Iran has dealt a heavy blow to the United States after it destroyed a key $300 million radar system crucial to directing US missile defence batteries in the Gulf. Satellite photos show that an RTX Corp. AN/TPY-2 radar and support equipment - used byUS THAAD missile defence systems- was destroyed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base inJordanin the opening days of the war, CNN reported, citing commercial satellite imagery. The destruction risks further straining the region's ability to counter future attacks, according to a US official.

Data gathered by the Foundation for Defence of Democracies think tank shows two reported Iranian strikes in Jordan: one on February 28 and one on March 3. Both were reported to have been intercepted, Bloomberg reported.

"If successful, an Iranian strike on a THAAD radar would mark one of Iran's most successful attacks so far," said Ryan Brobst, deputy director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. However, he added that "the US military and its partners have other radars that can continue to provide air and missile defense coverage, mitigating the loss of any single radar."

The US has eight THAAD systems globally, including in South Korea and Guam. US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD, units are meant to destroy ballistic missiles at the edges of the atmosphere, enabling them to engage more difficult threats than shorter-range Patriot batteries. The batteries cost about $1 billion each, with the radar comprising about $300 million of that, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

With this AN/TPY-2 radar out of commission, missile interception duties will fall onto the Patriot systems, for which PAC-3 missiles are already in short supply.

"These are scarce strategic resources and its loss is a huge blow," Tom Karako, a missile defence expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Bloomberg. The Army's current "eight-battery force is still below the force structure requirements of nine set back in 2012, so there aren't exactly any spare TPY-2 lying around," he said.

A THAAD battery consists of 90 soldiers, six truck-mounted launchers and forty-eight interceptors - 8 per launcher - one TPY-2 radar, as well as a tactical fire control and communication unit. Each interceptor missile, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp., costs about $13 million.

Earlier in the war, an AN/FPS-132 radar in Qatar was also damaged during an Iranian attack, according to research from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. That system is an early warning radar, designed to spot threats at extreme distances but without the precision needed to launch weapons at them.

Air and missile defence systems in the Gulf region have been stressed, and the strikes and counterstrikes in the region have prompted fears that stockpiles of advanced interceptors such as THAAD and PAC-3 could soon run dangerously low. On Friday, defence contractors, including Lockheed and RTX, met at the White House as the Pentagon pushes to speed weapons production.

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