OddsFrontIran resumes limited ballistic-missile production at underground facilities
The reported restart complicates earlier US claims that Iran's missile programme had been effectively destroyed and points to the limits of air strikes against dispersed production networks.
Production reportedly restarts underground
Iran has resumed assembling ballistic missiles at a limited rate, according to a September 10 Meduza report based on information attributed to American and Middle Eastern officials. The activity reportedly uses components accumulated before the current war and production spaces protected underground. Officials cited in the report said work was under way on both liquid-fuel and solid-fuel systems, including activity associated with the Khojir missile complex southeast of Tehran.
The reported output remains substantially below Iran's prewar production rate. US and Israeli strikes damaged factories and component-production sites, while the maritime blockade has made it harder for Tehran to obtain specialised parts and ingredients used in missile propellant. Iran is also reportedly attempting to establish additional underground production locations, a sign that dispersion and physical protection have become central to rebuilding the programme.
Earlier claims meet a harder reality
The development challenges broad public claims that Iran had lost the ability to manufacture new missiles. Meduza noted that US officials previously described the missile programme as effectively destroyed. The Pentagon's March update on Operation Epic Fury confirms the scale and purpose of the US campaign: it began on February 28 and included attacks on ballistic-missile sites as part of thousands of combat sorties.
The distinction between degradation and elimination is now strategically important. Air campaigns can destroy known launchers, factories and storage locations without removing technical knowledge, hidden inventories or hardened assembly areas. If Iran can maintain even a modest replacement rate, it may preserve a retaliatory capability and force the United States and Israel to devote continuing intelligence and military resources to detecting new sites.
What remains uncertain
The available reporting does not establish exact production volumes, the number of operational facilities or how quickly newly assembled missiles can enter service. The White House did not directly confirm the reported restart, according to Meduza. That uncertainty requires caution: the finding supports a limited reconstitution assessment, not a conclusion that Iran has restored its prewar arsenal.
What to watch next is whether Washington or Israel release imagery or intelligence supporting the assessment, whether further strikes target Khojir or other underground locations, and whether supply restrictions prevent Iran from scaling beyond stored components. Renewed production also raises the stakes of any future diplomatic arrangement, because monitoring missile-related industrial activity would be harder than verifying a small set of declared surface facilities.