An Israeli attack on Iran damaged facilities at a secret military base southeast of the Iranian capital that experts have linked in the past to Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and at another base linked to its nuclear weapons program. ballistic missiles, satellite photos analyzed Sunday by the Associated Press. .

Some of the damaged buildings were at Iran’s Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects Iran of carrying out past tests of powerful explosives that could trigger a nuclear weapon. Iran has long insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful, even though the IAEA, Western intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an active weapons program until 2003.

Other damage could be seen at the nearby Khojir military base, which analysts say hides a system of underground tunnels and missile production sites.

The Iranian military did not acknowledge the damage caused to either Khojir or Parchin by the Israeli attack on Saturday morning, although it said the attack killed four Iranian soldiers working in the air defense systems of the country.

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran’s Khojir military base, outside Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Israeli military.

However, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told an audience on Sunday that the Israeli attack “should not be exaggerated or downplayed,” but stopped short of calling for an immediate retaliatory strike. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the Israeli strikes had “severely harmed” Iran and that the dam “achieved all of its objectives.”

Damage extends to three Iranian provinces

It remains unclear how many sites in total were targeted by the Israeli attack. No images of the damage have been released by the Iranian military so far.

Iranian authorities identified the affected areas as Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces. Burning 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, although it was not immediately clear whether they were related on the attack. Ilam province is located on the Iran-Iraq border, in western Iran.

The most telling damage could be seen in Planet Labs images of Parchin, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of downtown Tehran, near the Mamalu Dam. There, one structure appeared to be completely destroyed while others appeared damaged during the attack.

In Khojir, about 20 kilometers from downtown Tehran, damage could be seen on at least two structures on satellite images.

Analysts including Decker Eveleth of the Virginia-based CNA think tank, Joe Truzman of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright, as well as other open source experts, were the first to identify the damage to the bases. . The locations of the two bases match videos obtained by the AP showing Iranian air defense systems firing nearby Saturday morning.

Base linked to Iran’s former nuclear weapons program

In Parchin, the Albright Institute for Science and International Security identified the destroyed building on the mountainside as “Taleghan 2.” It said an archive of Iranian nuclear data previously seized by Israel identified the building as housing “a smaller, elongated explosive chamber and a flash X-ray system to examine small-scale high explosive testing.”

“Such tests could have included high explosives compressing a natural uranium core, simulating the initiation of a nuclear explosive,” a 2018 report from the institute said.

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran’s Parchin military base outside Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. ((Planet Labs PBC via AP))

In a message published Sunday morning on the social platform the compression of hemispheres of natural uranium, which would explain its hasty decision and secret renovation efforts following the IAEA’s request for access to Parchin in 2011.”

It is unclear what equipment, if any, might have been inside the “Taleghan 2” building early Saturday. There were no Israeli strikes against Iran’s oil industry, its nuclear enrichment sites or its Bushehr nuclear power plant during the assault.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, who heads the IAEA, confirmed this on X, saying that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have not been hit.”

“Inspectors are safe and continuing their vital work,” he added. “I urge caution and restraint regarding actions that could endanger the safety and security of nuclear and other radioactive materials.”

Damage observed on the installations of the Iranian ballistic missile program

Other destroyed buildings in Khojir and Parchin likely included a warehouse and other buildings where Iran used industrial blenders to create the solid fuel needed for its vast arsenal of ballistic missiles, Eveleth said.

In a statement released immediately after Saturday’s attack, the Israeli military said it had targeted “missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the State of Israel during the last year.”

The destruction of such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has remained silent since Saturday’s attack.

Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles incapable of reaching Israel, was estimated at “more than 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then commander of Central Command. US military, during testimony before the US Senate in 2022. Since then, Iran has fired hundreds of missiles in a series of attacks.

No videos or photos were posted on social media showing missile parts or damage to civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack – suggesting that Israeli strikes were far more precise than ballistic missile barrages Iranians targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles in its attack.

However, a factory appears to have been hit in the industrial city of Shamsabad, just south of Tehran, near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building match the address of a company known as TIECO, which describes itself as making cutting-edge machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.

TIECO officials asked the AP to write a letter to the company before answering questions. The company did not immediately respond to a letter sent to it.

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Associated Press writer Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.