Iran Wants Israelis to Worry That Hezbollah Has Powerful EMP Weapons

Sources in the Quds Force — part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — reportedly told the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida that “the Lebanese party now possesses bombs and missiles carrying explosive ‘electromagnetic’ warheads.”

The source said that “the bombs delivered to the party (Hezbollah) can be launched from fixed launchers and some of them can be carried by drones to reach any point deep inside Israel.” These weapons “can destroy all communication systems, including electrical infrastructure, and thus stop all electronic systems on which Israel relies to coordinate its radars, aircraft and forces in general.”

Israel’s allies would not be immune if Israel attacked Lebanon either. The Americans, the British, and “anyone who might try to cover up Israel’s inability” would be targeted. The story was quickly picked up by Israeli media.

Assessing the credibility of Iran’s EMP threat is difficult. If oil is Iran’s top export, its second-biggest export is its boasting to the world about its supposedly cutting-edge military capabilities, including a “stealth fighter” unveiled in 2013 and 2017 that was likely neither stealth nor pilotable. One reason for this posturing is a desire to hide the fact that Iran’s conventional military hardware, such as jets, tanks, and anti-aircraft missiles, are decrepit Cold War systems that would be hopelessly outmatched by American, Israeli, and European weapons.

Yet Iran has spent years investing in developing nuclear weapons (whether the research has ceased, as Iran claims, or is ongoing, as Israel and some Americans claim, is a matter of contentious debate). It has shown real capabilities in developing various ballistic missiles and drones, and Tehran has exported its Shahed-136 attack drone to Russia. All of this suggests that Iran has the means to strike Israel and Europe, but it does not tell us whether EMP warheads themselves exist.

Or what kind of EMP weapon it would be. When electromagnetic weapons are mentioned in the news or apocalyptic movies and novels, it is usually nuclear weapons, generated either as a byproduct of nuclear weapons aimed at targets such as cities, or nuclear weapons deliberately detonated in space to generate EMP effects. Either way, the effect would be a complete disruption of modern life, as the spreading pulse fried circuits in the electrical grid, damaged communications and other satellites, and disrupted global cell phone and GPS service.

But there are also non-nuclear EMP weapons (NNEMPs) — devices that can be carried in a briefcase or missile warhead and that use explosives or high-powered microwave emitters to generate a destructive pulse similar to a nuclear weapon, “except that they are less energetic and have a much shorter radius,” the U.S. National Security and Homeland Security EMP Task Force explained in a 2021 report.

“NNEMP weapons can be built relatively inexpensively using commercially available parts and design information available on the Internet. EMP simulators that can be carried and operated by one person and that can be used as NNEMP weapons are commercially available.” Nuclear EMP pulses can travel hundreds of miles depending on the height of the detonation, whereas NNEMP devices have a range of only about 5 miles.

Iran has a nuclear program and could likely build an EMP nuclear weapon if it wanted to. The 2015 nuclear deal Iran’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for lifting sanctions. However, the Trump administration withdrew from the deal amid concerns that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement did not address other issues, such as Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for terrorism, and that Iran could continue to secretly develop nuclear weapons. Since then, Iran has periodically enriched its uranium stockpile, a necessary step in building a nuclear weapon.

But an Iranian nuclear device—whether or not it is designed solely for EMP effects—could have a number of consequences, not least by prompting Israel to follow through on its threat to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (and, Jerusalem hopes, American forces to join in). But a nonnuclear EMP weapon could enable Iran to bypass any red lines.

“I think it’s fair to assume that Iran has looked at these types of weapons, either through its own proliferation efforts or through its growing ties and relationships with Russia, China, and North Korea,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, former head of U.S. Central Command, told Business Insider.

“I think they would see EMP as a weapon that could be used in ‘gray zone’ operations below the level of open conflict,” said Votel, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. “Particularly if it could be used with more targeted results, such as disabling electronic devices in a specific geographic area.”

But that raises another question: Would Iran give EMP weapons to Hezbollah, its most important proxy? “Of all the members of the so-called Axis of Resistance, Hezbollah would be a likely candidate to receive this type of weapon,” Votel said. “But I haven’t seen any evidence that they have. Like most special capabilities, there’s a level of training and sophistication that has to accompany their deployment.”

Given Israel’s small size—about the size of New Jersey—it wouldn’t take that many EMP devices to cause serious damage. At least a few nonnuclear EMP bombs over northern Israel would disrupt Israeli military and civilian communications and allow a surprise Hezbollah attack. A large-scale attack could cause enough power outages to cripple Israel’s half-trillion-dollar annual economy.

But it would also risk Israel treating it as a WMD attack, much like a nuclear or chemical attack. Israel is believed to have nearly 100 nuclear weapons, and Hezbollah’s EMP weapons could be viewed as a WMD attack by Iran, which has already fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in an April 2024 attack. It’s also possible Israel would respond in kind with its own EMP attacks, which would disable southern Lebanon and even Beirut.

The common denominator of Iranian security policy is the use of proxies, such as Hezbollah, to expand Iran’s influence and weaken its enemies, but without provoking an attack on the Iranian homeland. By giving Hezbollah EMP weapons, we would be running the risk of Israel and other nations holding Iran accountable.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter AND LinkedIn.