DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Israel’s attack on Iran has led to the destruction of a secret military base southeast of Iran’s capital and the country’s ballistic trajectory, which experts have previously linked to Iran’s former nuclear weapons program. Facilities at another base related to the missile program were damaged. On Sunday, the Associated Press published the results of an analysis of satellite images.
Some of the damaged buildings are located at Iran’s Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects Iran has previously tested high explosives that could trigger nuclear weapons. Although Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, the IAEA and Western intelligence agencies maintain that it had an active weapons program until 2003.
Other damage can be seen at the nearby Khojir military base, which analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile manufacturing site.
The Iranian military did not acknowledge the damage caused by the Israeli attack on Khojir and Parchin early Saturday morning, but said the attack killed four Iranian soldiers working in the country’s air defense system.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told an audience on Sunday that Israel’s attacks “should not be exaggerated or downplayed” and stopped short of calling for immediate retaliatory strikes. Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Israeli strike had “inflicted significant damage” on Iran and that the barrage had “achieved all objectives.”
Damage spread to three Iranian provincesIt remains unclear how many sites in total were targeted in the Israeli attack. The Iranian military has so far not released images of the damage.
Iranian authorities identified the affected regions as Iram, Khuzestan, and Tehran provinces. Burned areas were seen in Planet Labs PBC satellite images Saturday around Iran’s Tangeh Bijjar natural gas production facility in Ilam province, but it was not immediately clear whether they were related to the attack. Iram province is located in western Iran on the border between Iran and Iraq.
The most significant damage can be seen in images from Planet Lab in Parchin, near Mamar Dam, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of downtown Tehran. There, some buildings appeared to be completely destroyed, while others appeared to have been damaged in the attack.
Satellite images showed damage to at least two buildings in Khojir, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from downtown Tehran.
Analysts including Decker Evereth of the Virginia-based think tank CNA, Joe Truzman of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright, and other open source experts. , was the first to identify damage to the base. . The locations of the two bases match footage obtained by The Associated Press showing Iranian air defense systems firing nearby early Saturday morning.
Bases linked to Iran’s former nuclear weapons program
In Parchin, the Albright Institute for Science and International Security identified a destroyed building on the mountainside as “Talleghan 2.” Archives of Iranian nuclear data previously seized by Israel show that the building was equipped with “a small, elongated explosives chamber and a flash X-ray system for inspecting small-scale explosives tests.” announced that it had been identified.
The institute’s 2018 report said, “Such experiments involved high explosives that compressed natural uranium cores and included experiments that simulated the launch of nuclear explosives. There is a possibility.”
In a message posted on social platform X early Sunday morning, the institute added: “It is not certain whether Iran used uranium in Taleghan 2, but it is possible that they studied the compression of natural uranium hemispheres, which would explain the hasty plan.” To Parchin in 2011 Renovation work was carried out in secret following a request from the IAEA for access to the site. ”
It is unclear what equipment was inside the Talegun 2 building early Saturday morning. There were no Israeli attacks on Iran’s oil industry, nuclear enrichment facilities or Bushehr nuclear power plant during the attack.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the IAEA, confirmed this in X, stating that “Iran’s nuclear facilities are not affected.”
“Inspectors continue to perform safe and important work,” it added. “I call for prudence and restraint in actions that may jeopardize the safety and security of nuclear and other radioactive materials.”
Damage seen to facilities of Iran’s ballistic missile program
Other buildings destroyed in Kozir and Parchin included warehouses and other buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to produce solid fuel needed for its large ballistic missile arsenal. That’s likely, Everes said.
In a statement released shortly after Saturday’s attack, the Israeli military said it targeted “a missile production facility used to manufacture missiles launched by Iran last year against the state of Israel.”
Destroying such facilities could severely impair Iran’s ability to build new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after two attacks on Israel. The Revolutionary Guards, the paramilitary group that oversees Iran’s ballistic missile program, has remained silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s total number of ballistic missiles, including short-range missiles that cannot reach Israel, was estimated at “more than 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then commander of U.S. Central Command, in testimony before the U.S. Senate in 2022. . Since then, Iran has fired hundreds of missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted on social media showing missile parts or damage to civilian areas after the recent attacks, but this suggests that the Israeli attacks were concentrated on Iranian ballistic missiles that targeted Israel in April and October. This suggests that it was far more accurate than artillery fire. Israel relied on missiles fired from aircraft during the attack.
But in the industrial city of Shamsabad, just south of Tehran and near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world, one factory appears to have been damaged. Online video of the damaged building matched the address of a company known as TIECO, which advertises itself as manufacturing advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
TIECO officials asked the AP to write a letter to the company before answering questions. There was no immediate response to a letter sent to the company.
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Associated Press writer Amir Vahadat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
