Iran appeared decided to avenge the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and different senior Iranian officers following the beginning of the US-Israeli assault on Saturday, as Tehran continued to strike again at Israel and United States navy property throughout the Gulf on Monday.
After Khamenei’s demise was confirmed by Iranian state media on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vowed revenge and launched what it known as “the heaviest offensive operations within the historical past of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic towards occupied lands [a reference to Israel] and the bases of American terrorists”.
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Iran’s military chief, Amir Hatami, additionally pledged to proceed defending the nation, as the military claimed its fighter jets had bombed US bases throughout the Gulf area on Sunday.
This isn’t the primary time Iran has focused Israel and US navy bases within the Gulf area in retaliatory strikes. Final June, throughout Iran’s 12-day struggle with Israel, Tehran launched a wave of ballistic missiles concentrating on Israel and the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, which hosts US troops. Most of those missiles have been intercepted and destroyed, and the strike on Al Udeid was pre-warned and largely seen as a face-saving train.
This yr, defence analysts say Iran has revised its navy technique to a extra aggressive one centered on the Islamic Republic’s survival.
What does Iran’s navy construction seem like?
Iran’s navy energy is usually described as opaque and complex.
The nation operates parallel armies, a number of intelligence companies and layered command constructions, all of which reply on to the supreme chief, who serves because the commander in chief of all of the armed forces.
The parallel armies comprise the Artesh – or Iran’s common military, which is chargeable for territorial defence, airspace and traditional warfare – and the IRGC, whose function goes past defence and consists of defending Iran’s political construction.
The IRGC additionally controls Iran’s airspace and drone arsenal, which has develop into the spine of Iran’s deterrence technique towards assaults from Israel and the US.
Defence analysts instructed Al Jazeera that such a posh navy construction is a deliberate technique to safeguard the nation from each exterior and inner threats, corresponding to coups.
“Iran’s navy technique is derived from its political construction. Their political intention is to safeguard their very own territorial integrity and cease international intervention focused at overthrowing their rule,” a navy specialist and former navy official, who requested anonymity, instructed Al Jazeera.
How has Iran responded to strikes?
Following the US and Israel’s coordinated strikes on Iran on Saturday, Tehran has retaliated towards Israel and US navy bases throughout the Gulf area, utilizing Shahed drones – Iranian unmanned fight aerial automobiles (UCAVs) – and high-speed ballistic missiles.
Whereas Israel, the US and Gulf international locations have intercepted most of those missiles, some have struck navy property and civilian infrastructure. Particles from these intercepted has additionally fallen on some civilian areas.
On Saturday, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones throughout the United Arab Emirates (the UAE, the place US navy bases are current), its Ministry of Defence mentioned, with fires and smoke reaching the Dubai landmarks of Palm Jumeirah and Burj Al Arab.
At Abu Dhabi’s airport, at the very least one individual was killed and 7 wounded throughout what the power’s authority known as an “incident”. Dubai’s airport, the world’s busiest for worldwide visitors, and Kuwait’s airport have been additionally hit.
No less than 9 folks have been additionally killed and greater than 20 injured in Iran’s missile strike on the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh on Sunday.
What’s Iran’s technique right here?
John Phillips, a British security, safety and danger adviser and a former navy chief teacher, instructed Al Jazeera that Iran’s present navy technique is to outlive intense Israeli‑US stress, rebuild its core capabilities, and restore deterrence by calibrated uneven escalation by missiles, drones and proxies.
He mentioned the navy technique firstly focuses on “uneven endurance, which is a case of hardening ‘missile cities’, dispersing command constructions, and accepting preliminary injury with a purpose to protect a second‑strike functionality somewhat than attempting to forestall all strikes”. Missile cities are defensive infrastructure utilized by Iran to safeguard its ballistic and cruise missiles from any aerial assaults
Phillips defined that regional saturation and proxy warfare are additionally a part of the technique whereby Iran is utilizing “giant salvos of ballistic missiles and loitering munitions, alongside actions by Hezbollah and remaining companion militias throughout the Center East, to stretch Israeli and US missile defences and impose prices area‑extensive”.
Early on Monday, Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets at northern Israel, to avenge the killing of Khamenei.
Phillips added that Iran has additionally threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz as a part of its navy technique to boost the worldwide financial stakes of the struggle and stress Western and Gulf governments.
About 20-30 p.c of world oil and gasoline provides are shipped by the Strait of Hormuz. Instability on this necessary maritime route might rattle financial stability worldwide. Thus far, Iran has not formally closed the strait. However delivery information from Sunday confirmed that at the very least 150 tankers, together with crude oil and liquified pure gasoline vessels, had dropped anchor in open Gulf waters past the strait.
How is that this technique completely different from final June?
In June final yr, Iran and Israel, which was supported by the US, engaged in a 12-day war.
It erupted on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched air strikes on Iranian navy and nuclear websites, killing key nuclear scientists and navy commanders.
Iran retaliated with a whole bunch of ballistic missiles concentrating on Israeli cities. Within the days that adopted, Israel and Iran traded missiles as casualties mounted on either side. Whereas casualties have been excessive in Iran, they have been minimal in Israel. Nonetheless, some missiles did breach Israel’s much-lauded Iron Dome.
The US entered the navy conflict on June 22 with bunker-buster strikes on Iran’s Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan nuclear services. Afterwards, US President Donald Trump claimed that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been neutralised.
A fragile ceasefire was ultimately brokered by the US on June 24, hours after Iran had fired missiles on the largest airbase internet hosting US troops within the Center East – Al Udeid in Qatar.
Phillips mentioned that since then, Tehran has shifted its navy doctrine from a primarily defensive containment to an explicitly offensive uneven posture.
“The June 2025 struggle marked a significant inflection from largely proxy‑primarily based confrontation to direct, excessive‑depth exchanges between Iran and Israel, with US involvement,” he mentioned.
“In comparison with June 2025, Iran at present seems extra structurally aggressive in doctrine the place it’s formally embracing earlier and extra in depth use of regional missiles, drones, cyberattacks and vitality coercion (when vitality assets and infrastructure are focused or lower off), however is operationally constrained by battle injury, sanctions and inner instability,” he added.
Phillips additionally famous that Iran has develop into extra danger‑accepting and escalatory in nature since June final yr.
“However its degraded capabilities and worry of triggering an outright regime‑ending marketing campaign push it towards calibrated, episodic bursts of aggression somewhat than everlasting excessive‑depth warfare,” he mentioned.
“Their instant response is more likely to be just like that submit the killing of [Qassem] Soleimani,” he mentioned.
In January 2020, after Trump’s administration killed IRGC navy commander Qassem Soleimani, together with six others in an air raid on Baghdad’s worldwide airport in Iraq, Iran fired greater than a dozen missiles at two Iraqi bases internet hosting US forces. There have been no casualties.
Phillips added that Iran will doubtless resort to “extreme proxy assaults … for the interval of mourning to avenge the killing of the ayatollah. There’s extremely more likely to be one other large-scale ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] assault on Israel to show a degree and to struggle again.”
Is Iran’s present navy technique working?
Defence analysts say it’s too early to inform whether or not the recalibrated technique is working.
“Iran has a powerful military, however there are at the moment no boots on the bottom, and it’s an aerial struggle. Iran is in a disadvantageous place with its air defence in comparison with the US and Israel. Tehran has elevated its stockpile of aerial missiles, however solely time will inform if it could possibly maintain its personal,” the navy skilled and former official mentioned.
Phillips in contrast Iran to a “wounded animal” and mentioned that in slim deterrence phrases, Tehran’s navy technique is working to the extent that it has demonstrated it could possibly nonetheless launch significant missile and drone assaults after the 2025 strikes. It has additionally compelled Israel and the US right into a “sustained, useful resource‑intensive defensive and offensive marketing campaign somewhat than a clear, one‑off disarmament”, he added.
“Nonetheless, Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure has been closely broken, its financial system additional weakened, and it misplaced Ayatollah Khamenei within the strike on Tehran, leaving the regime extra susceptible and internally strained, which signifies that its technique has not prevented extreme strategic setbacks,” he mentioned.
How lengthy can Iran maintain out?
Even earlier than the Israeli and US assaults on Iran on Saturday, Iranian officers had warned that any assault from Washington or Tel Aviv on Iran can be handled as the beginning of a wider struggle, not a contained operation.
After Khamenei’s killing, this stance by Iranian officers has continued.
“You might have crossed our pink line and should pay the worth,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, mentioned in a televised deal with, referring to the US and Israel.
“We’ll ship such devastating blows that you just yourselves might be pushed to beg.”
Whereas Iran, the US and Israel have traded air strikes since Saturday, it stays unclear how lengthy the battle will proceed.
Phillips mentioned that militarily, Iran can doubtless maintain “intermittent missile, drone, proxy, and cyber operations for years as a result of these methods are comparatively low-cost and could be produced and deployed from dispersed, hardened services, even below sanctions”.
“Politically and economically, nonetheless, extended excessive‑depth battle that invitations repeated giant US‑Israeli strikes dangers extreme financial contraction, inner unrest, and additional erosion of regime legitimacy,” he mentioned.
“So Tehran has sturdy incentives to oscillate between escalation and tacit pauses somewhat than maintain steady full‑scale struggle,” Phillips added.
How lengthy can the US and Israel maintain out?
US President Trump has repeatedly warned Iran towards retaliation and threatened that the US might strike Iran “with a pressure that has by no means been seen earlier than” within the face of retaliation. However he has additionally despatched combined messages about how lengthy the struggle might proceed.
Since early February, the US has amassed an unlimited array of navy property within the Center East, amid escalating tensions with Iran.
According to open-source intelligence analysts and navy flight-tracking information, since early February, the US seems to have deployed greater than 120 plane to the area – the most important surge in US airpower within the Center East for the reason that 2003 Iraq struggle.
The reported deployments embody E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Management System (AWACS) plane, F-35 stealth strike fighters and F-22 air superiority jets, alongside F-15s and F-16s. Flight-tracking information reveals many departing bases within the US and Europe, supported by cargo plane and aerial refuelling tankers, an indication of sustained operational planning somewhat than routine rotations.
However after attacking Iran, Trump has been unclear about how lengthy the battle might final.
On March 1, he instructed the New York Occasions that the struggle might final for 4 to 5 weeks. He instructed ABC Information that after the killing of Khamenei, the US was not pondering of concentrating on anybody else. He additionally instructed The Atlantic journal that Iran’s new management had agreed to speak to him, signalling a possible finish to the continuing battle.
Christopher Featherstone, affiliate lecturer within the division of politics on the College of York, mentioned that for the US and Israel, worldwide condemnation and home opposition could possibly be a limiting issue.
“The US can proceed to deploy property within the area, however any enhance in assault would require an enormous political effort and vital assets. Trump ran on being an ‘at residence’ president, however is more and more aggressive overseas. Nonetheless, he’s nonetheless cautious of sustained international engagement,” Featherstone instructed Al Jazeera.
Phillips mentioned that militarily, Israel retains qualitative superiority, an energetic missile‑defence community, and sturdy US safety help, permitting it to maintain repeated air and missile campaigns and defensive operations for an prolonged interval.
“Its foremost constraints are home resilience (civilian disruption, reserve mobilisation fatigue) and the cumulative diplomatic and financial prices of extended regional battle, which recommend it could possibly maintain a grinding marketing campaign for years, in navy phrases, however will come below rising stress – inner and exterior – to stabilise the scenario nicely earlier than that,” Phillips mentioned, including that help from European and United Kingdom defence contractors might additionally dictate, to a level, how lengthy Israel can maintain this battle.
‘The US can maintain the present tempo of strikes, air and naval deployments, and missile‑defence help far longer than both regional actor in purely materials phrases, given its world pressure posture and industrial base,” he mentioned.
“The binding constraint is home political will and strategic prioritisation,” he famous.
“The Iran-Israel theatre is testing Washington’s skill to align its Nationwide Protection Technique with restricted public urge for food for an additional open‑ended Center Jap battle,” Phillips mentioned. “So the US is more likely to intention for a contained, deterrence‑centered marketing campaign somewhat than an indefinite excessive‑depth struggle. Their catalyst for stopping would be the political will of allies and the way a lot sway they will maintain over the following supreme chief.”
