The Invisible War: How Iran’s Strikes Are Targeting America’s Eyes in the Sky

The Vulnerability of High-Tech Defense Systems

In the opening salvos of a conflict that erupted over two weeks ago, Iran and its regional allies have executed a strategic campaign that reads like a military planner’s nightmare for Western defense officials. Rather than focusing purely on conventional military targets, Iranian forces have systematically attacked the technological backbone of America’s missile defense network across the Middle East—the radar systems that serve as the early warning eyes for detecting incoming threats. An extensive analysis of satellite imagery and verified video footage by ABC News has revealed that at least ten radar installations have been hit by Iranian drones or missiles since hostilities began. These aren’t just any military targets; they’re extraordinarily expensive, technologically sophisticated systems that use rare components and represent investments of hundreds of millions of dollars each. William Alberque, formerly the director of NATO’s Arms Control, Disarmament, and Non-Proliferation Centre, put it bluntly: “It is incredibly expensive, really delicate and unbelievably vulnerable.” While the complete picture of damage remains difficult to verify—partly because major satellite imagery companies like Planet Labs have imposed a 14-day delay on releasing images from the region, and Vantor refuses to share imagery of U.S. military locations—the available evidence paints a concerning picture of Iran’s capability to strike at the heart of Western defense infrastructure.

A Regional Campaign of Strategic Targeting

The scope of Iran’s targeting campaign is both broad and precise, demonstrating sophisticated intelligence gathering and operational planning. ABC News analysis has identified over 25 locations hit across seven military bases spanning five countries throughout the Middle East. These strikes haven’t been random; they’ve systematically targeted logistical buildings, aircraft hangars, fuel storage facilities, and most critically, the radar installations that make modern missile defense possible. Among the damaged systems are multiple AN/TPY-2 radar units—the primary sensors for THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile defense systems—and an AN/FPS-132 Phased Array Radar located in Qatar. Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, explained the strategic logic behind these attacks: “We knew going in that the Iranians were going to try to use their drones to target our high value targets such as this. If you can take out the radar, you take out its eyes and it disables the whole THAAD battery. If it doesn’t know where to shoot, if it can’t see the threats coming in, it cannot direct the interceptors to go get them.” The attacks have spanned from Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base, where satellite imagery from March 1 showed smoke billowing from a building that previously housed an AN/TPY-2 radar system, to multiple sites in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar.

When America’s Shield Gets Punctured

The implications of these successful strikes go beyond simple equipment damage—they represent a fundamental challenge to how the United States and its allies have structured their regional defense posture. The American missile defense network operates on a principle of redundancy, with overlapping radar and satellite systems designed to ensure that even if some components fail or go offline, others can pick up the slack. However, experts speaking to ABC News emphasized that damage to critical nodes in this network can significantly degrade its overall effectiveness. It’s not a complete blindness, but rather a partial one that reduces detection capabilities and, critically, shortens the warning time available to respond to incoming threats. Satellite imagery has documented strikes on radar facilities near Abu Dhabi and Al Sader in the UAE on March 1, at the Muwaffaq al Salti base in Jordan on March 2 (where Jordanian sources confirmed radar damage), at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait on March 4 (with multiple radar domes appearing damaged), and at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on March 9. Perhaps most concerning was the apparent damage to part of an AN/FPS-132 Phased Array Radar in Umm Dahal, Qatar, identified by researcher Sam Lair from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who noted debris from damage to the northeastern face of the radar and water runoff from firefighting efforts. As Alberque explained, “Taking out one TPY-2 does not take down your theater missile defense capability. It just reduces, you’re just partially blinded.”

The Cat-and-Mouse Game of Radar Warfare

The successful Iranian strikes highlight an inherent vulnerability in modern radar systems that presents a near-impossible engineering challenge. By their very nature, radars must emit and receive radio waves to function—and those emissions can serve as a homing beacon for enemy missiles and drones. As Karako described it, “You can’t just pile up a bunch of concrete around the radar and expect it to then continue to function. It is a bit of a cat and mouse game as in the nature of air and missile defense.” This vulnerability is compounded by the astronomical costs and complexity of these systems. The U.S. Army currently operates eight THAAD batteries, with two permanently stationed in Guam and South Korea. Each AN/TPY-2 radar—the main sensor for a THAAD battery—carries a price tag of approximately half a billion dollars. The AN/FPS-132 that was potentially damaged in Qatar appears to be the only one of its kind in the region and was acquired through a 2013 deal valued at $1.1 billion. Beyond the financial costs, these systems are time-intensive to produce and often rely on rare-earth minerals in limited supply, meaning replacements cannot be quickly manufactured or deployed. Video and satellite imagery reviewed by ABC News showed particularly dramatic damage to radar equipment at the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain, where social media footage captured the moment a drone struck a radome on February 28, the conflict’s first day.

Fighting Tomorrow’s War with Yesterday’s Technology

Perhaps the most sobering assessment from defense experts is that the current generation of radar systems deployed across the Middle East were designed for a threat environment that no longer exists. Alberque characterized the situation starkly: “It was designed under a threat paradigm from the 90s and 2000s. You are always fighting the last war—well, the TPY-2 is fighting the last level of threat.” The massive, sophisticated, and expensive radar installations that seemed like cutting-edge technology when they were deployed are now revealed as expensive liabilities in an era of cheap, plentiful, and increasingly sophisticated drone warfare. These fixed installations, with their enormous price tags and long replacement timelines, present lucrative targets for adversaries who have developed swarms of relatively inexpensive drones capable of overwhelming defenses through sheer numbers. Sam Lair emphasized the strategic logic from Iran’s perspective: “Targeting radars in the gulf makes sense for the Iranians. If they can degrade those, then they will have made it much more difficult for the U.S. and Gulf allies to detect, characterize, and defend against missile attacks.” Looking forward, Alberque suggested that this conflict will likely force a fundamental rethinking of American missile defense strategy: “I think going forward the US is probably going to look at missile defense that is more mobile, modular, easy to replace and easy to defend. I think that is the issue here—it’s a legacy system designed for the wrong threat environment.”

Measuring Success Through Incomplete Data

The true impact of the damage to radar systems remains difficult to quantify with certainty, partly because the data available paints an incomplete picture and partly because affected nations have become increasingly reticent to share detailed information. The United Arab Emirates initially provided transparent disclosure of how many drones and missiles they intercepted versus the total number launched, but that transparency has decreased as the conflict has progressed. Data compiled by ABC News from publicly available UAE Ministry of Defense statements showed that through March 9, roughly 5% of projectiles were penetrating the country’s defenses—a figure that seems respectable on its face. However, on March 10, something changed dramatically: the penetration rate suddenly spiked to 25% of projectiles making it through. This steep increase occurred just days after two expensive radar systems were visibly damaged in the UAE on the war’s first day. Following this troubling spike, the UAE stopped publishing complete data, instead only releasing numbers of drones and missiles “engaged”—a vaguer metric that doesn’t reveal how many got through. The overall data suggests a possible decline in the number of Iranian drones and missiles targeting Gulf countries, though drawing precise conclusions remains difficult due to incomplete reporting. Saudi Arabia presents an interesting counterpoint to this apparent trend: the kingdom reported intercepting an average of 13 drones daily during the conflict’s first week, but that number has trended steadily upward, culminating in a single-day record of 56 drones intercepted on Saturday, March 14. Whether this represents increased Iranian offensive activity, improved Saudi detection capabilities, or some combination of factors remains unclear. What is clear is that this conflict has exposed vulnerabilities in Western defense infrastructure that will require fundamental rethinking of how expensive, sophisticated military technology is deployed in an era of asymmetric warfare.