Washington, Oct. 26 A building that was a component of Iran's now-defunct nuclear weapons development program was struck by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, according to an American researcher. He and another researcher both said that facilities used to create solid fuel for rockets were also hit.
Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the Washington think tank CNA, and David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector, independently arrived at the conclusions based on commercial satellite imagery. Israel hit structures in Parchin, a huge military installation close to Tehran, they said to Reuters. According to Eveleth, Israel also struck Khojir, a large missile manufacturing facility close to Tehran.
Khojir was experiencing significant growth, according to a July Reuters article. The Israeli strikes, according to Eveleth, might have "significantly hampered Iran's ability to mass produce missiles."
According to the Israeli military, three waves of Israeli jets attacked missile factories and other locations in western Iran and close to Tehran early on Saturday in retribution for Tehran's October 1 bombardment of Israel with more than 200 missiles.
According to Iran's military, Israeli jets struck border radar installations in the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan, and the vicinity of Tehran with "very light warheads"
Albright claimed in posts on X that commercial satellite footage demonstrated that Israel struck the Taleghan 2 building in Parchin, which was utilised for testing operations during Iran's now-defunct nuclear weapons development program, the Amad Plan.
Iran shut down the program in 2003, according to the U.S. intelligence, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the U.N. nuclear watchdog. The pursuit of nuclear weapons is denied by Iran.
After Israel's Mossad spy agency seized the program's data from Tehran in 2018, Albright, who leads the research division at the Institute for Science and International Security, was granted access to them for a book.
Regarding X, he stated that the records showed Iran stored crucial test apparatus in Taleghan 2. He stated that although Iran might have taken out important components prior to the airstrike, "even if no equipment remained inside," the structure would have offered "intrinsic value" for any future nuclear weapons-related endeavours.
Source: Reuters