Drone hit targets Iran military site
Engineer reported killed; 2nd injured
A drone strike this week targeted a highly sensitive military site outside Tehran, Iran, where the country develops missile, nuclear and drone technology, according to three Iranians with knowledge of the attack and a U.S. official.
The strike Wednesday evening hit the site of the Parchin military complex, about 37 miles southeast of the capital, with quadcopter suicide drones, according to the Iranian sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The drones exploded into a building used by the Ministry of Defense for research on drone development, killing a young engineer who worked at the ministry and injuring another person, they said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. A statement from Iran’s Ministry of Defense indicated that it viewed this as an attack, not an accident.
Israeli officials refused to comment.
A U.S. official confirmed that suicide drones had attacked Parchin but did not say who was behind it or offer any further details.
Israel and Iran are increasingly pushing the boundaries in their long-running clandestine war.
The targeting of a drone research facility at Parchin follows a pattern of Israel trying to counter Iran’s growing drone capabilities.
Israel considers the use of drones by its enemies, especially Iran, as a major threat to its security because drones can evade Israel’s advanced antimissile systems like the Iron Dome. A senior Israeli military official said the country was investing significant resources to locate and destroy enemy drones.
In the face of long-standing suspicions that its nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons, Iran has insisted it is for peaceful purposes only.
The United Nations’ watchdog has said it has not found proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
The drone attack Wednesday was launched from inside Iran, not far from the Parchin military base, according to the Iranian sources with knowledge of the attack. Quadcopter drones have a short flight range and Parchin is a long way from Iran’s borders.
This would not be the first time that Israel had used operatives inside Iran to carry out attacks.
A statement by Iran’s Ministry of Defense on Thursday used the word “incident” instead of “accident” to describe what happened at Parchin and called the engineer who died a “martyr.” The statement said one of the research units of the Defense Ministry in the Parchin area was hit.
Several well-known social media accounts affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, including that of military analyst Hossein Dalirian, also posted that the engineer was a “martyr.”
The senior editor of the conservative Iranian news site Tabnnak, Mostafa Najafi, said Thursday in a Twitter post that he later deleted: “Israel attacked a ministry of defense facility with a few suicide quadcopter drones.”
The military facility at Parchin has for years attracted international scrutiny.
In 2011, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that some countries were suspicious that Iran had experimented with developing nuclear weapons at Parchin. The agency’s inspectors gained access to the site in 2015.