Iran says drone airstrikes targeted Isfahan defenses

A bomb-laden drone attacked an Iran­ian defense fac­to­ry in Isfa­han at night, dam­ag­ing it, offi­cials said Sun­day, amid esca­lat­ing region­al and inter­na­tion­al ten­sions sur­round­ing the Islam­ic Republic.

Iran’s defense min­istry did not pro­vide infor­ma­tion on who it believed was respon­si­ble for the attack when a refin­ery in the coun­try’s north­west caught fire and a 5.9‑magnitude earth­quake struck near­by, killing three people. 

But Tehran has become the tar­get of sus­pect­ed attacks by Israeli drones amid a col­lapsed nuclear deal with world pow­ers and a shad­ow war with its Mid­dle East­ern rivals. 

On the oth­er hand, ten­sions with neigh­bor­ing Azer­bai­jan con­tin­ue after an attack on the coun­try’s embassy in Tehran killed a secu­ri­ty chief and injured two others.

Details of the attack in Isfa­han, which took place around 11:30 pm on Sat­ur­day, have not yet been released. 

A defense min­istry state­ment said three drones were launched into the facil­i­ty, two of which were suc­cess­ful­ly shot down. A third vehi­cle struck the build­ing, caus­ing “minor dam­age” to the roof, but no one was injured.

Press TV, the Eng­lish-lan­guage ver­sion of Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion, said the drone was on the heav­i­ly traf­ficked Imam Khome­i­ni high­way head­ing north­west from Esfa­han, one of sev­er­al routes for dri­vers head­ing to the holy city of Qom and the cap­i­tal city of Tehran. 

broad­cast a cell phone video that appeared to show the moment they col­lid­ed. A small crowd, drawn by the anti-air­craft fire, watched the explo­sions and sparks hit the dark building.

“What a drone he was,” exclaims the man film­ing. “Yes, it was a drone.

Those present fled after the attack.

Images of the attack and its after­math ana­lyzed by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press are on Minu Street in north­west­ern Isfa­han, near a shop­ping mall con­tain­ing car­pet and elec­tron­ics stores.

Iran’s nuclear and defense sites are becom­ing increas­ing­ly sur­round­ed by com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial areas as the coun­try’s cities expand out­ward. Oth­ers have signs with the logos of the Min­istry of Defense or the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard, but it’s incred­i­bly unclear what they’re producing.

The defense min­istry did not spec­i­fy what was being pro­duced, only describ­ing it as a “work­shop.” Isfa­han, about 350km south of Tehran, is home to a large air force base and a nuclear fuel research and pro­duc­tion cen­ter built for the US-made F‑14 fight­er jet.

The attack comes after the Iran­ian Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion claimed in July that it had thwart­ed a plot to tar­get clas­si­fied facil­i­ties around Isfahan.

In a pro­gram broad­cast on Iran­ian state tele­vi­sion in Octo­ber, sus­pect­ed Kur­dish oppo­si­tion Koma­la, exiled from Iran and liv­ing in Iraq, was trained by the Israeli intel­li­gence agency Mossad to attack mil­i­tary aero­space facil­i­ties in Esfa­han. It was broad­cast that he had planned and confessed.