Iran has showed off a sprawling underground network of tunnels filled with row after row of drones and rockets, amid fears the US and its allies are burning through expensive weaponry in their war against the regime.
Footage released by the Fars News Agency, which is closely linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, shows long lines of missiles and Shahed drones.
With a ticking clock playing in the background, the propagandistic video used dramatic drone footage to show off the extent of their cheap arsenal.
Shahed drones cost just tens of thousands of dollars to produce, and take little time to manufacture.
This stands in stark contrast to the sophisticated weaponry favoured by the US and its allies.
American-made Patriot missiles can cost between $4-5million (£3-3.75million), with export prices being even higher.
THAAD missile batteries, meanwhile, can cost around $13million (£9.74million) each.
Analysis carried out by Kirsty Grieco, a security expert at the Stimson Centre in Washington DC, found that the UAE had shot down 92% of the missiles and drones Iran’s slung its way.
Iran has showed off a sprawling underground network of tunnels filled with row after row of drones and rockets
Grieco estimates Iran spent in the region of $11m to $27m on the 541 drones it launched on the UAE, with interceptors averaging $500,000-$1.5m per drone to shoot down 506 of them.
The UAE’s drone defence costs were between $253m and $759m, suggesting it spent up to 30 times more defending itself against Iran’s drones than its adversary spent on attacking it.
And there are fears that Gulf states may soon run out of anti-air defences.
A source told the Daily Mail: ‘At the current rates the supplies could run out within four days.
‘The interceptors are being used at an unprecedented speed.’
It comes as explosions sounded in Iran’s capital on Wednesday as the war with the United States and Israel entered its fifth day, with Israel targeting the Iranian leadership and security forces and the Islamic Republic responding with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel and across the region.
The blasts in Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television. Israel’s military said its air defences had been activated to intercept Iranian missiles targeting Israel and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
With Iran’s stranglehold on tanker movement through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which about a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped, Brent crude prices rose to more than $82 a barrel, up more than 13% since the start of the conflict and at its highest price since July 2024.
Global stock markets have been hammered over worries that the spike in oil prices may grind down the world economy and sap corporate profits.
The American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the US Consulate in the United Arab Emirates came under drone attacks Tuesday, and the US State Department said Wednesday it had authorised non-emergency government personnel to evacuate the kingdom.
US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, said Iran has launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones so far. He described the American strikes in the opening hours of the campaign as ‘nearly double the scale’ of the initial attacks during the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Shahed drones cost just tens of thousands of dollars to produce, and take little time to manufacture
‘We’ve already struck nearly 2,000 targets, with more than 2,000 munitions. We have severely degraded Iran’s air defences and destroyed hundreds of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers and drones,’ Cooper said in a prerecorded message shared online Wednesday.
‘In simple terms, we are focused on shooting all the things that can shoot at us,’ he added.
Five days into a war that US President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Israel on Wednesday said it was conducting a series of strikes across Tehran targeting Iranian security forces, the day after it hit a building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader in the city of Qom.
