Israel’s attack on Iran likely damaged a base run by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that builds ballistic missiles and launches rockets as part of its own space program, satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday showed.
The damage at the base in Shahroud raises new questions about Israel’s attack early on Saturday, particularly as it took place in an area previously unacknowledged by Tehran and involved the Revolutionary Guard, which has so far has remained silent about any possible damage it sustained from the assault.
Iran has only identified Israeli attacks as taking place in Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran provinces — not in rural Semnan province, where the base is.
Photo: AP
It also potentially further restrains the Revolutionary Guard’s ability to manufacture the solid-fuel ballistic missiles it needs to stockpile as a deterrent against Israel.
Tehran long has relied on that arsenal, as it cannot purchase the advanced Western weapons that Israel and Tehran’s Gulf Arab neighbors have armed themselves with, particularly from the US.
Satellite photographs earlier analyzed by the AP of two military bases near Tehran also targeted by Israel showed that sites there that Iran uses in its ballistic missile manufacturing have been destroyed, further squeezing its program.
“We don’t know if Iranian production has been crippled as some people are saying or just damaged,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Iran. “We’ve seen enough imagery to show there’s an impact.”
Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Israeli military declined to answer questions from the AP, but sent a previous statement acknowledging it targeted “missile manufacturing facilities” in the attack.
Images show major building at the Shahroud base destroyed.
High-resolution satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken for and analyzed by the AP showed the damage at the Revolutionary Guard’s Shahroud Space Center in Semnan, about 370km northeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Semnan also hosts the Imam Khomeini Space Center, which is used by Iran’s civilian space program.
The images showed a central, major building at the Shahroud Space Center had been destroyed, the shadow of its still-standing frame seen in the image taken on Tuesday morning. Vehicles could be seen gathered around the site, likely from officials inspecting the damage, with more vehicles than normal parked at the site’s main gate nearby.
Three small buildings just to the south of the main structure also appeared to be damaged.
Iran has been constructing new buildings at the base in the past few months.
Another hangar to the northeast of the main building also appeared to have been damaged.
Iran has not acknowledged any attack at Shahroud.
However, given the damage done to multiple structures, it suggested the Israeli attack included pinpoint strikes on the base.
Low-resolution images since the attack showed signs of damage at the site not seen before the assault — further pointing to Israeli missile strikes as being the culprit.
“We can’t 100 percent exclude the possibility it’s something else, but it’s almost certain this building got damaged because of an Israeli attack,” Hinz said.
Given that the large building had been surrounded by earthen berms, that suggests it handled high explosives, said Hinz, who long has studied the site.
That central site likely deals with solid propellant mixing and casting operations, he added.
Large boxes next to the building likely are missile motor crates as well, Hinz said.
Their sizes suggest they could be used for Iran’s Kheibar Shekan ballistic missile and the Fattah 1, a missile that Iran has claimed is able to reach Mach 15.
Both have been used in Iran’s attacks on Israel during the Israel-Hamas war and the later ground invasion of Lebanon.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS