The central Iranian city of Isfahan is home to a number of important military facilities, including nuclear facilities, a major airbase and factories associated with Iranian drone and other military production.
Initial reports by Iran’s Fars news agency from the Friday morning Israeli attacks centred on “three explosions” heard near Qahjavarestan, close to Isfahan airport and the Shekari army airbase, while Iran’s space agency spokesperson Hossein Dalirian said “several” drones had been “successfully shot down”.
Iranian officials said that its nuclear facilities “were secure”. The Natanz uranium enrichment plant, Iran’s best known nuclear facility is located in the wider province, while a uranium conversion is carried in the city’s south-eastern Zardanjan area.
Video from the Tasnim news agency from Zardanjan showed two different anti-aircraft gun positions, and details of the video corresponded with known features of the Isfahan uranium conversion facility.
“At 4.45, we heard gunshots. There was nothing going on,” the reporter said. “It was the air defence, these guys that you’re watching, and over there too.”
The facility at Isfahan, which began construction in 1999, operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, as well as handling fuel production and other activities for Iran’s civilian nuclear programme. The site appears to have been hit by an explosion in November 2011.
Isfahan is also home to a major Iranian airbase which has held Iran’s ageing fleet of American-made F-14 Tomcats – bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution. Some initial speculation suggested that a radar facility at the base may have been the intended target of an attack.
Equally important are Iran’s weapons production facilities in and around the city. Early last year an attack, blamed on Israel, was launched on what was reportedly an advanced weapons production facility in the city, which like the current claimed strike involved three drones.
As in the current attack there were wildly conflicting accounts from Iranian officials, who claimed that two drones had been shot down and another had inflicted only minor damage to the factory’s roof.
