By Pishtaz | 2024-11-06

Israeli air strikes on October 26 hit a building near Tehran that was part of the Iranian regime's defunct nuclear weapon development program, media outlets reported.

Israel's strikes on the Iranian regime's military sites, carried out in retaliation for an October 1 missile barrage, "hit Iran's defense capabilities and missile production," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Targets struck included buildings in Parchin, a military complex near Tehran, according to former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright and associate research analyst Decker Eveleth of CNA, Reuters reported.

Satellite imagery showed Israel hit a Parchin complex building called Taleghan 2 that was used for testing during the Amad Plan, the defunct Iranian nuclear weapon development program, Albright said on X.

The Iranian regime once kept key testing equipment in Taleghan 2, said Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security research group.

Even if the regime removed important materials before the air raid, he told Reuters, it would have gained "intrinsic value" from the building itself for future nuclear activities.

Satellite imagery shows Israeli strikes destroyed three ballistic missile solid fuel mixing buildings and a warehouse in the sprawling complex as well, Eveleth said.

Fabian Hinz, research fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Israel had hit three Iranian facilities in Shahroud, Parchin and Khojir that make the solid propellant for missiles, AFP reported.

"There are indications that they very deliberately targeted bottlenecks within the production process that would have pretty large implications for Iran's missile production," he said.

"These strikes might not have produced the most spectacular videos, they were designed very smartly to produce substantial effect even with a limited number of targets. They privileged the effect over the spectacle," he said.

Satellite pictures provided by Planet Labs of the Parchin facility showed the apparent effects of the strike in an October 27 image, contrasted with the undamaged facility on September 9.

Nuclear weapons

The Iranian regime has long denied that it is trying to build nuclear weapons and insists its program is for peaceful purposes.

In recent years it has slashed cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency while amassing large stockpiles of enriched uranium.

"Iran is striving to develop a stockpile of nuclear bombs to destroy [Israel], equipped with long-range missiles, intercontinental missiles that Iran is trying to develop," Netanyahu said October 28.

"Iran could threaten the entire world at any point," he told the Israeli parliament as it began its winter session, adding that "stopping the Iranian nuclear program is at the forefront of our minds."