AN ISRAELI attack on Iran damaged facilities at a secretive military base Southeast of the Iranian capital that experts in the past have linked to Tehran’s onetime nuclear weapons programme and at another base tied to its ballistic missile programme, satellite photos analysed Sunday by ‘The Associated Press’ show. Some of the buildings damaged sat in Iran’s Parchin military base, where the International Atomic Energy Agency suspects Iran in the past conducted tests of high explosives that could trigger a nuclear weapon.

 

Iran long has insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful, though the IAEA, Western Intelligence agencies and others say Tehran had an active weapons programme up until 2003. The other damage could be seen at the nearby Khojir military base, which analysts believe hides an underground tunnel system and missile production sites. Iran’s military has not acknowledged damage at either Khojir or Parchin from Israel’s attack early on Saturday, though it has said the assault killed four Iranian soldiers working in the country’s air defence systems. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately 

 

IRAN’S supreme leader said on Sunday that Israel’s attack on Iran this weekend “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” though he stopped short of calling for retaliation. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s remarks are the latest suggesting Iran is carefully weighing its response to the attack. Already, Iran’s military has said a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip or Lebanon trumps any retaliatory attack on Israel, though Iranian officials also have said they reserve the right to respond. “The evil actions of the Israeli regime two nights ago should neither be exaggerated nor downplayed,” Khamenei said. “The miscalculations of the Israeli regime must be disrupted. It is essential to make them understand the strength, will, and initiative of the Iranian nation and its youth.” He added: “It is up to the authorities to determine how to convey the power and will of the Iranian people to the Israeli regime and to take actions that serve the interests of this nation and country.

 

 ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel’s strikes “severely harmed” Iran and that the barrage “achieved all its goals.” He spoke on Sunday, a day after Israeli warplanes hit several military targets in Iran in retaliation for an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month. Warning Iran’s “proxy” Hezbollah for the “grave mistake" after a drone from Lebanon targeted his private residence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “assassination” attempt will not deter him or Israel to “eliminate” the terrorists and “those who dispatch them.”