REPORT: Israel hit Iranian nuclear test sites, satellite reveals.
Israeli air strikes damaged a military base linked to Iran’s defunct nuclear weapons programme on Saturday, satellite images show.
The attack appears to have hit a ballistic missile site in Parchin, where it is suspected Iran has previously conducted tests of high explosives that could be used in a nuclear weapon.
Photographs taken on Sunday morning by satellite firm Planet Labs also showed that an Israeli strike destroyed two buildings at the nearby Khojir base, where analysts believe solid fuel for ballistic missiles was mixed.
Israel did not target Iran’s nuclear facilities or oil refineries, after pressure from US and other Western countries.
David Albright, a former UN inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security, was the first to identify the damage to the bases. He confirmed that one of the buildings hit in Parchin, Taleghan 2, was formerly used for nuclear testing.
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Ronen Solomon, an Israeli defence analyst, said the former nuclear site was still a critical part of Iran’s nuclear supply chain.
“The [Israeli] idea is to cut the supply of ballistic missiles to use against Israel, and in the end to prevent Iran building a nuclear warhead,” he said.
Mr Solomon said the attack allowed Israel to bypass a veto from the West and Iran on hitting Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, such as Natanz. “This isn’t a nuclear facility, as Iran… called it a military facility, so that gave Israel a green light to attack it.”
He added: “Israel couldn’t target the enrichment, so it targeted the integration of the missile and the trigger of the bomb for the head of the missile, which is being tested at Taleghan 2.”
In his “World War III Tracker,” Steve Hayward wrote:
Regarding Israel’s strike on Iran, it appears Israel has acceded to American demands that it not strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, or its important oil infrastructure. This likely reflects not merely the usual timorousness of Democratic foreign and defense policy elites, but the more proximate driver of the upcoming election. Democrats are terrified that any escalation of the Middle East front will diminish further Kamala Harris’s chances of winning.
At The Free Press, Niall Ferguson writes,”the United States has lost all but a shred of the influence it once had over Israeli policy. Fact: As a share of Israeli national income, U.S. aid peaked at 22 percent in 1979. It’s now down to 0.6 percent.”
If so, why is Israel still taking its cues from the Biden-Harris White House as to what they can and cannot attack?