An Israeli strike on Iran damaged facilities at two military bases southeast of Tehran, previously linked by experts to Iran's former nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile efforts, according to satellite images analyzed on Sunday.
Some damaged structures were at Iran’s Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suspects high-explosive tests connected to nuclear weapons were conducted in the past. Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though the IAEA and Western intelligence agencies say Tehran had an active weapons program until 2003.
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Iran’s Parchin military base after and before the Israeli strike
(Photo: Reuters/ Planet Labs)
Further damage was visible at the nearby Khojir military base, believed by analysts to house an underground tunnel network and missile production facilities.
Iran’s military has not acknowledged damage at either Khojir or Parchin from Israel’s attack early Saturday, though it has said the assault killed four Iranian soldiers working in the country’s air defense systems. Iran announced Sunday a civilian also had been killed, but provided no details.
Satellite images reveal damage to facilities used for combining solid fuel for missiles. Researcher David Albright noted that images from Parchin show damage to three buildings, including two used for integrating solid fuel into ballistic missiles. Another researcher stated that Planet Labs satellite photos from Parchin indicate Israel destroyed three buildings used for ballistic missile production with solid fuel, along with a warehouse. Images from Khojir show two similar buildings were also destroyed.
It remains unclear how many sites in total were targeted in the Israeli attack. There have been no images of damage so far released by Iran’s military.
Iranian officials have identified affected areas as being in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces. Burned fields could be seen in satellite images from Planet Labs PBC around Iran’s Tange Bijar natural gas production site in Ilam province on Saturday, though it wasn’t immediately clear if it was related to the attack. Ilam province sits on the Iran-Iraq border in western Iran.
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