Did Iran Get Its Hands On A US Stealth Missile? JASSM-ER Wreckage Sparks Reverse-Engineering Fears
The U.S. committed nearly its entire stockpile of stealthy JASSM-ER cruise missiles to the military campaign against Iran and has fired at least 1,000 of these long-range, stealthy, precision cruise missiles to hit high-value IRGC targets.
One of the unavoidable risks of deploying advanced weapons, such as the JASSM-ER, is that unexploded or partially intact systems can fall into enemy hands, allowing adversaries to study U.S. technology, refine countermeasures, and accelerate the development of copycat versions.
A new report from Army Recognition, citing defense journalist Babak Taghvaee, claims Iran has recovered wreckage from a JASSM-ER near Arak, potentially giving Tehran access to fragments of the missile.
"The recovered debris reportedly includes composite airframe sections, structural components, propulsion fragments, and possible avionics elements that could reveal insights into stealth construction, fuel-efficient propulsion, and survivability design," according to the military blog.
Army Recognition cited images posted on X by Taghvaee showing what is described as badly damaged JASSM-ER wreckage recovered in Iran. The missile appears largely intact and possibly unexploded, which, if confirmed, would give Tehran higher-value intelligence on the advanced missile.
The number of AGM-158B JASSM-ER stand-off weapons (stealth cruise missiles) employed by the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy during the recent war in Iran was enormous. These missiles were used so extensively that debris and remains of them can now be found across various parts of… pic.twitter.com/NKzhR453mK
— Babak Taghvaee - The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) May 27, 2026
This incident is reminiscent of a similar one in 2011, when Iran captured a U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth spy drone and claimed to have reverse-engineered the aircraft. Tehran later displayed and tested drones modeled on the RQ-170, including the Shahed-171/Simorgh and Shahed-191/Saegheh families.
Reuters reported in 2014 that Iran claimed a domestically built copy of the RQ-170 had flown.
Today, Iran is one of the leading manufacturers of suicide Shahed drones (besides Russia and Ukraine), which have wreaked havoc on U.S. military bases and allied countries. The U.S. is also ramping up its version of these drones called "Lucas."