The war in Ukraine has shown that real conflicts are fought in the air with kamikaze drones carrying out coordinated attacks. This dynamic has carried over to the conflict in the Middle East.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed on March 2, 2026, having fired Khyber-type missiles against senior officials of the Israeli government and army.
After the announcement, there is no doubt that Tehran is beginning to design missiles that sneak into the anti-aircraft defenses that Israel uses to shield the sky of Tel Aviv. The Khyber missile could be just the beginning.
Iran manages to break Israeli air defense
Israel has created an iron dome that aims to destroy all air threats. The system has been infallible to date, but that has just changed, as confirmed by the Fars news agency, dependent on the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The headquarters of the Israeli Air Force has been attacked with an Iranian Khyber-type missile. The technology behind this unmanned aerial device is almost a state secret, at the moment it is known that Iran is testing medium-range ballistic missiles.
The Khyber drone has extreme maneuverability to avoid attacks from the Israeli leadership’s anti-aircraft systems. All this is possible thanks to hypersonic speeds for missiles that have demonstrated enormous precision.
It is still early to talk about the end of Israel’s anti-aircraft system, one of the most powerful in the world. The Iranian drone that has sneaked into the iron dome is an isolated case, for the moment they would be testing survivability and precision in real combat conditions.
First Khyber missile intercepted
Israel has not revealed any further information about the missile that pierced its air defense shield. Even the name is unknown, some describe it as Khyber and others as Kheibar Shekan or simple hypersonic missiles.
This confusion could be part of the Israeli Air Force’s strategy, They do not want to reveal more information about the missile that has managed to break their defenses. Everything indicates that it would be more similar to the Kheibar Shekan, Iran’s third-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (MRBM) presented in 2023.
This missile has a range of more than 1,400 kilometers guided by satellite. The Kheibar Shekan can equip a high-precision maneuverable warhead that is almost undetectable by airborne radars.
Kheibar Shekan missiles manage to saturate anti-missile defenses. Enemy armies are forced to respond with fast and very expensive shots, although the almost random flight makes it difficult to shoot down.
Air defense systems are required to fire a very high number of shots. Even countries like Israel have limited resources to intercept intercontinental missiles.