AiTellyHow Did Iran Hit Kuwait’s Airport with Multiple Ballistic Missile Despite having a Patriot Defense System
For context, Kuwait International Airport (KWI) sits just 150 miles—about 240 kilometers—from the nearest Iranian coastline. This proximity makes it one of the most accessible targets for a strike against a U.S. ally in the region.
Because the American-operated Ali Al Salem Air Base is so heavily fortified with Patriot missiles, a civilian airport presents a much softer, easier target.
However, even a softer target has defenses, meaning an attacker still has to launch weapons in massive volumes to ensure a successful strike.
To do this, Iranian forces fired more than 30 Fateh ballistic missiles, accompanied by a swarm of Shahed kamikaze drones.
This “saturation strategy” worked perfectly against the less-defended airport. By flooding the airspace with multiple threats at once, they overwhelmed the limited number of Patriot batteries stationed there. The defense systems managed to intercept many of the incoming missiles, but that is the brutal reality of a saturation attack: if even just four ballistic missiles slip through the net, the devastation upon impact is catastrophic.
