Exclusive-Satellite images show Israel hit Iran's oil mixing facilities, researchers say
Written by Jonathan Landay
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Commercial satellite images showed that Israeli air strikes on buildings during Iran's attack on Saturday were used to mix solid fuel for ballistic missiles, according to a separate study by two U.S. researchers.
These decisions were reached by David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector in charge of the Institute for Science and International Security Research, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank.
They told Reuters separately that Israel had hit Parchin, a large military base near Tehran. Israel also hit Khojir, according to Eveleth, an extensive missile production facility near Tehran.
Reuters reported in July that Khojir was getting a big boost.
Eveleth said the Israeli strikes would “severely disrupt Iran's ability to produce more missiles.”
The Israeli military said that three waves of Israeli planes attacked missile factories and other places near Tehran and western Iran the next day Saturday in retaliation for October 1 of Tehran's more than 200 missiles against Israel.
Iran's military said Israeli warplanes used “very light weapons” to attack border radar systems in the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran.
Eveleth said an image from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, shows that the Israeli strike destroyed two buildings in Khojir where solid fuel for ballistic missiles was mixed.
The buildings were surrounded by crude bombs, according to a picture reviewed by Reuters. Such buildings are associated with missile production and are designed to stop explosions in one building from detonating combustibles in nearby buildings.
Parchin's Planet Labs image showed Israel destroyed three ballistic missile solid fuel mixing facilities and a shed, he said.
Albright said he reviewed low-resolution commercial satellite imagery of Parchin that appeared to show the Israeli strike damaged three buildings, including two where solid fuel for missiles was mixed.
He did not identify the commercial company from which he obtained the photos.
The facilities, he said, are located 350 yards from a site that was once involved in what the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the US intelligence community was involved in was a comprehensive nuclear weapons development program that Iran shut down in 2003. system.
“Israel says they were looking at buildings that house solid fuel mixers,” Eveleth said. “These industrial complexes are difficult to create and control in other countries. Iran has bought many countries over the years at great expense, and will probably have difficulty in settling.”
With limited effectiveness, he said, Israel could have struck a major blow against Iran's ability to mass-produce missiles and make it more difficult for any future Iranian missile attacks to penetrate Israel's missile defenses.
“The strikes seem to be very accurate,” he said.
Iran has the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East and has provided missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine, as well as Yemen's Houthi rebels and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, according to US officials.
Tehran and Moscow deny that Russia received Iranian missiles.
Planet Labs images reviewed earlier this year by Eveleth and Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey showed large increases in Khojir and the Modarres military base near Tehran that the two tested were intended to increase missile production, Reuters reported.
Three senior Iranian officials confirmed that conclusion.
