Iran was holding air defense exercises Saturday, state media reported, as the country braced for more friction with Israel and the United States under incoming US president Donald Trump.
The war games came a day after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps released footage of what it called an underground “missile city,” claiming that weapon production had ramped up, contrary to Israeli claims.
Iranian leaders are thought to be readying for the possibility that Trump could empower Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, while further tightening US sanctions on its oil industry through his “maximum pressure” policy.
“In these exercises,…defense systems will practice the fight against air, missile and electronic warfare threats in real battlefield conditions… to protect the country’s skies and sensitive and vital areas,” Iranian state television said.
The drills were part of two-months-long exercises launched on January 4 which have already included war games in which the elite Revolutionary Guards defended key nuclear installations in Natanz against mock attacks by missiles and drones, state media said.
Iran’s military has said it was using new drones and missiles in the exercises.
Members of Iranian paramilitary forces (Basij) march next to a Iranian long range Sejil missile, during an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, January 10, 2025. (AFP)
On Friday, Iran released video showing IRGC Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami visiting an underground missile production facility with tunnels large enough to hold large trucks and multiple production areas.
“Maybe the enemy thought that our production power has stagnated,” he said in the televised speech. “But the growth rate of our missile power” is rising.
State-linked media claimed that only 10 percent of the facility had been shown.
The structure in the video appeared to bear similarities to an underground missile production facility in Syria that Israel has alleged was built by Iran. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces revealed that it had sent a team of commandos into the heavily fortified facility in September, who managed to lay explosives inside the plant built deep inside a mountain, largely destroying it.
Members of the IAF’s Shaldag unit carry out a raid against an Iranian missile factory near Masyaf, Syria, September 8, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
The raid was one of several setbacks suffered by Iran in recent months, including Israel dismantling the leadership and arsenal of client terror group Hezbollah, an Israeli strike on Iranian air defense targets and the loss of ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
While Iranian officials have downplayed Iran’s setbacks, an Iranian general, Behrouz Esbati, who was reportedly based in Syria, said in a speech circulated on social media that Iran had “badly lost” in Syria. Reuters could not verify the recording.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 in which Iran agreed to curb uranium enrichment, which can yield material for nuclear weapons, in return for the relaxation of US and UN economic sanctions.
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