Explained: This article explains the political background, key decisions, and possible outcomes related to Explained : Iran launched missiles at US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean. Here’s what that says about its capabilities and Its Impact and why it matters right now.
Iran’s attempt to strike a US-UK base over 2,000 miles (over 3,000 kilometers) off its coast has renewed questions about Tehran’s military capabilities and how far its missiles can reach.
On Friday morning local time, Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, a joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, a US official told CNN, adding that neither of them struck the base. This marks what appears to be the first known attempt to target the base, which was deliberately built in a remote location beyond the reach of many adversaries.
While the attack was unsuccessful, it shows that Iran may not be adhering its self-imposed missile range limit of 2,000 kilometers, raising concerns about whether Tehran could hit US and European interests farther away than previously thought.
Jeffrey Lewis, distinguished scholar of global security at Middlebury College, told CNN that Iran was developing an intercontinental ballistic missile that was “reoriented to space launch” after then-Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei “imposed a 2,000-kilometer range limit” in 2017.
“They were waiting for Khamenei to change his mind or, well, die,” Lewis said. “Now he’s dead.”
Trita Parsi, the co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, believes the US homeland is safe from Iranian strikes, but he told CNN that the attempted attack “suggests that other bases that the US thought is outside of the range of Iran may actually be within the range,” along with American ships “that have been kept 3,000 kilometers away.”
Parsi also wonders whether this incident could cause some European countries that have allowed the US to use its military bases to reconsider.
Earlier this month, the UK agreed to a US request to allow American forces to use its military bases for operations against Iranian missile sites. Meanwhile, Romania has allowed US refueling planes, as well as US surveillance and satellite equipment, to be at its bases, according to Reuters.
“It does put certain European bases in within their range,” Parsi said, adding, “I don’t know if that’s going to cause a rethink on the European side but it definitely increases the risk for them.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, including in his first comments after the US struck Iran late last month, that Tehran has been building missiles that “could soon reach the American homeland.”
However, an unclassified assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2025 said that Iran could develop a “militarily-viable” intercontinental ballistic missile by 2035 “should Tehran decide to pursue the capability.”
Sources also told CNN late last month that there was no intelligence to suggest that Iran is pursuing an intercontinental ballistic missile program to hit the US at this time.
Parsi said the unsuccessful strike on Diego Garcia raises “question marks whether (Iran) may also have other types of weapons that we did not believe that they have that they might be using.”
Iran has several missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers, including the Sejjil and Khorramshahr weapons, along with the long-range Soumar cruise missile that has a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Sam Lair, research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told CNN that Iran’s “space launch vehicles, including the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’) solid-propellant Ghaem-100, could clearly reach longer ranges than their regional missile force if they were used ballistically rather than as a space launch vehicle.”
“People often forget space launch is fundamentally the same technology as ballistic missiles,” he continued.
Lair also said the Iranians perhaps extended the range of a missile with lighter explosive material.
“Maybe a khorramshahr with a very small payload, like too small to do anything,” Lair said.
Meanwhile, Parsi questioned whether Iran has the “targeting intelligence” and missile accuracy to successfully strike farther targets.
“There’s large parts of that area, not Diego Garcia itself, in which the Iranians don’t have the ability to generate their own targeting intelligence because they don’t have eyes there essentially through their satellites, etc.,” Parsi said. “So that intelligence is most likely coming from the Russians and the Chinese, and this is another one of those elements of this war that apparently the administration is taken by surprise by.”
CNN reported earlier this month that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence about the locations and movements of American troops, ships and aircraft, according to multiple people familiar with US intelligence reporting on the issue.