US Satellite Photos Show Damage Iranian Workshop Suffered in 'Israeli Drone Attack'

Israel has waged a multi-year espionage campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, including document theft, drone attacks, and assassinations of top nuclear scientists. Tel Aviv claims Iran is secretly building a nuclear weapon, despite claims otherwise by both Tehran and the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

A photo taken by satellites owned by US firm Planet Labs on Thursday was shared with US press on Friday, showing the five-sided building in Isfahan where Iranian authorities said bomb-laden quadcopter drones had launched an attack on January 28. They also shared a photo taken last October, several months before the attack.

The February 2 photo shows two holes in the building’s roof, each about the size of an automobile, and new equipment on the roof that is likely part of a repair effort.

US media noted the photos are consistent with footage shown on Iranian television after the attack.

Iranian authorities have not disclosed what the structure is used for, but some media reports have indicated it was an ammunition factory while others claimed it made drones. Reports have also said it was protected with slat armor, a type of cage barrier that dilutes the effectiveness of shaped charges and similar explosives and is often fitted on patrol vehicles in urban war zones.

The Iranian side has pointed the finger firmly at Israel, saying in a letter to the United Nations that it “reserves its legitimate and inherent right” to retaliate.

The two nations have been locked in a deadly rivalry since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which overthrew the pro-Western Shah. Recent years have seen a wave of espionage actions, including other drone attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, the theft of secret documents by scientists working for Israel, and the brazen daytime assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist on a highway outside Tehran.

Israel has officially denied responsibility for the attacks, but also praised them. It has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran’s nuclear program if US-led efforts fail to restrain it. It has not commented on the most recent allegation of being behind the Isfahan drone attack on January 28.

While decades ago Tehran had a nuclear weapons program, it has long since abandoned that quest, and says its nuclear program is for generating electricity and conducting research. While it has achieved a high purity of uranium-235, its purity is not weapons-grade, and the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the US CIA, and Israel’s own military intelligence bureau have all said Iran has made no parallel effort to develop the technology necessary to turn that purified uranium into a weapon.

The purity and volume of uranium Iran could maintain was once governed by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 deal that won Iran reprieve from crushing Western sanctions. However, the US unilaterally pulled out of the deal in 2018 and reimposed the sanctions, dragooning other nations into compliance. Talks to revive the deal began in 2021 after US President Joe Biden took office, but have failed to achieve results.

At the start of the year, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price accused Iran of having “killed” any hope of returning to the deal.