Iranian sources and a US official have said that a military building inside Iran was the target of a suicide drone strike earlier this week.
According to a New York Times article, the strike targeted the Parchin military complex using “quadcopter suicide drones.”
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The operation, which also killed an Iranian engineer and injured another, targeted a building reportedly used for drone development.
NYT cited Iranian sources as saying the drones were launched from inside Iran. Although Israel is believed to have been behind the attack, its officials have not commented. A US official told the NYT that the drones targeted Parchin but did not say who carried out the attack.
This revelation comes just days after Israel was blamed for the assassination of an IRGC official who was driving his car in Tehran.
Iran said it would respond to the IRGC official’s killing.
But Tehran has not publicly admitted to the drone strike on Wednesday, with the Ministry of Defense only saying that an “incident” took place at Parchin and that it resulted in one “martyr.”
The site came under renewed scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2015 when Tehran reached a landmark deal with major powers under which it agreed to curb its nuclear activities under UN supervision in return for the lifting of international sanctions.
Iran had previously denied the IAEA access to Parchin, insisting it was a military site unrelated to any nuclear activities, but the agency’s then-chief, the late Yukiya Amano, paid a visit.
In June 2020, a gas tank explosion in a “public area” near the complex shook the capital, 30 kilometers (20 miles) away, but caused no casualties, the defense ministry said at the time.
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– With AFP
