Israel’s attack on Iran on Saturday destroyed facilities from a secret military base southeast of the country’s capital that experts have linked in the past to that of Tehran. the nuclear weapons programas well as another base related to its missile program, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed.

Some of the damaged buildings were in Iran Parchin military basewhere the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects that Iran has in the past conducted tests of high explosives that could trigger a nuclear weapon.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, although the IAEA and Western intelligence agencies say Tehran had an active weapons program until 2003.

The other damage could be seen nearby Khojir military basewhich analysts believe hides a system of underground tunnels and missile production sites.

Iran’s military did not acknowledge damage at either Khojir or Parchin from Israel’s attack on Saturday morning, although it said the attack killed four Iranian soldiers working on the country’s air defense systems.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Israeli military.

However, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei On Sunday, he told the audience that the Israeli attack “must neither be exaggerated nor minimized.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said separately on Sunday that Israel’s strikes were “precise and powerful” and that the barrage had “achieved all its objectives”.

It remains unclear how many sites in total were targeted in the Israeli attack. So far there have been no images of damage released by the Iranian military.

Iranian officials identified the affected areas as being in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces.

Burnt fields could be seen in satellite images from Planet Labs PBC on Saturday around Iran’s Tange Bijar natural gas production site in Ilam province, although it was not immediately clear if it was related to the attack. Ilam province is located on the Iran-Iraq border in western Iran.

The most telling damage could be seen in Planet Labs images of Parchin, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of downtown Tehran, near the Mamalu Dam. There, one structure appeared to be totally destroyed, while others appeared to be damaged in the attack.

At Khojir, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from central Tehran, damage to at least two structures could be seen in satellite images.

Analysts, including Decker Eveleth of the Virginia-based think tank CNA, Joe Truzman of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright, as well as other open-source experts, identified for the first time damage to the bases. .

The locations of the two bases correspond to the videos obtained by A? showing Iranian air defense systems firing in the vicinity on Saturday morning.

At Parchin, Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security identified the destroyed building on a mountainside as “Taleghan 2.”

An archive of Iranian nuclear data previously seized by Israel is said to have identified the building as housing “a smaller, elongated high-explosive chamber and flash X-ray system to examine small-scale high-explosive tests.”

“Such tests may have included high explosives that compress a natural core uraniumsimulating the initiation of a nuclear explosive,” a 2018 report by the institute said.

In a message posted on social media platform X on Sunday morning, the institute added: “It is not certain whether Iran used uranium in ‘Taleghan 2’, but it is possible that they studied the compression of natural uranium hemispheres, which would explain the fact that Iran used uranium. secret renovation efforts following the IAEA’s request to access Parchin in 2011.”

It is unclear what equipment, if any, may have been inside the “Taleghan 2” building early Saturday. There have been no Israeli strikes on Iran’s oil industry, its nuclear enrichment sites or its nuclear power plant Bushehr during the attack.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, who heads the IAEA, confirmed this on X, saying “Iran’s nuclear facilities were not affected.”

“Inspectors are safe and continuing their vital work,” he added. “We call for caution and restraint from actions that could jeopardize the safety and security of nuclear and other radioactive materials.”

Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely include a warehouse and other buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its expansion. arsenal of ballistic missilesEveleth said.

In a statement issued immediately after Saturday’s attack, the Israeli military said it targeted “missile production facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran has fired at the State of Israel over the past year.”

Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to produce new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has remained silent since Saturday’s attack.

Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles that cannot reach Israel, was estimated to be “over 3,000” by General Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of US Army Central Commandin testimony before the US Senate in 2022. Since then, Iran has fired hundreds of missiles in a series of attacks.

No videos or photos were posted on social media of missile fragments or damage to civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack – suggesting the Israeli strikes were far more precise than Iran’s ballistic missile barrages that targeted Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-launched missiles during its attack.

However, one factory appeared to have been hit in the industrial city of Shamsabad, just south of Tehran, near Imam Khomeini International Airport. Online videos of the damaged building matched an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.

Iran and Israel have been involved in frequent attacks and threats amid the deadly war in Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 7 last year. Israel has carried out strikes on Iranian interests inside and outside Iran, while Tehran has responded with several retaliatory strikes.

In July, Israel killed the head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyehin a strike in Tehran. The October 1 rocket launches into Israel were in response to the killing as well as the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Before the Gaza war, Israel and Iran were engaged in a so-called “shadow war” over the years.