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2024-10-28 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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Satellite images show damage at two secretive Iranian bases after Israeli strikes
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Especially for Old Patriot, and anyone else interested in images of afterward. In addition to the tweets below, there are more photos at the article links. Happy comparing! [IsraelTimes] Attack damaged Parchin military base, previously linked to push for nuclear weapons, and Khojir base, believed to hold missile production sites; UN watchdog: Nuclear sites untouched
Israel’s attack on Iran early Saturday damaged facilities at a secretive military base southeast of the Iranian capital that experts in the past have linked to a nuclear weapons program, as well as at another base tied to its ballistic missile program, satellite photos analyzed Sunday by The Associated Press show.
Some of the buildings damaged sat in Iran’s Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects Iran in the past conducted tests of high explosives that could trigger a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA, US intelligence and others say Iran had a comprehensive nuclear weapons program that it shuttered in 2003. Iran denies having such a program, while Jerusalem says Tehran has never fully abandoned it, pointing to current uranium enrichment levels that have no civilian use.
More damage from Israel’s attack on Saturday — which was a response to an Iranian barrage of some 200 ballistic missiles earlier this month — could be seen at the nearby Khojir military base, a sprawling missile production site near Tehran that analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites.
Iran’s military has not acknowledged damage at either Khojir or Parchin from Israel’s attack, though it has said the assault killed four Iranian soldiers working in the country’s air defense systems.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli military declined to comment.
However, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday told an audience that the Israeli attack “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for an immediate retaliatory strike.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu separately said Sunday that Israel’s strikes “severely harmed” Iran and that the barrage “achieved all its goals.”
DAMAGE SPREAD ACROSS THREE IRANIAN PROVINCES
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 the Iran-Iraq border, on Saturday, though it wasn’t immediately clear if it was related to the attack.
The most telling damage could be seen in Planet Labs images of Parchin, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of downtown Tehran near the Mamalu Dam. There, one structure appeared to be totally destroyed while others looked damaged in the attack.
At Khojir, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from downtown Tehran, damage could be seen on at least two structures in satellite images.
Analysts including Decker Eveleth at the Virginia-based think tank CNA, Joe Truzman at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former United Nations weapon inspector David Albright, as well as other open-source experts, first identified the damage to the bases.
The locations of the two bases correspond to videos obtained by the AP showing Iranian air defense systems firing in the vicinity early Saturday.
BASE LINKED TO PAST IRANIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS ACTIVITY
At Parchin, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security identified the destroyed building against a mountainside as “Taleghan 2.” It said an archive of Iranian nuclear data earlier seized by Israel identified the building as housing “a smaller, elongated high explosive chamber and a flash X-ray system to examine small-scale high explosive tests.”
“Such tests may have included high explosives compressing a core of natural uranium, simulating the initiation of a nuclear explosive,” a 2018 report by the institute says.
In a message posted to the social platform X early Sunday, the institute added: “It is not certain whether Iran used uranium at ‘Taleghan 2,’ but it is possible it studied the compression of natural uranium hemispheres, which would explain its hasty and secretive renovation efforts following the IAEA’s request to access Parchin in 2011.”
It’s unclear what, if any, equipment would have been inside of the “Taleghan 2″ building early Saturday. There were no Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil industry, nor its nuclear enrichment sites or its nuclear power plant at Bushehr during the assault.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, who leads the IAEA, confirmed that on X, saying “Iran’s nuclear facilities have not been impacted.”
“Inspectors are safe and continue their vital work,” he added. “I call for prudence and restraint from actions that could jeopardize the safety & security of nuclear & other radioactive materials.”
DAMAGE SEEN AT FACILITIES FOR IRAN’S BALLISTIC MISSILE PROGRAM
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included a warehouse and other buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted “missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the State of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after its two attacks on Israel, on April 14 and October 1. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be “over 3,000” by General Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the US military’s Central Command, in testimony to the US Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world.
Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
Officials at TIECO requested the AP write the company a letter before responding to questions. The firm did not immediately reply to a letter sent to it.
While the damage from Israel’s attack is clearly extensive, the fact that most of the damage was away from population centers and was limited to military bases leaves the Iranians room to say that the strikes were unsuccessful, or that they don’t need to respond.
HIDDEN DAMAGE
Israel may have also attacked sites in Iran that the regime is unlikely to reveal to the public, some of which are secretive and related to the country’s nuclear project.
One such target may have been in the city of Karaj, northwest of Tehran, where Israel struck a number of anti-aircraft batteries. Karaj, however, is home to the centrifuge industry of Iran’s nuclear system, and it is entirely possible that Israel’s strikes in the city were not limited to the missile systems.
The Karaj centrifuge facility has been targeted in the past, with a major attack in 2021 being widely attributed to Israel though it never claimed responsibility.
According to a report in the New York Times, Israeli also targeted the secretive Parchin military base on the outskirts of Tehran on Saturday. The report cited Iranian officials as saying that the site was hit during the Israeli attack.
Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show damage to the Parchin base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency has accused Iran of conducting tests of high explosives that could trigger a nuclear weapon. Iran long has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an active weapons program at least up until 2003.
The site came under renewed scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2015 when Tehran reached a landmark deal with major powers under which it agreed to curb its nuclear activities under UN supervision in return for the lifting of international sanctions. The deal has since fallen apart.
Iran had previously denied the IAEA access to Parchin, insisting it was a military site unrelated to any nuclear activities, but the agency’s then-chief, the late Yukiya Amano, paid a visit to the site. The IAEA reported finding traces of enriched uranium in soil samples taken from the site, but Iran has consistently denied the validity of those findings.
Since then, there has been continued suspicion that Iran uses the site for nuclear detonation research, and Israel’s reported targeting of the site this weekend may renew international interest in the facility.
GROUNDWORK FOR THE NEXT ATTACK
The main target of the Israeli attack, Iran’s air defense systems and missile industry, laid the groundwork for the next attack. The alleged damage to Iran’s flagship air-defense systems, the Russian-made S-300, allows Israel greater freedom of action over Iranian skies.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had four S-300 systems before the attack, and that all four were destroyed by Israel, citing an Israeli official.
The attacks on the air defenses caused “deep alarm” in Iran, The New York Times reported, citing three unnamed Iranian officials — one from the country’s oil ministry — since it rendered key energy sites defenseless to future strikes.
Israel also reportedly delivered a “crippling” blow to Iran’s missile industry, striking at least 12 planetary mixers used to make solid fuel used in long-range ballistic missiles, reports said, with some putting the number of mixers struck at 20.
The Saudi Elaph news site reported, citing an unnamed informed source, that the heavy fuel mixers had been used to power Khaybar and Qassem missiles, ballistic missiles that were launched at Israel in the Iranian strike earlier this month.
The source claimed it would take two years to repair the factory, which was completely destroyed. It did not say where the factory was located.
The Axios news site cited Israeli sources and a US official as saying Iran can’t produce the mixers on its own and must acquire them from China, which may take more than a year. The report also said the development would limit Tehran’s ability to supply ballistic missiles to its proxies, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, both terror groups.
AMERICA’S DECISION TIME
As much as the United States tries to tread lightly regarding the Iranian issue, it seems that the Israeli strikes are pushing the US, regardless of who the next president is, toward a decision on a new policy regarding Iran.
The current situation, where Iran is very close to acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities — posing threats to regional countries, global fuel supplies, shipping lanes and US interests — even as it engages in direct and indirect conflict with Israel, makes it much more than just background noise. The US knows this situation needs to be resolved.
So far, Washington has refrained from making direct threats against Tehran, both declaratively and practically, even in recent weeks. According to sources in Israel, this must change.
Now that Israel has officially struck in Iran for the first time, and did so in compliance with the Biden administration’s stringent conditions, it expects an appropriate change in US policy.
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Posted by trailing wife 2024-10-28 2024-10-28 00:20||
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File under: Govt of Iran
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