• Israel targeted missile production facilities as part of widespread attacks against Iran on Saturday.
• Satellite images show the attacks caused damage in areas linked to Iran’s missile program.
• Officials and analysts say Iran’s missile operations have been hit, but it’s unclear how badly.

Satellite images show that Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran on Saturday caused damage to military facilities linked to Tehran’s missile program.

Officials and analysts say the Israeli strike would have some impact on Iran’s missile production operations, but the strikes may fall short of completely neutralizing them or creating significant long-term effects.

Israeli warplanes carried out what the army described as “targeted and precise attacks” several military targets early Saturday morning local time across Iran, including missile production facilities and air defense systems.

The attacks were a long-awaited response to Iran’s mass attacks. ballistic missile attack On October 1, the second attack against Israel this year took place. Authorities repeatedly signaled in the weeks following the attack that punitive retaliation was imminent.

Iran accepted this damaged He noted that several soldiers were also killed in the attack on Saturday. But it is not yet clear how far Israel has fallen Tehran’s missile programIt appears that there was a target of retaliation.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that after the latest attacks, “both the enemy’s ability to produce missiles and his ability to defend himself have weakened. This changes the balance of power.”

Satellite images taken over the weekend by Planet Labs PBC and obtained by Business Insider reveal damage sustained after Israeli attacks at Parchin and Khojir military bases near Tehran, long associated with missile production operations.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an expert on Iran’s security and defense affairs, told BI that Israeli attacks on Parchin and Hojir, as well as a facility near Shahroud, destroyed buildings related to missile assembly and intact buildings . propellant production.

But Nadimi said Iran’s missile industry is large, dispersed and entrenched underground. Israeli strikes “could delay certain processes for weeks or months at best,” he said, adding that follow-up strikes would likely be needed three times as large to have lasting effects.

Nadimi said that because Iran has huge missile stockpiles, “it will take time for the outcome of such decisive but still stinging attacks on their missile industries to be felt.”

Conflict analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote on Sunday: evaluation He said Israel targeted mixing machines used to produce fuel for ballistic missiles in the attacks, and that it would likely take months for Iran to acquire new equipment. ISW has previously stated that such an attack could disrupt Iran’s ability to produce missiles for attacks against Israel or send abroad to Russia his proxies.

Michael Allen, who served as senior director for counterproliferation strategy at the National Security Council during the Bush administration, told BI that Israel is going after medium- to long-term “critical but vulnerable” locations in Iran’s missile supply chain. term effects.

Ballistic missiles have long been at the top of the list when assessing Iran’s comparative advantages, Allen said. He said the Israeli strikes “really changed the strategic assessment of what kind of threat Iran poses beyond its proxies and what Israel might do in the future.”

While questions remain about the long-term impact of the Israeli strikes on Iran’s missile production operation, their impact on Iran’s air defense network is clearer, with Israel striking many of the Russian-made S-300 systems that Tehran operates.

Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said that “accurate attacks” on Iran’s radars and air defense systems created “a huge disadvantage for the enemy when we want to attack later”, suggesting that the military could take advantage of the situation by following up. in action.

Security analysts at the Royal United Services Institute, a UK-based think tank, wrote on Monday: evaluation He said the attacks “exposed Iran’s vulnerabilities,” particularly through the “clear disruption” of its air defense network.