Washington
\nAn American researcher said an Israeli airstrike on Saturday hit a building that was part of Iran\u2019s defunct nuclear weapons development program, and he and another researcher said facilities used to mix solid fuel for missiles also were struck.
\nThe assessments based on commercial satellite imagery were reached separately by David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank.
\nThey told Reuters that Israel struck buildings in Parchin, a massive military complex near Tehran. Israel also hit Khojir, according to Eveleth, a sprawling missile production site near Tehran.
\nReuters reported in July that Khojir was undergoing massive expansion.
\nEveleth said the Israeli strikes may have \u201csignificantly hampered Iran\u2019s ability to mass produce missiles.\u201d
\nThe Israeli military said three waves of Israeli jets struck missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran early on Saturday in retaliation for Tehran\u2019s Oct. 1 barrage of more than 200 missiles against Israel.
\nIran\u2019s military said the Israeli warplanes used \u201cvery light warheads\u201d to strike border radar systems in the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan and around Tehran.
\nIn posts on X, Albright said commercial satellite imagery showed that Israel hit a building in Parchin called Taleghan 2 that was used for testing activities during the Amad Plan, Iran\u2019s defunct nuclear weapons development program.
\nThe UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and US intelligence say Iran shuttered the program in 2003. Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons.
\nAlbright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security research group, was given access to the program\u2019s files for a book after they were stolen from Tehran by Israel\u2019s Mossad intelligence agency in 2018.
\nOn X, he said the archives revealed that Iran kept important test equipment in Taleghan 2.
\nIran may have removed key materials before the airstrike, he said, but \u201ceven if no equipment remained inside\u201d the building would have provided \u201cintrinsic value\u201d for future nuclear weapons-related activities.
\nAlbright told Reuters that commercial satellite imagery of Parchin showed Israel damaged three buildings about 350 yards (320 m) from Taleghan 2, including two in which solid fuel for ballistic missiles was mixed.
\nHe did not identify the commercial firm from which he obtained the images.
\nEveleth said an image of Parchin from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, showed that Israel destroyed three ballistic missile solid fuel mixing buildings and a warehouse in the sprawling complex.
\nPlanet Labs imagery also showed that an Israeli strike destroyed two buildings in the Khojir complex where solid fuel for ballistic missiles was mixed, he said.
\nThe buildings were enclosed by high dirt berms, according to the image reviewed by Reuters. Such structures are associated with missile production and are designed to stop a blast in one building from detonating combustible materials in nearby structures.
\n\u201cIsrael says they targeted buildings housing solid-fuel mixers,\u201d Eveleth said. \u201cThese industrial mixers are hard to make and export-controlled. Iran imported many over the years at great expense, and will likely have a hard time replacing them.\u201d
\nWith a limited operation, he said, Israel may have struck a significant blow against Iran\u2019s ability to mass-produce missiles and made it more difficult for any future Iranian missile attack to pierce Israel\u2019s missile defenses.
\n\u201cThe strikes appear to be highly accurate,\u201d he said.
\nAxios reported that Israel destroyed hit 12 \u201cplanetary mixers\u201d used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles, quoting three unnamed Israeli sources as saying this severely damages Iran\u2019s ability to renew its missile stockpile and could deter Iran from further massive missile strikes against Israel.
\nIran has the Middle East\u2019s largest missile arsenal and supplied missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine, and to Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, according to US officials.
\nTehran and Moscow deny that Russia has received Iranian missiles.
\nPlanet Labs imagery reviewed earlier this year by Eveleth and Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey showed major expansions at Khojir and the Modarres military complex near Tehran that the pair assessed were for boosting missile production, Reuters reported.
\nThree senior Iranian officials confirmed that conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington An American researcher said an Israeli airstrike on Saturday hit a building that was part of Iran\u2019s defunct nuclear weapons development program, and he and another researcher said facilities used to mix solid fuel for missiles also were struck. The assessments based on commercial satellite imagery were reached separately by David Albright, a former …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72157,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72145\/revisions\/72157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}