At a moment US officials as well as media headlines have been voicing alarm over depleted US missile stockpiles - something which President Trump sought to bat down as false - Iranian leaders have been busy boasting that their domestic defense production has not only kept pace but even expanded on the local production front.
Mohammad Reza Naqdi, Senior Advisor to the IRGC Commander-in-Chief, has been featured in state media as claiming that the production rate of ballistic missiles exceeds their operational launch rate, which comes on the heels of Tehran saying that it used the ceasefire with the US - which stretched from April into the summer months - to boost its weapons arsenal.
Naqdi asserted in a state television broadcast this week: "We are currently producing, and this process is unending." Naqdi warned further that "The enemy should not assume that Iran’s missile stockpiles will run out one day."
Iranian state media imageHe also said: "There are many capabilities we have not deployed because we are managing the war with missile power."
Prior US (and Israeli) bombing campaigns since the start of Operation Epic Fury took direct aim at Iran's defense industrial sector. While it can be estimated that perhaps dozens or possibly even hundreds of missile sites as well as manufacturing locations were hit, damaged, and destroyed - Iranian officials say that hundreds more are still intact, scattered across the country.
Citing Naqdi's words further, Iran Wire
