Iran Update, January 12, 2025

Iran Update, January 12, 2025

Katherine Wells, Siddhant Kishore, Kelly Campa, Alexandra Braverman, Carolyn Moorman, and Nicholas Carl

Information Cutoff: 2:00 pm ET

The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) publish the Iran Update, which provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests.

Click here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of Israeli ground operations, and here to see CTP and ISW’s interactive map of the ongoing opposition offensive in Syria. These maps are updated daily alongside the static maps present in this report.

We do not report in detail on war crimes because these activities are well-covered in Western media and do not directly affect the military operations we are assessing and forecasting. We utterly condemn violations of the laws of armed conflict and the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity even though we do not describe them in these reports.

Iran conducted an air defense exercise for the second time in recent days. This activity reflects Iranian concerns about possible airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, as Tehran has continued to expand its nuclear program. The Artesh—the conventional Iranian military—conducted the latest air defense exercise across northern and western Iran on January 12.[1] This exercise notably covered the Iranian nuclear facilities around Arak and Fordow.[2] Though Iran typically conducts air defense exercises around this time of year, this activity nonetheless probably reflects Iranian leaders’ assumption that they will face airstrikes against their nuclear program in the near term. This assumption has no bearing on the likelihood that the United States or Israel would actually conduct such a strike, however.

The Artesh exercises tested the manned and unmanned aircraft as well as the following air defense systems, according to Iranian state media:[3]

• Rad missile. An Iranian-made, short-range, anti-tank missile designed for T-72 tanks, fired from a 125 millimeters (mm) caliber barrel, and with a target distance of four kilometers (km).[4]
• Majid missile. An Iranian-made, short-range, shoulder-fired, electro-optical-guided missile with a maximum target range of 15 km.[5]
• Talash missile. An Iranian-made, long-range, mobile surface-to-air air defense missile system, capable of hitting all altitude targets with a a maximum range of 200km.[6]
• Misagh-3 missile. An Iranian-made, short-range, shoulder-fired system with a laser fuse and a maximum range of five km and flight altitude of 3,500 meters (m).[7]
• Khordad-15 system. An Iranian-made, long-range air defense system with a detection range of 85 km and target range of 45 km.[8]
• Shahid Jalilvand radar system. An Iranian-made, medium-range, phased array radar system able to detect small flying targets with low cross-sections in three dimensions and a 24-hour operational continuity.[9]
• Samavat radar-controlled artillery system. A short-range Iranian version of the Swiss low-altitude Skyguard radar system with a range of 4 km and uses an anti-aircraft 35mm Oerlikon caliber bar...
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