Down but not out? How Iran is combining firepower with cyber warfare

The Islamic nation reportedly still possesses considerable firepower which it has built over the last nearly five decades.

Iran might be down but not out. Ever since the war began on February 28, the US and Israel have severely degraded Iran's nuclear facilities and crippled parts of its military.

While the Iranian weapons production and transportation have almost certainly sustained substantial losses in capacity, the Islamic nation still has considerable firepower which it has built over the last nearly five decades.

How the Iranian military operates

The Iranian military has two factions - one is split into the regular military, or "Artesh," and the other is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Artesh plays a domestic defence role akin to a militia, while the Revolutionary Guard serves as the more professional military force.

The Revolutionary Guard had an important role to play during the 2003 US-Iraq war by providing improvised explosive devices to insurgents targeting American forces.

Over the past few decades, Iran has also learnt to exert military influence beyond its borders, without risking external attack. One of its tactics is cyber warfare, which requires relatively low cost in a conflict.

Their targets have been western military and government networks, FBI Director Kash Patel whose personal emails were recently leaked online. Iranian-backed hackers have also launched attacks on infrastructure and cultural institutions, including US wastewater treatment plants and electrical grids.

When it comes to fire power, Iran was estimated to have possessed 3,000 ballistic missiles and tens of thousands of one-way attack drones before the US launched Operation Epic Fury.

Most modern Iranian military equipment is said to consist of reverse-engineered American and Soviet equipment. Since 1990, however, Iranian missile technology has substantially improved due to domestic production and importing expertise from other marginalised states, such as North Korea.

Starting in the 1990s, Iran also innovated a series of one-way attack drones, a relatively inexpensive way to attack distant targets.

The Iranian military reportedly fired at least 650 missiles in attacks on Israel and hundreds more against other targets in the region.

The rate of Iranian missile fire has substantially declined since the first days of the conflict, but it has never dropped to zero. That has led some analysts to suspect that Iran maintains a significant cache of long-range weaponry in reserve.

(With PTI inputs)