[News] Iran has 'no air defense whatsoever' but scored world's first F-35 hit

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran-has--no-air-defense-whatsoever--but-scored-world-s-firs>
Iran has 'no air defense whatsoever' but scored world's first F-35 hit
Ali Halawi
March 23, 2026
------------------------------

Iran scores the first-ever combat hit on a US F-35, shattering the myth of
stealth invincibility as Russia and China watch closely.

   - [image: Iran has 'no air defense whatsoever' but scored the world's
   first F-35 hit.]
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2026/3/22/1aef44ac-ae7c-493c-afbb-48b3e8beade2.png?width=1000>
   Footage from an Iranian what analysts believe is a Sepehr-14
   electro-optical fire control system, released by Iranian media, showing a
   United States F-35 locked in a targeting reticle moments before it was hit
   by an Iranian surface-to-air missile, on March 19, 2026. (Al Mayadeen
   English)

Speaking aboard Air Force One, United States President Donald Trump
declared that US operations had "taken out" Iran's air force and air
defense systems entirely, leaving the country with "no air defense
whatsoever".

On Saturday, he posted on Truth Social that Iran had been "blown off the
map," its air defenses, navy, and leadership wiped out "weeks ahead of
schedule".

Two days before that post, on March 19, a US Air Force F-35A Lightning II
made an emergency "landing" at an undisclosed base in West Asia after being
hit by "enemy fire" over Iran, the first time in the aircraft's operational
history.

Trump's increasingly egregious claims are being dismantled by Iran's
effective asymmetric warfare. Russia and China are watching closely, eager
to both see their adversary degraded and extract crucial tactical lessons
from the battlefield.

The F-35 incident will not end the US air campaign over Iran. It did not
reverse any territorial or operational development on the ground. But
reading it as a tactical setback misses the larger story entirely. The hit
was a stress test, applied to three things simultaneously: the narrative
being told to the public about this war, the doctrinal model underpinning
fifth-generation air power, and the assumptions that America's most capable
adversaries have been asked to accept about US military dominance.

All three failed the test in ways that will be felt well beyond the current
conflict.

The gap between "no air defense whatsoever" and a damaged F-35 limping to
an emergency landing is not a gap in intelligence. It is a gap between the
war being described and the war being fought.
The narrative and what it required

When the United States and "Israel" launched their aggression on February
28, the initial wave of attacks was designed to do two things militarily
and a couple of goals politically. Militarily, it was meant to suppress and
destroy Iran's integrated air defenses and severely degrade Iranian missile
infrastructure and industries. Politically, it was meant to establish the
impression of swift, decisive dominance, the kind of opening that makes the
war feel won before it is over, that neutralizes domestic opposition by
making resistance seem futile, and that justifies the extraordinary
financial and political costs being asked of Congress and allied
governments. The assassination of Sayyed Ali Khamenei and other key
officials was central to this "decapitation" strategy, designed to sever
the head of the Islamic Republic and trigger a state of chaos and
collective despair.

That political requirement shaped what was said publicly at every stage.
Claims of air dominance were not incidental to the campaign; they were
structurally necessary to it. With more than $200 billion in supplemental
war funding
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/pentagon-seeks--200b-to-fund-iran-war-amid-congressional-pus>
being sought after just a couple of weeks of fighting, and with a coalition
that included not just "Israel" but the direct or indirect operational and
logistical participation of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Bahrain,
France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, the narrative of rapid, uncontested
success was the glue holding together an arrangement of considerable
political fragility. What further cracked the US narrative was Iran's
ability to match, and at times outdo, US-Israeli escalation, forcing the US
to show clearly who it prioritizes in its coalition of "allies".

Iran's air defense doctrine, however, was never built to refute the
narrative of US-Israeli air supremacy head-on. Tehran did not attempt to
deny US and Israeli aircraft access to Iranian airspace in the way a peer
adversary with an interconnected, layered network might try to do against a
less capable or comparable attacker. That was never a realistic ambition
against two nuclear-armed states supported by the most capable air defense
suppression capabilities in the world. What Iran designed instead was a
doctrine of survivability and selective ambush. Iran's posture aimed not at
preventing strikes but at ensuring that the cost of conducting them never
reaches zero, and that the attacker can never truthfully claim the sky is
clear.
How the hit was made

Iranian air defense forces have operated under the explicit assumption that
in a war against the United States and "Israel", their interconnected
systems would be degraded, their fixed installations targeted, and their
command nodes struck in the opening hours. Planning for that scenario
rather than against it is what produced the architecture that caught the
F-35.

The system at the center of the March 19 engagement was almost certainly
not a radar-guided missile in the conventional sense. Analysis from
multiple defense sources, including Chinese military expert Wei Dongxu
speaking to *China Media Group*, points to passive electro-optical and
infrared detection as the mechanism by which the aircraft was tracked and
targeted. These sensors generate no radar emissions and therefore trigger
no warning in the F-35's electronic warfare suite. The aircraft's
radar-absorbent coating and carefully managed radar cross-section, the
qualities that make it effectively invisible to conventional radar, are
entirely irrelevant against a system that is looking for heat, not
reflection. At lower altitudes, where atmospheric conditions concentrate
engine heat signatures and reduce the detection range advantage that
stealth provides at altitude, the passive sensor capabilities become
particularly favorable.

The Raad system deserves specific mention here. Iran fields mobile air
defense units mounted on trucks, integrating advanced domestically produced
surface-to-air missiles with EO/IR guidance and, in the terminal phase, the
option to activate radar guidance through integration with systems such as
the Tabas, itself derived from the Buk-M1, before all vehicles disperse
using a scoot-and-shoot protocol. The entire encounter, from detection to
engagement to dispersal, can occur without a persistent radar signature
that would expose the unit to anti-radiation weapons.

The system that hit the F-35 did survive Trump and Netanyahu's dominant
fighters, which "obliterated" Iran's air defenses time and time again in
less than a year, by chance. Whichever system or integration of systems
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsQ4bgqZoNg> scored the hit is part of an
architectural choice made specifically because Iranian planners understood
that fixed radar-emitting systems would be the first to die.

The weapon used in the engagement has not been officially confirmed. Some
reports point to the 358 loitering anti-aircraft missile, a system already
proven against slower-moving assets, while others suggest a short-to-medium
range SAM consistent with the Khordad family. What Wei's analysis adds is
the tactical dimension: Iranian forces appear to have capitalized on
predictable US strike corridor patterns, positioning passive sensor systems
along routes that had become routine enough to be anticipated. The F-35's
vulnerability in this scenario was not a failure of stealth. It was a
consequence of the attacker having to return, repeatedly, to the same
operational geometry.

This same logic explains the record of attrition against unmanned systems
earlier in the conflict. Iran downed dozens of MALE drones, MQ-9 Reapers,
IAI Eitans, Hermes 900s, that were operating to locate Iranian launcher
systems, guide munitions, and demonstrate ISR superiority in the campaign's
opening phase. The 358 and the more capable 359 system, which combines the
loitering of a drone with the ability to detect, track, and detonate
against airborne targets across an expanded altitude range, were most
probably used extensively alongside SHORAD systems, including the Majid,
and the Qaem-118, resulting in sustained UAS attrition, that has gone
beyond Iran and affected detection and early warning in Lebanon.

Both the hit on the F-35, several engagements of F-15s, and the destruction
of dozens of enemy drones are evidence that Iran's passive detection
network has been calibrated and achieved operational success.
Graphic 1 of 2
Iranian air defense systems by detection method
How each system tracks its target · and what F-35 stealth does and does not
cover

Radar-guided
Active emission · F-35 stealth effective
Passive EO/IR
Heat signature · F-35 stealth irrelevant
Hybrid / Integrated
Passive detect → radar terminal
Bavar-373Long-range SAM
RadarAESA phased-arrayPrimary search and fire-control. Iran's most capable
radar-guided system. Fixed and mobile components.
—
—
Khordad-15Medium-range SAM
RadarPhased-array multifunctionEngages low-RCS targets. Designed as
counter-stealth advancement on 3rd Khordad.
—
—
TabasMedium SAM · Buk-M1 derived
RadarFire-control radar (primary)Radar-guided engagement at medium range.
Tabas adds terminal radar for final intercept geometry.
—
HybridRaad integrationEO/IR passive cue hands off to Tabas radar at
terminal phase. Radar active only briefly before dispersal.
RaadMobile truck-mounted SAM
—
EO/IRElectro-optical / infrared primaryNo radar emission. Detects engine
heat at low altitude. Zero warning to aircraft EW suite. Scoot-and-shoot
dispersal.
Optional terminal radarTabas hand-off at final stageCan activate brief
radar guidance in terminal phase before all vehicles disperse. Minimises
exposure window.
358 / 359 systemLoitering interceptor
—
EO/IROptical seeker · loiteringLoiters in threat corridor. Optically
detects and guides to heat signature. Proven vs. MALE drones; 359 extends
altitude envelope.
—
Majid / MANPADsShort-range · man-portable
—
IR seekerInfrared homingPassive IR terminal seeker. No radar. Rapid
deployment.
—

*What F-35 stealth addresses:* radar cross-section reduction against active
radar-emitting systems — the left column. It provides no protection against
systems in the centre and right columns, which track heat rather than radar
reflection. Iran's ambush doctrine is built specifically around those two
columns.

Sources: Open-source technical assessments, Deep Dive Defense, IISS
Military Balance, Iran Watch / Wisconsin Project, and reported analyst
consensus. Raad–Tabas integration and 359 capabilities represent reported
but not fully confirmed open-source assessments.

The F-35's stealth was never the question. The question was whether
stealth, in its current form, solves the problem of a defender unwilling to
submit.
The doctrinal problem that the hit exposes

The fifth-generation fighter is not a tool for prolonged attrition warfare
against a capable enemy that has cracked key technologies, such as Iran.

Its value proposition rests on what might be called a decision window, the
period in the opening phase of a campaign when stealth, sensor fusion,
networked targeting, and stand-off precision give the attacker an
information and access advantage so overwhelming that the defender cannot
respond coherently. SEAD and DEAD operations clear the radar-guided threat
environment. Surprise eliminates the defender's ability to reposition. The
attacker penetrates, strikes the high-value nodes, and the campaign
proceeds toward a political or military conclusion before the temporary
advantages erode.

That model has a structural crack embedded in it, as it assumes that the
decision window closes because the defender collapses, not because the
attacker runs out of time, munitions, or political will. When the defender
does not collapse, when Iran absorbs three weeks of strikes, continues to
fire ballistic missiles at high-value targets, continues to contest the
air, and continues to function as a state, the attacker faces a
fundamentally different problem than the doctrine was written to solve. The
F-35 is now operating not as a penetrating first-strike platform but as a
repeated participant in a grinding campaign against a prepared, adaptive
adversary that has already lost most of what could be taken from it in the
opening strikes and is now fighting from deeply buried bases and cloaked
positions and platforms.

The US and UK response to this dynamic has been to increase reliance on
strategic bombers operating from standoff range. B-52s launching AGM-158
JASSM cruise missiles from beyond the reach of Iranian air defenses, and
B-1B Lancers operating from RAF Fairford performing the extended-range
maneuvers, represent a shift in the campaign's operational center of
gravity away from penetrating fighter sorties and toward standoff mass.
That shift is tactically logical. But it raises a question the campaign's
architects will now have to answer more urgently than before: whether
standoff tempo can be sustained at the scale this aggression requires, and
for how long.

The B-52 and B-1B carry enormous ordnance loads, but their magazines are
finite, their logistics chains run through bases that are themselves now
under demonstrated threat, as the reported Diego Garcia strike
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iran-fired-missiles-toward-us-uk-diego-garcia-base--wsj-says>
on March 21 made clear, and the munitions they depend on, particularly the
longer-range JASSM variants, are produced in limited quantities. JASSM-ER
production rates
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-depletes-years-of-munitions-in-early-weeks-of-war-on-iran>
have been a known constraint in US planning for contingencies involving
high-intensity sustained strikes and are essential for any confrontation
with the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in China. Every sortie from Diego
Garcia or RAF Fairford depletes inventories that take months to replenish.
As the campaign drags on, the question of whether standoff strikes can
indefinitely replace overhead bombing ceases to be rhetorical, as the
attrition of these munitions begins to pose an existential threat to US
power projection in the Pacific.

Meanwhile, each week the campaign continues, and the Islamic Republic's
survival gives Iran's dispersed, mobile systems more time to calibrate,
reposition, and adapt. Strike corridors that were predictable in week one
are more predictable in week three. The F-35 hit on March 19 may be one
consequence of exactly that dynamic.
Graphic 2 of 2
Adversary capability comparison: Iran · Russia · China
Six capability dimensions relevant to contesting fifth-generation air power
Capability dimension Iran Russia China
Passive EO/IR detectionHeat-signature tracking that bypasses stealth's
radar cross-section advantage Operational
Raad, 358/359, Majid. Proven in this conflict against F-35 and MALE drones.
Advanced
KRET Okhotnik IRST, 77Ya6 Garmon EO/IR systems. Integrated into layered SAM
network. Dominant
Large-scale domestic EO/IR production. Deployed on mobile platforms, ships,
and UAVs at volume Iran cannot match.
VHF / UHF low-observable radarLow-frequency bands where stealth shaping
provides minimal RCS reduction Limited
Operates some VHF/UHF counter-stealth radar systems, but the network has
been severly degraded. Dominant
Nebo-M VHF operates in bands where F-35 shaping is least effective.
Integral to Russian IADS architecture. Advanced
YLC-8B UHF radar specifically designed for low-observable detection.
Multiple deployed variants.
Own fifth-generation platformStealth fighter capability for contested
air-to-air and SEAD operations None
No fifth-generation aircraft. Relies on 4th-gen fleet (F-14, MiG-29, Su-24)
and air defense systems. Fielded
Su-57 in limited operational service. Smaller fleet than originally planned
but combat-tested platform. Dual fleet
J-20 (~200+ operational) for air superiority; J-35 for carrier operations.
Two independent fifth-gen programs.
SAM system qualitySurface-to-air missile capability against advanced
aircraft Regional-tier
Bavar-373, Khordad-15, 3rd Khordad. Domestically developed. Capable against
conventional aircraft; contested vs. stealth. World-class
S-400, S-500 (emerging), Pantsir-S SHORAD. Deepest and most integrated SAM
architecture outside NATO. Advanced
HQ-9B, HQ-19 (S-400 class), HQ-22 long-range. Rapidly closing gap with
Russian systems in both quality and volume.
Electronic warfare depthActive jamming, deception, and suppression of enemy
radar and comms Limited
Tactical EW capability exists but limited in scale and integration relative
to peer adversaries. Dominant
Krasukha, Murmansk-BN, Rychag-AV. EW is a doctrinal cornerstone of Russian
contested-environment operations. Advanced
BY-1A, DZ-1000 and J-16D dedicated EW aircraft. Significant investment in
jamming and cyber-EW integration.
Industrial production scaleAbility to sustain attrition, replenish
munitions, and field systems at volume Constrained
Domestic production under sanctions. Capable of producing key systems but
limited throughput and raw material access. Wartime footing
Defense-industrial base shifted to wartime production rates since 2022.
Significant missile and munitions output. Dominant
Largest defense-industrial base outside the US by output. Capable of
producing all relevant systems at scale with short lead times.

Limited / None

Operational / Fielded

Advanced

Dominant
*The core asymmetry:* Iran scores in two capability columns — passive EO/IR
and SAM quality — and used both in the March 19 engagement. Russia scores
in five. China scores in all six and additionally fields its own
fifth-generation platforms, meaning it can contest stealth-on-stealth
engagements while simultaneously deploying every counter-stealth capability
Iran used and several Iran does not possess.
Sources: IISS Military Balance 2024, CSIS Missile Defense Project,
open-source assessments. Capability ratings reflect analyst consensus from
open-source technical literature and do not represent confirmed classified
assessments.

*The core asymmetry:* Iran scores in two capability columns — passive EO/IR
and SAM quality — and used both in the March 19 engagement. Russia scores
in five. China scores in all six and additionally fields its own
fifth-generation platforms, meaning it can contest stealth-on-stealth
engagements while simultaneously deploying every counter-stealth capability
Iran used and several Iran does not possess.

Sources: IISS Military Balance 2024, CSIS Missile Defense Project,
open-source assessments. Capability ratings reflect analyst consensus from
open-source technical literature and do not represent confirmed classified
assessments.
What Russia and China have learned

For Russia and China, the strategic value of the F-35 incident is not
primarily about the aircraft. It is about the cost structure of a prolonged
stealth campaign against a prepared defender, and whether the model
survives contact with an adversary that has had time to adapt.

Russia's interest is essentially validating. Moscow has invested heavily in
passive detection, low-frequency and VHF radar networks, including the
Nebo-M, which operates in frequency bands where stealth shaping provides
minimal reduction in radar cross-section, alongside electronic warfare
systems and a layered but mobile SAM architecture that includes the S-400,
S-500, and Pantsir-S. The doctrinal argument Russia has made to its own
military establishment, that stealth is not magic and that a sufficiently
layered and heterogeneous air defense network can impose real cost on even
fifth-generation aircraft, has now been demonstrated not by Russian systems
but by an ally operating with a fraction of Russia's resources and
industrial capacity. The lesson Moscow takes is not that Iran has solved
the stealth problem. It is that the problem is solvable, and that the
solution does not require matching the attacker's technology, but rather
denying the attacker the conditions under which stealth provides its
maximum advantage.

China's reading is sharper and more consequential. Beijing does not merely
field countermeasures to the F-35; it matches the platform's class with its
own high-end hardware. With the J-20, China possesses a fifth-generation
fighter capable of dominating in stealth-on-stealth combat, while the J-35
brings a similar level of sophisticated air power to its carrier groups
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/china-commissions-fujian--emals-carrier-sharpens-beijing-s-n>.
Simultaneously, China operates YLC-8B UHF radars specifically designed for
low-observable detection, EO/IR systems produced at a scale and technical
level that exceeds what has been shared with Iran, and HQ-9 and HQ-19
surface-to-air missile systems that represent generational ascent over
Iranian air defenses. It is worth noting that Beijing's planners already
understood the passive detection vulnerability and have invested
extensively in such systems. What it watched was a live operational
demonstration, in a real war, with real consequences, of exactly the
tactical geometry it has been building toward in the context of a potential
Taiwan Strait or South China Sea confrontation.

Conversely, the question of stealth superiority has direct implications for
how China structures its air force and broader operational doctrine.
Stealth platforms should be prioritized primarily as a means of denying US
airpower and contesting access within China's immediate theater, rather
than as the backbone of all expeditionary operations. Against less advanced
adversaries, the emphasis should shift toward scalable and cost-effective
systems platforms and munitions that can be produced in large numbers and
sustained over time. The objective in such scenarios is not technological
overmatch alone, but the ability to impose continuous, cumulative costs
through attrition, saturation, and operational endurance.
Where the campaign stands

US planners are now weighing a set of questions that were not supposed to
be relevant at this stage. Whether to accept potential losses in continued
F-35 sorties over Iran or shift further toward standoff at the cost of
magazine depth and targeting flexibility. Whether the bomber fleet
operating from Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford can continue to operate at the
required tempo, given that both bases are reportedly within Iran's strike
envelope. Whether the political coalition sustaining the campaign,
assembled on the premise of swift success, can hold if the conflict extends
into a fourth and fifth week without the decisive outcome that was promised.

None of these questions have been answered yet. But the fact that they are
being asked, three weeks into a campaign that was supposed to be over, is
itself a strategic outcome that Iran has achieved at the cost of one hit on
one aircraft.
------------------------------
Important notice

The F-35 incident is confirmed by US Central Command as under
investigation. The specific weapon system used has not been officially
confirmed; the EO/IR and passive sensor analysis reflects analyst consensus
drawing on reporting by open source analysts on X, including @Pataramesh,
@ETERNALPHYSICS, @hmdmosavi, and others, and South China Morning Post,
CGTN, The War Zone, and statements by Chinese military analyst Wei Dongxu
to China Media Group. The aircraft's final condition and precise landing
location have not been officially disclosed as of March 22, 2026.
Characterizations of Iranian air defense systems draw on open-source
technical assessments and reported capabilities. Claims regarding the 359
system and Raad integration represent reported but not fully confirmed
capabilities. All analysis of Russian and Chinese doctrinal takeaways
represents the author's analytical inference and do not reflect confirmed
official positions.
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