MILITARY TECHNOLOGYAssessment of Israeli Strike on Iran near Esfahan
The Israeli attack on the S-300 missile defense system deployed around Iran’s nuclear facility in Esfahan demonstrated the capability of Israeli stand-off weapons to target deep inside Iran, evading detection and air defenses, leaving Iran’s nuclear and military facilities more vulnerable to attack.
The Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution Airbus Pleiades Neo satellite images of Iran’s Eighth Shekari Air Base taken shortly after the reported Israeli attack on the S-300 missile defense system deployed at the base. Figure 1 shows an April 19 image showing the damage to a S-300 mobile radar, deployed in a central position to the missile launchers, elevated on a mound. The attack shows the capability of Israeli stand-off weapons to target deep inside Iran, evading detection and air defenses, leaving Iran’s nuclear and military facilities more vulnerable to attack.
The Attack
Israel reportedly struck inside Iran, near the city of Esfahan, early on Friday morning, April 19, 2024, in response to a large-scale attack on Israel by Iran over the previous weekend. Iranian media originally reported that three small drones were downed with little to no damage. However, subsequent reporting by The New York Times indicates that Israel fired multiple missiles from outside Iran, and Iran was unable to detect or shoot them down. 1 One missile reportedly struck its target, while a second detonated midair. An Israeli official announced that the second missile was deliberately destroyed by the Israeli Air Force after the first successfully hit the target. 2 Israeli officials stated that quadcopter drones were also used to confuse Iranian air defenses.
According to The New York Times, Israeli officials stated that, “an antiaircraft battery in a strategically important part of central Iran” was hit by a missile.3 Iranian officials also evidently privately admitted to The New York Times that an S-300 anti-aircraft system, stationed at a military air base near Esfahan, was damaged in the strike.
The Eighth Shekari Air Base in northwest Esfahan is the only one in the area publicly known to host this type of Russian-supplied anti-aircraft system; Wikimapia published a geotag for it labeled as C-300 six years ago (“C” in Cyrillic is transliterated to “S”),4 and it can be seen in Google Earth imagery starting in 2017. Post-attack satellite imagery analyzed by The New York Times reportedly showed damage to the S-300 system at the Eighth Shekari Air Base in Esfahan, stating that, the attack “damaged or destroyed the ‘flap-lid’ radar, which is used in S-300 air defense systems to track incoming targets.”5
