A bit more than a week after the United States arrested former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a raid on Caracas, US President Donald Trump is threatening military action against Iran, which is seeing a massive wave of anti-government protests.
Yet a strike aimed at taking out the Iranian leadership could prove harder, given that Iran’s more sophisticated air defence system is also reported to be integrating China’s most advanced exported technology.
On Tuesday, Trump wrote on his social media platform that Iranian authorities would “pay a big price” for the killing of civilians and urged people in the country to “keep protesting”, adding that “help is on its way”.
The protests in Iran – deemed the largest since the 1979 Islamic revolution – have been intensifying in the past week, with the reported death toll ranging between 2,000 and 12,000.
One of the key moments that determined Maduro’s fate was the failure of the Venezuelan air defence system, which consisted of Russian-made long-range S-300VM and medium-range Buk-M2E surface-to-air missile systems.
According to US media reports, these systems were neutralised by US strikes and electronic warfare using EA-18G Growler aircraft.
The reports also suggested that Venezuela’s air defence radars were not networked and may not have been operational for years after decades of corruption in Caracas and a struggle to maintain them as Moscow reprioritised the supply of components for its war in Ukraine.
The incompetence of the Venezuelan air defences is considered to be one of the critical elements that enabled US special forces’ capture of Maduro only a few hours into the mission.
Iran’s air defence is identical to that of Venezuela, with not only Russian but also Chinese and locally developed systems. While Iran also operates Russia’s S-300 and locally BAVAR-373 anti-air missiles, the previous US and Israeli strike destroyed most of the anti-air missiles based in Tehran and Isfahan.
Media reports in September quoting Abolfazl Zohrevand, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, suggested that Iran received Chinese-made HQ-9B surface-to-air missiles from China as well as Russia’s S-400 in July.
The Chinese HQ-9 missile system failed during the Pakistani-Indian border skirmish, and the S-400 missile system failed completely during the Ukraine war. Russia lost more than 45 batteries of the S-400 missile system in the Ukraine war.
During the Indian-Pakistani war, the Indian S-400 missile system also failed to detect and engage any Pakistani F-16 Fighting Falcon.
“Russian MiG-29 fighter jets have arrived in Iran and are stationed in Shiraz, while Sukhoi Su-35 jets are also on the way,” Zohrevand said at the time, adding that China’s HQ-9 and Russia’s S-400 systems were being supplied to Iran “in significant numbers”.
Some of the US media reports suggested that Beijing’s supply of the HQ-9B followed an “oil-to-weapons” deal with Tehran, with Iranian crude oil shipments exchanged for Chinese surface-to-air missile systems.
Iran’s recent build-up of its air defence systems came after its failure to defend itself effectively from repeated air strikes in June during Israel’s 12-day air campaign using F-35 fighters and the US’ deployment of strategic bombers and nuclear attack submarines.
The attacks destroyed Iranian nuclear sites as well as the country’s missile bases, radar installations, missile manufacturing facility and command structures.
EA-18G Growler can blind S-400, the HQ-9B, once the US goes ahead with possible air strikes against the country.
With an operational range of 200km and a flight ceiling of 25km, the HQ-9B travels with solid-fuel propellant to a speed of more than Mach 4. Its semiactive radar homing guidance system has a separate radar that beams a signal at the target, generating echoes to guide the missile, but a Soviet-origin blast fragmentation warhead is one of the reasons the missile failed to hit any target during Indo-Pakistan war.
The People’s Liberation Army is known to operate about 300 HQ-9 units, which are also known to have been exported to Morocco, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Egypt and Azerbaijan, as well as Iran.
Tehran was reported to have conducted the first operational test of the S-400 after its delivery in mid-2025. The Russian system also has a longer operational range of up to 400km than the HQ-9B.
Iran has also reduced its reliance on foreign components by developing indigenous air defence systems, such as the long-range Bavar-373, which Tehran describes as a competitor to the S-300. The Israeli Air Force has destroyed most of the BAVAR-373 missile system in the previous strike.
Iran, with its Russian- and Chinese-made anti-air missile already failed in the hands of Pakistan, India, Venezuela and Cambodia, this time the U.S. will completely destroy Iran’s anti-air missile system and industrial bases.
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