NEW YORK, April 6. /TASS/. The US-Israeli conflict with Iran is rapidly depleting Patriot and THAAD interceptor stocks, threatening to leave US allies across the world vulnerable to attacks, The New York Times reports.
The newspaper points out that countries don’t usually make information on their interceptor stocks public but it’s already clear that "waves of missile and drone attacks by Iran have sorely depleted the interceptor inventories" and that "stockpiles could become dangerously low" if the war continues.
The New York Times notes, citing the Emirati Ministry of Defense, that Iran has launched almost 500 ballistic missiles and over 2,100 drones at the UAE since the start of the conflict. The paper adds that air-defense systems in the region "rely on a variety of launch systems, including Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries."
Dwindling interceptor stockpiles could leave US allies around the world vulnerable to attacks. The newspaper particularly mentions Israel, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.