Iranian drone and missile activity has dropped sharply as the US pushes to expand air superiority

Iran's missile and drone launches have decreased significantly since the US and Israel began a widespread strike campaign against the country, the top American general said on Wednesday.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon press briefing that Iran's theater ballistic missile shots fired are down 86% since Saturday, with a 23% decrease in the last 24 hours.

And Iran's one-way attack drone launches are down 73%, the general said, offering the Pentagon's first public update on the status of Tehran's retaliatory fire. The Shahed-136 loitering munition costs just tens of thousands of dollars, making it an expendable weapon that can complicate strike packages.

Since fighting began, the US and Israel have targeted Iranian missile launchers and drone infrastructure, according to officials and satellite imagery of damage across the country, reflecting an effort to restrict Tehran's ability to retaliate to the offensive strikes.

The Iranian armed forces have launched over 500 ballistic missiles and 2,000 drones at countries across the Middle East, including all of the Gulf States and Israel, as well as US military bases across the region. Several of these munitions have slipped past air defenses, and a strike in Kuwait killed at least six American service members and wounded others.

The US and its allies have been forced to intercept hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones, prompting concerns about interceptor stockpiles in the region. Officials, however, say their munitions remain sufficient.

Defense experts from the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project said that the US and Israeli strikes are designed to eliminate Iran's ballistic missile capabilities before defensive interceptor stockpiles run dry.

The US and Israel have carried out widespread airstrikes in Iran. Mowj/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Conflict experts from the two think tanks wrote in an analysis on Monday that "the destruction of missile launchers mitigates the risk that either the United States or Israel will run out of interceptors by limiting Iran's ability to launch missiles in the first place."

The decrease in Iranian missile and drone launches comes as the US and Israel claim that they have secured varying degrees of air superiority above Iran, allowing the aircraft from the two countries to operate relatively freely.

Air operations still carry other risks, especially in complex operating environments. The Pentagon said three American F-15s were "mistakenly" shot down by Kuwait in a friendly fire incident early on Monday. All the crew members survived.

Caine said that the US military has established localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coastline and will start striking deeper into the country as American and Israeli forces continue to strike Tehran's air defenses.

The US has shifted from using standoff munitions beyond the range of Iran's air defenses to prioritizing "stand-in" strikes using precision-guided bombs above Iranian targets, Caine told reporters at the Pentagon, calling it a point of "transition."

He specifically singled out Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, unguided bombs converted into GPS-guided weapons, and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

"This will allow the joint force to deliver significantly increased precision effects on the target," the general said.

The US and Israel have struck thousands of targets across Iran since Saturday. Hundreds of people have been killed, including dozens of military and government officials and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

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