DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan overnight, officials said early Sunday, causing some damage to the plant as regional and international tensions grip the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s Defense Ministry did not give any information on who was suspected of carrying out the attack, which came after an oil refinery fire in the country’s northwest and a 5.9-magnitude earthquake that killed two people in the area.
However, as Tehran engages in a shadow war with its Middle Eastern rival, it has been targeted by Israeli drones suspected of breaking its nuclear deal with world powers. Meanwhile, tensions with neighboring Azerbaijan continue after a gunman attacked that country’s embassy in Tehran. He killed the security officer and injured two others.
Details of the Isfahan attack, which took place around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, are not yet available. A statement from the Ministry of Defense stated that three drones were launched at the facility and two were successfully shot down. A third struck the building and caused “minor damage” to the roof, apparently injuring no one, the ministry said.
Iranian state television’s English-language arm, Press TV, aired cellphone video showing the drone strike on the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway, which runs northwest from Isfahan, one of the many stop-and-go routes to the holy city. Tehran, the capital of Iran. A few people, drawn by anti-aircraft fire, gathered and watched as explosions and sparks struck the darkened building.
“Oh, tell me! That was a drone, wasn’t it?” The guy taking the footage shouts, “Yeah, it was a drone.”
Those who were there fled after the strike.
That footage of the strike, whose aftermath was analyzed by The Associated Press, was from a site near a shopping center with a carpet and electronics store on Mino Street in northwest Isfahan.
Iran’s defense and nuclear sites are surrounded by commercial properties and residential neighborhoods as the country’s cities expand outward. Some areas remain surprisingly vague about what they produce, with only a sign bearing the logo of the Ministry of Defense or the Paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The Ministry of Defense called the place a “workshop” without specifying what it was for. Located 350 kilometers south of Tehran, Isfahan is home to a large airfield built for both American-made F-14 fighter jets and a nuclear fuel research and production center.
A fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz, Iranian state television reported. He said the cause was still unknown as he showed footage of firefighters trying to put out the fire.
A 5.9-magnitude earthquake struck rural areas of West Azerbaijan province, killing two people and injuring 580, 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, an engineer was killed and a worker was injured in unknown circumstances at the Parchin military and weapons development site east of the capital, Tehran. The ministry called it an accident without giving further details.
Parchin is home to a military base, and the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has tested explosive triggers that could be used for nuclear weapons.
In April 2021, Iran blamed Israel. He sabotages the centrifuges for an attack on the underground Natanz nuclear facility.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media have widely reported that the country orchestrated a devastating cyber attack that knocked out power at its nuclear facility. Israeli authorities do not acknowledge the activities of the country’s secret military units or the Mossad intelligence agency.
In the year In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top nuclear scientist..
Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. US intelligence agencies, Western countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency have announced that Iran was leading an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the UN’s top nuclear official, recently warned That Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to make “several” nuclear weapons if it so desires.
Iran’s nuclear activities Efforts to renew the 2015 accord with world powers stalled last year. Both the US and Israel have pledged to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
___
Associated Press writer Joseph Krause contributed to this report.