Drone attack hits defence facility in Iran, authorities say

A bomb-carrying drone targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan overnight, authorities said early Sunday, causing some damage to the factory amid regional and international tensions engulfing the Islamic Republic.

Iran’s Defense Ministry did not say who was suspected of carrying out the attack, which came as a separate refinery fire in the country’s northwest and a nearby 5.9-magnitude earthquake killed two people.

However, Tehran has been the target of Israeli drone strikes amid a shadow war with its Middle Eastern rival as a nuclear deal with world powers collapses. Meanwhile, tensions also remain high with neighboring Azerbaijan after gunmen stormed the country’s embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others.

Details about the Isfahan attack, which happened at about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, remain scarce. A Ministry of Defense statement described three drones being launched at the facility, with two being successfully shot down. The third hit the building, causing “minor damage” to the roof and causing no injuries, the ministry said.

Cellphone video shows the strike

The English-language arm of Iran’s state television, Press TV, aired cellphone video showing the moment the drone struck the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway northwest of Isfahan, one way for drivers to travel to the holy cities of Qom and Tehran. , the capital of Iran. A small crowd gathered, perhaps drawn by the anti-aircraft fire, to watch as explosions and sparks struck the darkened building.

“Oh my gosh! This is a drone, isn’t it?” the cameraman shouted. “Yes, it’s a drone.”

The people who were there fled after the attack.

Footage of the attack, as well as footage of the aftermath analyzed by The Associated Press, matched the site on Minoo Street in northwest Isfahan near a shopping center that includes carpet and electronics stores.

Iran’s defense and nuclear sites are increasingly surrounded by commercial properties and residential neighborhoods as the country’s cities continue to expand. Some locations also remain unclear about what they produce, with only signs bearing the logos of the Ministry of Defense or the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The Ministry of Defense simply called the site a “workshop,” without explaining what it was made of. Isfahan, about 350 kilometers south of Tehran, is home to a large air base built for a fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and a Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.

The attack comes after Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in July claimed it had foiled a plot to target sensitive sites around Isfahan. A segment aired on Iranian state TV in October included an alleged admission by a member of Komala, a Kurdish opposition party exiled from Iran and now living in Iraq, that he planned to target military aviation facilities in Isfahan after being trained by Israel’s Mossad. intelligence service.

Activists say Iranian state TV has aired hundreds of forced confessions over the last decade. Israeli officials declined to comment on the attack.

Separately, Iranian state TV said there was a fire at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known, as it showed footage of firefighters trying to put out the blaze.

State TV also said that the magnitude-5.9 earthquake killed two people and injured some 580 others in the countryside of West Azerbaijan province, destroying buildings in many villages.

Iran and Israel have long engaged in a shadow war that has included covert attacks on Iran’s military and nuclear facilities.

Last year, Iran said an engineer was killed and another employee injured in an undisclosed incident at the Parchin military and weapons development base east of the capital, Tehran. The ministry called it an accident, without giving further details.

Israel rarely acknowledges the operation

Parchin is a military base where the International Atomic Energy Agency says it suspects Iran is conducting tests of explosive triggers that could be used in nuclear weapons.

In April 2021, Iran blamed Israel for an attack on the underground Natanz nuclear facility that destroyed a centrifuge.

Israel did not claim responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media reported that the country had orchestrated a cyber attack that led to the shutdown of the nuclear facility. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the state’s secret military units or the Mossad intelligence agency.

In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed a top nuclear scientist.

Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. US intelligence agencies, Western countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran pursued a nuclear weapons program organized until 2003.

The United Nations’ top nuclear official, Rafael Mariano Grossi, recently warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses.

Efforts to revive a 2015 agreement with world powers that limited Iran’s nuclear activities stalled last year. Both the US and Israel have pledged to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and neither has ruled out military action.