Iran media claims Hezbollah supplied with Iran’s ‘Almas’ missiles

Iranian pro-government Tasnim News said on February 14 that Hezbollah recently presented evidence that it is using the Iranian-made Almas anti-tank missile. The report says that Iran provided Hezbollah with the missile and claims a recent video released showing a Hezbollah missile attack on Israel has confirmed the use of the missile.

The report says, “from the beginning of the war until now, Hezbollah has adopted a specific strategy to confront the Zionist regime, which is based on the use of guided anti-armor missiles.” Hezbollah has used various types of anti-tank guided missiles since it began attacking Israel on October 8.

Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and Hezbollah then joined the attack. Since then, thousands of missiles and rockets have been fired at Israel.

According to Tasnim Hezbollah has used missiles to target “Israel’s surveillance and telecommunication equipment….Lebanon’s Hezbollah has used a significant number of guided anti-armor missiles against Israel since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa storm operation, which shows their considerable power.”

The report says that Iran has supplied Hezbollah with a number of types of missiles via the IRGC. It also says that “Israel does not have correct information about Hezbollah’s anti-armor missiles.” The Almas missile was developed, Tasnim says, in an Iranian attempt to copy the Israeli Spike missile.

Iranian ‘copycat’ missile

Oddly, Iran credits Israel in this regard with having a superior missile that Tehran sought to copy. According to the report, the Almas missile comes in several types, with ranges out to 8km. Other missiles, the report says, have longer ranges depending on the type of target.

“This missile, which is made by our country’s defense industry, was designed and produced based on a ‘top attack’ anti-armor missile.” Hezbollah’s use of the Almas was reported in January by several other news outlets. Hezbollah’s claims of new missile capabilities is clearly designed to have it test these Iranian systems to see how well they work.

Iran has done the same thing with the Houthis, exporting systems to Yemen and using the Houthis as a test bed. In essence, the numerous attacks on Israel by Hezbollah are now being watched closely by Iran to see which weapons work and how they work. The article clearly reveals this Hezbollah-Iran strategy and how new weapon systems are designed to underpin Hezbollah’s threats to Israel.

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.