Underground missile sites reopened in Iran show limits of US bombing plan

Summary Iran has reopened at least 50 of 69 tunnel entrances to underground missile bases using bulldozers and dump trucks. This recovery shows the limits of the American and Israeli bombing campaigns targeting the entrances to the tunnels leading to the bases, according to experts. Experts say Iran still has around a thousand missiles stored deep, which could now be accessible again.

The AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.

Iran is poised to fire much longer-range missiles at Israel and other Middle Eastern countries after quickly unearthing its buried arsenals — an effort that highlights the limits of the U.S. bombing strategy, experts say.

For weeks, U.S. and Israeli strikes have restricted Iran’s access to its underground missile sites by destroying roads and burying tunnel entrances.

But satellite images reviewed by CNN show how Iran has used simple equipment such as bulldozers and dump trucks to counter these costly campaigns – suggesting that Tehran’s missile capabilities cannot be destroyed simply by targeting tunnel entrances, experts said.

While Iran and the United States have reached an agreement in principle to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, months of work remain to iron out the details.

If hostilities resume, Iran is able to “continue launching missiles as long as they have launchers and crews, even if production has stopped,” said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies who analyzes Iran’s missile capabilities. “Nothing prevents the launchers from being armed with the vast stock of missiles that the Iranians still have.”

During the fighting, Iran undertook to dig the tunnel entrances at great peril, with the United States and Israel often striking the equipment used to dig. This work allowed Tehran to continue firing missiles throughout the war, but at significantly reduced rates. Since the ceasefire more than seven weeks ago, Iranian efforts to search the bases have accelerated significantly.

CNN has found that Iran has now unblocked 50 of 69 tunnel entrances struck by the US and Israel at 18 underground missile facilities.

CNN analysis reveals Iran is uncovering its missile arsenal

CNN analysis reveals Iran is uncovering its missile arsenal

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Iran has also repaired other parts of the bases, including roads that the United States and Israel bombed to prevent missile launchers from using them. Satellite images show that almost all of these craters have been filled in and even repaved at two sites.

“The U.S. military is good at achieving tactical successes, and the burial and suppression of the Iranian missile force is a prime example of that,” Lair said. “However, if this is not accompanied by a set of reasonable strategic war objectives and an achievable theory of victory, it may end up being a strategic failure.”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell did not respond to specific questions about CNN’s findings, repeating an earlier statement that “the U.S. military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute whenever and wherever the president chooses.”

President Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasized that Iran’s missile arsenal is the reason for the war, with its destruction being one of the main goals. In a March article in Truth Social, Trump cited “the complete degradation of the capability of Iran’s missiles, launchers, and everything related” as one of five “goals” of the war.

Iran’s network of underground missile bases, which the country began building more than 20 years ago, provides considerable protection for its missiles and launchers. The depth of the facilities, some of which lie under hundreds of meters of rock, limits the options the U.S. and Israeli militaries have for attacking the bases.

Thus, during the first weeks of the conflict, the military decided to strike their entrances, which, combined with efforts to find and destroy the launchers, helped to significantly limit Iranian missile launches.

These strikes heavily damaged the bases, burying most of the tunnel entrances under mountains of debris and destroying roads leading to the sites.

Satellite images reviewed by CNN at the time showed facilities such as Isfahan’s North Missile Base, a key underground missile site, ravaged by multiple strikes with rubble covering the tunnels and destroyed launchers outside.

The United States and Israel have also undertaken a broad effort to destroy Iran’s missile supply chain, from factories where small electronic components are produced to sites where rocket boosters and missile bodies are made.

After the United States and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on April 8, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cited those efforts, saying Iran would “dig up the remaining launchers and missiles, and not be able to replace them. You don’t have a defense industry.”

Experts estimate that Iran still has around 1,000 missiles stored in underground sites.

Experts say it is unlikely that this stockpile, deep beneath the surface, suffered much damage from ground-level strikes, especially since the Israeli military struck the tunnel entrances in a similar manner during the Twelve Day War last year.

“They had been preparing for this kind of war for 20 years,” said Timur Kadyshev, a senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Security Policy Research at the University of Hamburg, who studies Iranian missiles. “They are very prepared.”

To reopen the bases, Iran used various construction and earthmoving equipment. Satellite images show front-end loaders picking up rubble while dump trucks fill craters with earth.

On one base outside Isfahan, the United States and Israel carried out numerous strikes to block four tunnel entrances during the war. At least 18 craters could be seen at two entrances, indicating exactly how much ammunition was spent blocking the tunnels.

In early May, a satellite image showed a dump truck being used to fill in craters. The other two entrances, also blocked by craters and debris, had already been opened, and the roads leading to them, previously destroyed by bombing, had been repaved.

At a base outside Khomeyn in mid-April, one image showed at least 10 construction vehicles engaged in efforts to reopen an entrance.

As Iran recovers its missiles and restores the functionality of its missile bases, analysts worry that the continued threat posed by this arsenal is being underestimated, particularly given the dwindling supply of U.S. missile interceptors.

Strikes on Iranian missile factories also may not prevent Tehran from rebuilding its missile production capabilities for as long as the United States and Israel would like. During the Twelve Day War, some of these same factories were also attacked. Although the recent strikes were much broader, satellite images showed that Iran had already rebuilt some of the targeted facilities last June.

U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran has already rebuilt its key military capabilities, including restarting drone production and replacing its missile launchers and production capabilities.

“The Iranians have missed all the deadlines set by (the intelligence community) for reconstitution,” a US official told CNN.

For Kadyshev, this technological difference reveals the difficulty of pursuing military options against Iran.

“You have to use very sophisticated, very expensive weapons to do this kind of damage, and the recovery relies on very rudimentary technology – it’s just bulldozers.”

CNN’s Gianluca Mezzofiore contributed to this report.

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