The findings were reached by David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, a research group, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a think tank in Washington.
They told Reuters separately: Israel It struck the huge Parchin military site near Tehran, and Eveleth explained that Israel also bombed the Khojir site, a huge missile production site near the capital.
Last July, Reuters reported that the Khujir site was witnessing massive expansion.
Eveleth said the Israeli strikes may have “significantly hampered Iran’s ability to mass produce missiles.”
The Israeli army said that three waves of attacks using warplanes hit missile factories and other sites near Tehran and in western Iran early Saturday morning, in response to the launch of… Iran On October 1, more than 200 missiles hit Israel.
The Iranian army said that Israeli warplanes used “ultra-light warheads” to strike border radar systems in the Elam and Khuzestan provinces and in the vicinity of Tehran.
Eveleth said an image from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, showed that an Israeli strike destroyed two buildings in Khujir that were being used to mix solid fuel for ballistic missiles.
According to the photo seen by Reuters, the two buildings were surrounded by high earthen berms. Such architectural designs are associated with missile production, and are designed to prevent an explosion in one building from detonating flammable materials in neighboring buildings.
Eveleth stated that the photos taken by “Planet Labs” of the Parchin site showed that Israel destroyed 3 buildings to mix Solid fuel For ballistic missiles, and a warehouse.
Albright said he reviewed low-resolution commercial satellite images of Parchin, which appeared to show that an Israeli strike damaged three buildings, two of which were used to mix solid fuel for ballistic missiles.
He did not specify the commercial company from which he obtained the images.
He said that the buildings were located about 320 meters from a facility that was participating in what the International Atomic Energy Agency and US intelligence say was a comprehensive nuclear weapons development program that Iran stopped in 2003.
Iran denies having such a program.
“Israel says it targeted buildings containing solid fuel blenders,” Eveleth said. “These blenders are difficult to manufacture and subject to export controls. Iran has imported many of them over the years at great cost, and will likely find it difficult to replace them.”
He added that Israel may have been able, through a limited operation, to deal a strong blow to Iran’s ability to… Rocket production In large quantities, making it difficult for any future Iranian missile attack to penetrate Israeli missile defenses.
He stated that “the hits seem very precise.”
Iran has the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East, and American officials said that it supplied Russia with missiles for use against Ukraine, as well as the Houthis in Yemen and Lebanese Hezbollah.
Tehran and Moscow deny that Russia has obtained Iranian missiles.
Reuters reported that photos from Planet Labs reviewed earlier this year by Eveleth and Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey showed major expansions in Khojir and the Modarres military complex near Tehran.
According to their assessments, these expansions were aimed at boosting missile production.
Three senior Iranian officials confirmed this conclusion.
