Satellite images confirm Israeli strikes on Iranian military facility previously used for nuclear weapons research

Satellite images of Iranian military sites confirm that Israel’s early-morning strikes last Saturday successfully destroyed multiple structures, including one previously used in Iran’s nuclear weapons research program, according to two expert analyses.

The images revealed damage to the Parchin military base, located approximately 19 miles outside the Iranian capital of Tehran. They also show the damage done to the Khojir missile production complex.

Decker Eveleth, an analyst for the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), told Reuters that Israel’s strikes may have “significantly hampered Iran’s ability to mass produce missiles,” and that the regime “will likely have a hard time replacing” the solid-fuel mixers Israel targeted.

The Institute for Science and International Security posted on 𝕏 that “Taleghan 2 appears to have been destroyed” in the strikes.

Taleghan 2 is the name of a facility in the Parchin base that was previously used in Iran’s nuclear weapons research program, according to the Institute’s founder David Albright.

A report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies noted that Albright learned of Taleghan 2’s role in the officially defunct nuclear weapons program after reviewing “Iranian nuclear files, plans, and photographs that the Israeli Mossad seized from a Tehran warehouse in 2018 and shared with the Institute.”

The Parchin base, including Taleghan 2, “was involved prior to 2004 in high explosive testing related to the development of nuclear weapons,” according to Albright’s 2018 analysis.

Iran has yet to acknowledge these strikes, and has only publicly referred to Israel’s targeting of its radar air defense systems, claiming the strikes caused only “limited damage.”