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10:41 14.07.2025 •
To the horror of the Americans, it turns out that the Patriot system is only good for hanging the American flag on...
Photo: ‘Foreign Policy’
The Pentagon has confirmed that an Iranian ballistic missile successfully struck Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar during an attack on June 23, contrasting with defence officials prior praise for the success of U.S. Army and Qatari Air Force MIM-104 Patriot air defence systems in protecting the facility, ‘The Military Watch Magazine’ writes.
“One Iranian ballistic missile impacted Al Udeid Airbase June 23 while the remainder of the missiles were intercepted by U.S. and Qatari air defence systems,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell stated, although Iran’s provision of early warning of the attack ensured there were no casualties. Satellite footage appears to show the destruction of a radome that housing the modernisation enterprise terminal communications suite, which has a value of approximately $15 million. The primary cost of the attack, however, is from the launch of close to two dozen Patriot interceptors to target the incoming missiles, as this interceptors cost approximately $4 million each.
Although the Fateh-313 ballistic missiles used to strike Al Udeid Airbase were far from the most sophisticated in Iran’s arsenal, the Patriot system has demonstrated major shortcomings in intercepting even relatively simple ballistic missile attacks in the past. When the Patriot was used to intercept a strike by makeshift missiles launched by Yemeni insurgents against Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport in 2017, for example, the missiles were shown by satellite imagery not to have been neutralised, despite claims of a successful interception. Analysis conducted by a research team of missile experts confirmed this, with Jeffrey Lewis, the analyst who led the research team, stating regarding the attack: “Governments lie about the effectiveness of these systems. Or they’re misinformed. And that should worry the hell out of us.” The Patriot system had previously demonstrated serious limitations during the Gulf War.
The extent of the Patriot system’s limitations have more recently been demonstrated in Ukraine, where they have continued to take heavy losses to Russian missile strikes. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Igor Ignat observed to this effect on May 26 regarding its inability to counter Russia’s Iskander-M ballistic missile system: “The Iskander missiles perform evasive manoeuvres in the final phase, thwarting the Patriot’s trajectory calculations… In addition, the Iskander can drop decoys capable of fooling Patriot missiles.” His statement follows the release of footage over more than a year confirming the destruction of Patriot systems in strikes by Iskander-M systems on several separate occasions.
The use of Patriot systems in both Ukraine and in the Middle East has seriously depleted stockpiles of their surface-to-air missiles, which were confirmed in early July to have fallen to just 25 percent of the volumes deemed necessary by the Pentagon. This has serious implications for U.S. and allied forces in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific.
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