Israel than in his own country," wrote Al Jazeera, recalling that the aforementioned figure also sponsored the creation of the missile project for the Lebanese paramilitary organization Hezbollah.
In fact, Iranian authorities chose the anniversary of his disappearance in 2022 to announce the appearance of the first hypersonic missile in their arsenal, the Fattah, with a maximum range of 1,400 kilometers and capable of carrying up to 450 kilograms of explosives. A rocket capable of surpassing the main known anti-missile shields and placing Iran in a select club of countries - USA, Russia, and China - with this type of weaponry.
As stated by the deputy leader of the Revolutionary Guard at that time, Hossein Salami - assassinated this Friday by the Israeli offensive - "Moghaddam was the main architect of the Revolutionary Guard's artillery and missile power and the founder of our country's deterrent power."
A graduate in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Moghaddam was initially the driving force behind incorporating artillery into the Revolutionary Guard forces, a key element in the confrontation that the Persian nation waged against its rival Iraq in the 1980s.
In those same years, precisely in 1984, Moghaddam was sent to Syria to familiarize himself with the use of Scud-B missiles, which at the end of that war were the only ones available in their arsenal and were unable to exceed 300 kilometers.
From that time on, Moghaddam himself was clear that his main challenge was not Baghdad but Tel Aviv. Years later, an Iranian broadcaster quoted him as saying: "We need a missile that can hit Israel".
The engineer managed to reach an agreement with North Korea in 1993, which led to the dispatch of Asian experts to train their Iranian counterparts in the latest missile production technologies. North Korean assistance over the years was crucial for the progress of the different types of local rockets, several of them inspired by models from the communist regime.
With the help of the Asians, Moghaddam managed to develop in a few years the Shahab, Zelzal, and Ghadar rockets, which increased the range of Iranian artifacts to 2,000 kilometers, thus surpassing the minimum distance of 1,000 kilometers needed to reach Israeli territory.
Iranian capabilities increased exponentially when in 2008 they announced the incorporation of the Sejjil-2, a projectile capable of carrying a 1,200-kilogram warhead, with a range of 2,000 kilometers and based on solid fuel, a system that allows for much more precise attacks.
Tehran continued to focus on this third generation of rockets, and three years ago they acquired the Kheibar Shekan, with a range of 1,420 kilometers. Six of these missiles managed to evade the Israeli Iron Dome defense in April of last year when Tehran retaliated against the Israeli attack on its embassy in Syria, causing damage to one of the main bases of the rival country's aviation.
That day, on October 1, 2024, Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles against Israel in two waves, although without causing the destruction seen on this occasion.
Earlier this month, Iranians publicly announced the latest addition to this section of solid-fuel rockets, the Qassem Basir, designed precisely to evade systems like the Iron Dome or the US Patriots or THAADs.
Iranian media have reported that during these last few days, especially on Saturday, their country's forces launched Ghadar, Kheibar Shekan, and Emad rockets, which according to Press TV are an improved version of the first. "It is Iran's first precision-guided missile," clarified the Iranian media.
As the IISS asserts, Iran currently has the "widest and most diverse missile arsenal in the entire Middle East" with between six and eight liquid-fueled ballistic missiles and up to 12 solid-fuel systems. "Over the past decade, Iran has prioritized improving precision over greater ranges beyond 2,000 kilometers," read the analysis published by that think tank on Iranian rockets in 2021.
US General Kenneth McKenzie explained to Congress in 2023 that the US military estimates that Tehran has over 3,000 ballistic missiles.
Iranian forces also have a large contingent of anti-ship missiles that they began importing from China in the late 1980s, and from the usual few hundred meters of range, they have reached the 1,000-kilometer range of the latest in the series presented by Tehran last January, the Abu Mahdi.
The fundamentalist regime has provided ballistic missiles to many of the paramilitary forces with which it maintains an alliance in the region, including the Yemeni Houthis - who have used them to attack Israel - Lebanese Hezbollah, or more recently, Iraqi militias.
Iranian rockets are a basic element of the military strategy explained by the then Defense Minister, Ali Shamkhani, in July 1998, precisely after the first test of the Shahab 3. The official - another of the military leaders eliminated by Israel this Friday - indicated that Iran's tactic would be to absorb the initial attack while trying to minimize the damage and then launch a devastating response that could prevent the adversary's continued assaults.
So far, this tactic has not worked.