Meet 'Castle Breaker,' Iran's missile wreaking havoc in US war

  Iran has fielded a new generation of ballistic missiles that can evade American air defenses and strike with far greater precision – a technological leap that military experts say has damaged the ring of U.S. bases across the Persian Gulf and left them more vulnerable than they've been in decades.

The centerpiece of that shift is a highly mobile ballistic missile Iran calls the Kheibar Shekan, or "Castle Breaker," which has a range of 900 miles and a satellite-guided, maneuverable warhead.

Iran's military has used the missile extensively in strikes on the U.S. naval hub in Bahrain and other American bases during the six-month war with the U.S. and Israel, according to the Iranian government and confirmed in USA TODAY interviews with former U.S. military and intelligence officials and weapons analysts.

Some of those analysts believe Iran used Castle Breaker missiles in the July 17 strikes on the U.S. Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Al-Azraq, Jordan that killed three American service members − an assertion Iran itself has also made, according to official government statements obtained by USA TODAY.

And on Aug. 31, an Iranian state-run outlet confirmed it used Kheibar Shekan missiles to hit Muwaffaq Salti − and the King Hussein air base in Jordan − in response to U.S. military attack on Iran's Larak Island the previous night.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "targeted the technical and maintenance infrastructure as well as fighter-jet bases at the two facilities, causing significant damage" at the bases, said Iran's IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency.

Unlike a conventional ballistic missile that travels a fixed path defenders can track and try to intercept, the Kheibar Shekan can quickly change course in the final phase of its descent, potentially slipping past air defenses and hitting targets with devastating precision, those sources said.

Mounted on mobile launchers, the solid-fuel missile is extremely difficult to detect and destroy before launch, allowing it to survive American bombardment campaigns. It can easily reach U.S. and allied targets across the Middle East, including in Israel – and major American bases like Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and the Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.

"We designed entire air defense systems based on this understanding of what we thought they would do," Jonathan Hackett, a former Marine and U.S. intelligence officer, said of Iran’s military capabilities.

And now, he said, "they're doing something different."

"So now you have to change your defensive posture for missile defense in a way that we hadn't been doing previously. Ever," said Hackett, a fluent Farsi speaker who spent two decades working on Iran-related military and intelligence issues out of six U.S. embassies. He held positions at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Marine Forces Special Operations Command before retiring in October 2024.

In interviews with USA TODAY, Hackett and other experts described how the Kheibar Shekan and other Iranian missiles have on occasion penetrated the layered defenses American forces have relied on for generations during the war against Tehran that President Donald Trump launched jointly with Israel six months ago.

Hackett believes Kheibar missiles were central to the July 17 strike. Like other analysts, though, he said U.S. officials have made that hard to corroborate by asking major commercial satellite providers to black out imagery of sensitive U.S. military sites in the region.

Iranian missiles have also caused extensive damage to the U.S. Naval Support Activity base in Bahrain − the regional hub of the Navy's 5th Fleet − and other key U.S. military installations, according to U.S. and allied statements, news reports, satellite imagery and USA TODAY interviews.

An independent analysis of satellite imagery conducted by The Washington Post revealed that Iranian missile and drone strikes damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures and pieces of equipment across at least 15 U.S. military sites in the Middle East during the conflict.

Top administration officials, including Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Trump himself, have insisted that the U.S. campaign has destroyed Iran’s military capabilities and that U.S. air defenses have been successful the majority of the time − an assertion Iran vehemently denies.

“U.S. forces absolutely remain fully operational. We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing,” chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in an Aug. 28 statement to USA TODAY. “Across multiple combatant commands, we have already executed successful operations while maintaining a deep, ready arsenal to defend our people and our interests.”