Israel has bombed Iran

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Daytime missile attack on Tel-Aviv minutes ago. Many interceptions, several impacts.




60 IAF Jets Strike 20+ Military Targets in Tehran

The IDF struck key nuclear and missile sites across Tehran, including:
- Uranium enrichment & centrifuge sites
- Missile & air defense production facilities
- Nuclear weapons R&D centers

So far, over 70 Iranian air defense missile batteries were struck in five dedicated waves in over 900 air strikes.

To a lesser degree, Israel is still sporadically bombing Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Who's next on the menu?


IRGC claims a missile launch was carried out using a Sejjil Two-Stage Medium-Range Ballistic Missile, which entered active service in around 2014, with this being its first operational combat use since the war began with Israel.


Israel’s attack and the limits of Iran’s missile strategy




More booms incoming...


Iran's Arak Nuclear Complex has been in a sort of limbo as part of Iran's nuclear latency efforts. The core is believed to have been filled with concrete. IDF strikes may be intended to destroy the entire facility Osirik style to prevent it ever being put to use. Just heard from GLZRadio Israel confirmed via IDF this location was just hit.

Israel’s military warns people to evacuate the area around Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor

The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.

Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.

In 2019, Iran started up the heavy water reactor’s secondary circuit, which at the time did not violate Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Britain at the time was helping Iran redesign the Arak reactor to limit the amount of plutonium it produces, stepping in for the U.S., which had withdrawn from the project after President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has been urging Israel not to strike Iranian nuclear sites. IAEA inspectors reportedly last visited Arak on May 14.

Due to restrictions Iran imposed on inspectors, the IAEA has said it lost “continuity of knowledge” about Iran’s heavy water production -- meaning it could not absolutely verify Tehran’s production and stockpile.

As part of negotiations around the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to sell off its heavy water to the West to remain in compliance with the accord’s terms. Even the U.S. purchased some 32 tons of heavy water for over $8 million in one deal. That was one issue that drew criticism from opponents to the deal.

Iran's nuclear sites:

Natanz enrichment facility

Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, located some 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, is the country’s main enrichment site. Part of the facility on Iran’s Central Plateau is underground to defend against potential airstrikes. It operates multiple cascades, or groups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uranium. Iran also is burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or “Pickaxe Mountain,” which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing. Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Two separate sabotage attacks, attributed to Israel, also have struck the facility.

Fordo enrichment facility

Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo is located some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Tehran. It also hosts centrifuge cascades, but isn’t as big a facility as Natanz. Buried under a mountain and protected by anti-aircraft batteries, Fordo appears designed to withstand airstrikes. Its construction began at least in 2007, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Iran only informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog about the facility in 2009 after the U.S. and allied Western intelligence agencies became aware of its existence.

Bushehr nuclear power plant

Iran’s only commercial nuclear power plant is in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, some 750 kilometers (465 miles) south of Tehran. Construction on the plant began under Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war. Russia later completed construction of the facility. Iran is building two other reactors like it at the site. Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.

Arak heavy water reactor

The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of Tehran. Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon. Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.

Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center

The facility in Isfahan, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) southeast of Tehran, employs thousands of nuclear scientists. It also is home to three Chinese research reactors and laboratories associated with the country’s atomic program.

Tehran Research Reactor

The Tehran Research Reactor is at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the civilian body overseeing the country’s atomic program. The U.S. actually provided Iran the reactor in 1967 as part of America’s “Atoms for Peace” program during the Cold War. It initially required highly enriched uranium but was later retrofitted to use low-enriched uranium over proliferation concerns.

Iran has several major nuclear program sites, now the subject of negotiations with the US

Operation Opera also known as Operation Babylon, was a surprise airstrike conducted by the Israeli Air Force on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometres (11 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq.


Damn litter!




Times of Israel reporter:




The USS Ford and Carrier Strike Group Twelve (CSG-12) is expected to be deployed to Europe next week, near to the Middle East, putting a third aircraft carrier in close proximity to the conflict between Israel & Iran. The scheduled deployment has been in the books since late last year. But Ford will likely move into eastern Mediterranean Sea, near Israel, given the ongoing conflict.

Composition includes:
- USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78)
- Carrier Air Wing 8 (9 squadrons)
- Aegis Destroyers: USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81), USS Mitscher (DDG-57), Mahan (DDG-72), Bainbridge (DDG-96), Forrest Sherman (DDG-98)

I'm sure a few subs are nearby.