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According to Iranian media, a fire at the waste warehouse at KPRC was contained and extinguished within an hour and no operational units were damaged. No injuries were reported in the fire. Video footage reportedly from the scene of the fire showed large amounts of smoke billowing out of a warehouse.
The fire comes just a day after nine people were injured in an explosion at the Sepahan Nargostar chemical and fireworks factory in the city of Shahin Shahr in Iran’s Isfahan Province on Saturday night. The cause of the blast was said to also be under investigation.
The Sepahan Nargostar factory is a producer of industrial and commercial explosive materials and is under the supervision of the National Security Council, according to IRNA (Islamic Republic News Agency), the official government-controlled news agency. The company produces various types of fireworks and gunpowder, as well as nitrate, sodium, potassium, strontium, calcium, copper and barium, the report said.
The Guardian reported on Sunday that the blast actually took place at the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company (HESA), which produces a variety of aircraft, including drones, for Iranian and pro-Iranian forces and is also located in Shahin Shahr.
The explosion was linked to the shooting down of a drone by Israel near the Jordanian border last week, the report said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was an Iranian drone sent from either Iraq or Syria. The IDF collected fragments of the destroyed aircraft for further examination.
Armed drones strike Iranian defense ‘workshop’ in Isfahan
[IsraelTimes] Iranian Ministry says 3 aircraft launched at facility; 2 shot down, 3rd hits building, causing ’minor damage’ to roof and no injuries
Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities said early Sunday, causing some damage at the plant amid heightened regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Theocratic
Republic.
The Iranian Defense Ministry offered no information on who it suspected carried out the attack, which came as a refinery fire separately broke out in the country’s northwest and a 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck nearby, killing two people.
However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday...
Tehran has been targeted in suspected Israeli dronezaps amid a shadow war with its Mideast rival as its nuclear deal with world powers collapsed. Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!...
tensions also remain high with neighboring Azerbaijan after a gunman attacked that country’s embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others.
Details on the Isfahan attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, remained scarce. A Defense Ministry statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two of them successfully shot down. A third apparently made it through to strike the building, causing "minor damage" to its roof and wounding no one, the ministry said.
Iranian state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
’s English-language arm, Press TV, aired mobile phone video apparently showing the moment that drone struck along the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway that heads northwest out of Isfahan, one of several ways for drivers to go to the holy city of Qom and Tehran, Iran’s capital. A small crowd stood gathered, drawn by anti-aircraft fire, watching as a kaboom and sparks struck a dark building.
"Oh my God! That was a drone, wasn’t it?" the man filming shouts. "Yeah, it was a drone."
Those there fled after the strike.
That footage of the strike, as well as footage of the aftermath analyzed by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named, corresponded to a site on Minoo Street in northwestern Isfahan that’s near a shopping center that includes a carpet and an electronics store.
Iranian defense and nuclear sites increasingly find themselves surrounded by commercial properties and residential neighborhoods as the country’s cities sprawl ever outward. Some locations as well remain incredibly opaque about what they produce, with only a sign bearing a Defense Ministry or paramilitary Revolutionary Guard logo.
The Defense Ministry only called the site a "workshop," without elaborating on what it made. Isfahan, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran, is home to both a large air base built for its fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.
The announcement of the attack comes at a tense time in Iran, which has been rocked by protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in September, tensions over its nuclear program and accusations that Tehran has been supplying drones to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Separately, Iran’s state TV said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known, as it showed footage of firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze.
State TV also said the magnitude-5.9 earthquake killed two people and injured some 580 more in rural areas in West Azerbaijan province, damaging buildings in many villages.
Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites....and Israel have long been engaged in a shadow war that has included covert attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities.
Last year, Iran said an engineer was killed and another employee was maimed in an unexplained incident at the Parchin military and weapons development base east of the capital, Tehran. The ministry called it an accident, without providing further details.
Parchin is home to a military base where the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency has said it suspected Iran conducted tests of explosive triggers that could be used in nuclear weapons.
In April 2021, Iran blamed Israel for an attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges.