Iran will not “go” and intend to prove it. On the sixth day of war between Israel and Iran, the Iranian army announced that it had shot hypersonic missiles on Wednesday.
The Fattah missiles “successfully penetrated the defenses of the Israeli regime” announced state television, saying that Tehran had acquired “total heaven control of occupied territories”. A little earlier, the Israeli army had detected missile fire from Iran.
The Iranian army led “the eleventh wave of the proud operation honest 3 using Fattah-1 missiles”, said the revolution guards, an ideological army of the Islamic Republic, in a statement released by state television.
🚨 This is Iran’s Fattah Hypersonic Missile — used in strikes on Israel.
With a range of 1,400 km and speeds up to Mach 15, it can hit targets like Tel Aviv in under 4 minutes, too fast for most missile defense systems to intercept pic.twitter.com/JHwOM8fUJ7
— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) June 15, 2025
Designed by the aerospace force of the guards, thanks to an exchange of technologies between Iran and China, the Fattah-1 missile is part of the Iranian military arsenal since 2023. It is the most recent weapon in its ballistic paraphernalia. This type of projectile had already been used during the attack on Iran on Israel in October 2024.
A reputed “elusive” weapon
But what exactly is it? Fattah-1 (“winner” in Persian) is a supersonic ballistic missile (with a trajectory). We speak of hypersonic or supersonic when a missile strikes at a speed greater than Mach 5 (five times the speed of the sound).
With a range of 1,400 km and a speed up to Mach 15, 18,000 km/h, Fattah-1 can reach targets like Tel Aviv in less than four minutes.
The Iranian regime is extremely proud of this weapon which it deems “elusive”. Tehran maintains that it can go around “all anti -missile defense systems”, from any country in the region.
How ? The Fattah-1 is made up of two floors: one propels the projectile when it is launched, the other contains the explosive load. One of the peculiarities of Fattah lies in its mini-motors which allow it to deviate its race, to be guided using elements of artificial intelligence at the level of the head and thus to avoid interceptions by itself.
Formidable technology
In short, the Fattah missile combines two precious skills: a considerable speed and an warhead with an excellent maneuvering capacity. It is this technology that would make him formidable, in his way of unraveling defense systems and approaching his target. It is also necessary to underline its rather surgical striking precision, since it is limited to a radius of 10 m, according to Iranian declarations.
Israeli defense companies are working on hypersonic missile interception systems, but they are not yet used. This constitutes a vulnerability of the Israeli defenses, told Wall Street Journal Farzin Nadimi, principal researcher at the Washington Institute.
A ballistic missile is one of the two large families of missiles, with the cruise missile, which is propelled throughout its flight made at low altitude. During its ascending phase, the ballistic missile is propelled at high altitude, exceeding the limit of the atmosphere to reach space. Once his peak reached, he descends to earth and the gravitation force gives him a considerable speed.
Since the end of the Second World War, powers like Iran, which do not have sufficient aviation to hit long distance targets, have favored ballistic missiles.