a day ago
Iranian missile sites: What the images of the Israeli air strikes show us
At 3:47am on June 13, Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on his X account. "Moments ago, Israel launched Operation 'Rising Lion', a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival," the Israeli prime minister stated.
In his statement, Netanyahu listed the targets of this operation, which aims to weaken military leadership, damage Iran's nuclear facilities, and target military sites for ballistic missile storage and launch.
Israel "struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile programme", the Israeli prime minister stated. Several experts believe this objective is likely to severely limit the scope of Iranian retaliation. Most of these ballistic missiles have a range of 2,000 kilometres and are capable of targeting Israeli territory.
'The Israeli army considered an immediate Iranian missile retaliation as definitive, so they chose to pre-empt Iran by going after the launch capabilities so as to minimise the risks of Iranian retaliation,' said Farzin Nadimi, a research fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Iranian weaponry.
Few images of targeted sites so far
In a statement published on Telegram in the afternoon of June 13, the Israeli army stated it had destroyed "dozens of launchers, surface-to-surface missile storage facilities, and additional military sites'.
It released a map showing all the sites it reportedly attacked, though these strikes have not been independently verified.
The Israeli military also shared a graphic purportedly showing a strike on a launch site of surface-to-surface missiles in western Iran.
The images show warehouses that the Israelis say contain surface-to-surface missiles, though this cannot be independently confirmed.
The site in the video, which we have geolocated, is about ten kilometres from Borujerd, in western Iran. However, the FRANCE 24 Observers team was unable to independently verify that this site had been hit by the military.
According to the map from the Israeli military, surface-to-surface missile sites in northwestern Iran, particularly around the city of Tabriz, were reportedly hit. However, while images of strikes have been geolocated near Tabriz, it's currently impossible to confirm that missile bases were actually struck.
But Nadimi says it would be logical for such military sites, like the one in Tabriz, to be targeted by the Israeli army: "This base is one of the main missile bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was tasked with striking Israel during Operations Promise I and II.' The Iranian army launched a total of more than 300 ballistic missiles during these two operations conducted in April and October 2024.
The Israeli military released further images, which our team has not been able to verify or geolocate. The images purportedly show a strike against a truck transporting a missile, as well as a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL), a vehicle that can launch missiles.
'Even with their extensive underground missile bases, they still need to take their launchers with the missiles on them outside, prepare them, and erect them for launch in the open air," Nadimi said. These missiles are "most vulnerable" when they are being transported by these Transporter Erector Launchers (TELs), he added.
"They do have the capabilities to launch from inside these bases because they have silos. They have launch holes and loaders that, technically or theoretically, should allow missiles to be launched without pulling them out of the base," Nadimi continued.
"However, those might have also been targeted by Israeli missiles in order to disrupt Iran's covert launch operations," he added, also noting the need for "satellite imagery to confirm that these parts of the missile bases were indeed targeted".
Underground base hit in Kermanshah
Furthermore, there are indications that a missile base near Kermanshah, in the western part of the country, may have been hit.
A video filmed from a car shows several plumes of smoke rising into the air. The video has been geolocated to the east of Kermanshah.
It's impossible to say exactly what was hit.
However, a base identified as a suspected missile deployment site in a 2021 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a British international relations research institute, is located close to the affected areas.
"Kermanshah missile base hit by the Israelis," Fabian Hinz, a military expert at the IISS and author of the aforementioned report, wrote on X.
Sources also reportedly told the Lebanese media outlet al-Mayadeen, which is affiliated with Iran-backed Hezbollah, that "several missile bases near Tehran and in the city of Kermanshah" were attacked.
Satellite images shared by the Open Source Center and captured by Airbus show damage to the roofs of several warehouses and the presumed entrance of an underground tunnel at the base.
Iran's high command decimated
In the operation, the Israeli military also killed top Iranian officials "while they were gathered in their underground headquarters". This included armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. Most leaders of the Revolutionary Guard's aerospace force, including Major General Amirali Hadjizadeh, were also killed, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defence.
These significant losses may explain Iran's remarkably subdued response so far, according to analyst Nadimi. "We haven't seen a single ballistic missile launched at Israel," Nadimi said. "We should definitely consider the fact that the chain of command has been severely disrupted. This is the most likely reason [for the lack of military response], in addition to a very systematic Israeli attempt to take out launchers.'
At the time of this article's publication, the Iranian military's retaliation had been limited to launching 136 drones and cruise missiles towards Israel, none of which reportedly reached Israeli territory.
