Iran's Cluster Warheads: The Weapon That Keeps Getting Through

Iran's Cluster Warheads: The Weapon That Keeps Getting Through

From the 12-Day War to the 39-Day War and Now Jordan

Iran's ballistic-missile campaign has undergone an important evolution that has received less attention than the range, velocity, and number of the missiles themselves. Tehran has increasingly employed ballistic missiles carrying cluster warheads: payloads designed not to concentrate their explosive energy at a single impact point, but to disperse numerous smaller explosive submunitions across a broad area. Iran demonstrated this capability during the 12-Day War with Israel in June 2025, expanded its use dramatically during the much larger conflict that began on February 28, 2026, and has now employed cluster-carrying ballistic missiles in an attack against American forces at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

The military significance of this development is greater than simply adding another warhead to Iran's missile inventory. Cluster warheads change the geometry of missile defense. Against a conventional unitary ballistic warhead, the defender detects, tracks and attempts to destroy an incoming target before impact. A cluster-carrying ballistic missile presents a different problem. Before its payload separates, it remains essentially one incoming target. Once the carrier releases its submunitions, however, the defender may suddenly confront dozens of smaller objects descending independently toward different points across a broad area.

Reuters reported in March 2026 that Iranian cluster warheads typically contain approximately 24 submunitions, each carrying roughly two to five kilograms of explosives, and that the payload separates at an altitude of approximately seven to ten kilometers. The defensive implication is crucial. Israeli defense specialist Yehoshua Kalisky explained that the carrier must be intercepted before it releases its cluster payload. Once the submunitions have dispersed at relatively low altitude, intercepting the individual bomblets becomes extraordinarily difficult.

This does not mean that cluster-warhead ballistic missiles are intrinsically unstoppable. It means that the timing of interception becomes exceptionally important. A successful high-altitude interception can eliminate the carrier and its entire payload simultaneously. A missile that penetrates far enough to release its submunitions has already transformed the defensive problem, even if the defender has intercepted most of the other missiles in the salvo. Consequently, a very high overall interception percentage can coexist with significant damage on the ground.

The First Battlefield Experiment: The 12-Day War

The first important battlefield evidence appeared during the June 2025 Israel-Iran war. On June 19, Iranian forces launched a ballistic missile carrying cluster submunitions toward central Israel. Amnesty International subsequently reported that approximately 20 submunitions were dispersed over an estimated eight-kilometer area. Amnesty also found evidence consistent with cluster-munition strikes in Beersheba on June 20 and Rishon LeZion on June 22.

The importance of these attacks was not primarily their immediate destructive effect. They demonstrated that Iran possessed a ballistic-missile payload capable of converting one missile into numerous geographically separated impact points during the terminal stage of flight. The 12-Day War therefore provided Iran with something militarily more valuable than a weapons demonstration: combat experience against one of the world's most sophisticated layered missile-defense networks.

The attacks also demonstrated the weapon's inherent humanitarian problem. Cluster munitions disperse their effects over a broad area, and some submunitions may fail to explode on impact, leaving dangerous unexploded ordnance. Amnesty International concluded that Iran's use of cluster munitions in populated areas during the 12-Day War violated international humanitarian law. The military characteristic that makes these weapons useful against dispersed targets-- their ability to spread numerous explosive devices over an area-- is also what makes their employment in populated areas particularly dangerous to civilians.

From Experiment to Routine Weapon

The scale changed dramatically after the joint American-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, 2026. By March 18, Reuters reported that Iran had launched dozens of cluster-warhead ballistic missiles against Israel and that, according to the Israeli military, approximately half of the Iranian missiles fired since February 28 carried cluster payloads. What had been an unusual feature of the 2025 war had become a substantial component of Iran's missile campaign.

Human Rights Watch independently examined extensive visual evidence from the attacks. Its researchers reviewed videos and photographs of suspected Iranian cluster-munition use between March 1 and March 20. Numerous videos showed descending ballistic missiles surrounded by suspected submunitions. Most showed approximately 21 to 25 objects descending around the missile, while some showed considerably more. Human Rights Watch concluded that Iran had repeatedly employed cluster munitions delivered by ballistic missiles during the conflict.

The consequences became unmistakable around metropolitan Tel Aviv. Cluster-munition attacks killed civilians and damaged infrastructure. The important military lesson, however, was not simply the destructive power of an individual bomblet. It was the multiplication of potential targets once the carrier missile had survived long enough to disperse its payload.

The Problem for Patriot, THAAD and Layered Missile Defense

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