Commercial satellite imagery has shown this Israeli airstrikes hit buildings during an attack on Saturday that Iran used to mix solid fuel for ballistic missiles, according to separate assessments by two US researchers.

The decisions were made by David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who heads the research group at the Institute for Science and International Security, and Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think tank.

They told Reuters separately that Israel had struck Parchin, a massive military complex near Tehran. Israel also hit Khojir, according to Eveleth, a missile production site near Tehran.

Reuters reported in July that Khojir was on a massive expansion.

Eveleth said the Israeli strikes could have “significantly hampered Iran’s ability to mass-produce missiles.”

Israel’s military said three waves of Israeli jets struck missile factories and other locations near Tehran and in western Iran early Saturday in retaliation for Tehran’s Oct. 1 bombardment of more than 200 rockets against Israel.

Iran’s military says Israeli warplanes used ‘very light warheads’ to hit border radar systems in Ilam, Khuzestan provinces and around Tehran.

Eveleth said an image from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, showed an Israeli strike destroyed two buildings in Khojir where solid ballistic missile fuel was being mixed.

The buildings were surrounded by high earthen berms, according to the image reviewed by Reuters. Such structures are associated with missile production and are designed to stop an explosion in a building from detonating combustible materials in nearby structures.

Planet Labs images of Parchin showed that Israel had destroyed three ballistic missile solid fuel mix buildings and a warehouse, he said.

Albright said he reviewed commercial low-resolution satellite images of Parchin that appeared to show an Israeli strike damaged three buildings, including two where solid ballistic missile fuel had been mixed.

He did not identify the commercial firm from which he obtained the images.

The buildings, he said, are located about 350 meters from a facility once involved in what the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency and US intelligence say is a comprehensive nuclear weapons development program that Iran closed it in 2003. Iran denies having such a program. a program.

“Israel says it targeted buildings that house solid fuel mixers,” Eveleth said. “These industrial mixers are difficult to make and are export controlled. Iran has imported a lot over the years at great expense and will likely have difficulty replacing them.”

With a limited operation, he said, Israel may have dealt a significant blow against Iran’s ability to mass-produce missiles and made it more difficult for any future Iranian missile attack to penetrate Israel’s missile defenses.

“The shots seem to be very accurate,” he said.

Iran has the largest missile arsenal in the Middle East and has supplied missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine, as well as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, according to US officials.

Tehran and Moscow deny that Russia received Iranian missiles.

Planet Labs images analyzed earlier this year by Eveleth and Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey showed major expansions at Khojir and the Modarres military complex near Tehran, which the two assessed were for increased missile production , Reuters reported.

Three senior Iranian officials confirmed this conclusion.