Iran claimed on the night of Saturday January 28 to Sunday January 29 to have repelled an attack on a military site located in Isfahan, in the center of the country.
“An attack, which failed, was carried out using drones on one of the Ministry of Defense equipment complexes”explained the latter, quoted by the Irna agency, adding that she did not cause a victim but only “minor damage to the roof” of a building.
“The attack, which happened around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday [21 heures à Paris]did not cause any disturbance in the operation of the complex”affirmed the ministry which specifies that one of the drones was destroyed by the anti-aircraft defense system of the site, while the other two exploded.
No victim
A video widely circulated on social networks, the authenticity of which Agence France-Presse could not verify, shows a loud explosion on the site and images of emergency vehicles then heading towards the area.
The deputy governor of Isfahan province, Mohammad Reza Jan-Nesari, also said on television, that the attack did not “no victim”adding that an investigation has been opened to define the causes.
The authorities did not give details on the activity of the targeted site, located in the north of the big city of Isfahan.
The announcement of this attack comes in a tense context against the backdrop of a protest movement in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in September, accusations by certain countries of supplies by Tehran of drones to the Russian army for the war in Ukraine , and persistent differences on the nuclear issue.
Nuclear program
Iran has several known nuclear research sites in this region, including a uranium conversion plant. In April 2022, Tehran announced that it had started producing 60% enriched uranium at the Natanz site, approaching the 90% needed to make an atomic bomb.
Negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, the European Union and six major powers have stalled after the United States exited in 2018. The deal was aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, a goal that Iran has always denied pursuing.
The nuclear program has been the target of several campaigns of cyberattacks, sabotage and targeted assassinations of scientists. Iran has thus accused Israel of having carried out several secret actions on its soil, including an attack, perpetrated according to Tehran using a satellite-controlled machine gun, which killed a leading nuclear physicist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, in November 2020. .