Iran Put a New Warhead On Its Powerful North Korean Missiles: Khorramshahr Threatens Adversaries Across the Middle East

Iran’s armed forces have displayed a new version of on of their most powerful ballistic missiles, the Khorramshahr, equipped with a new type of warhead. The platform featured in a parade dedicated to the anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war alongside 18 other ballistic missile types. Missiles on parade had a variety of ranges and included the longer ranged Sejil, as well as advanced indigenous hardware including Kaman 12 drones and Bavar-373 long range air defence systems. The Khorramshahr is a lighter derivative of the North Korean Musudan ballistic missile, with the Musudan reportedly delivered to Iran in the mid 2000s in small numbers as a strategic weapons system capable of striking targets across the Middle East and much of Europe.

While the variants of the Musudan in Iranian service are unknown, the most advanced are though to have a range of over 4000km. North Korea's defence sector has since developed a more tactical and shorter ranged variant of the platform specifically for Iranian use, which entered service in the mid 2010s, and it is though to be capable of carrying a multiple warhead reentry vehicle. This would provide Iran with a significantly more powerful means of striking targets further afield such as U.S. military bases in Eastern Europe and Africa, with attacks from multiple warheads notably considerably more difficult to intercept than those by a single warhead. While the nature of the Khorramshahr’s new warhead remains uncertain, there is a significant chance that it represents a new form of multiple warhead reentry vehicle.