Israel's strikes on Iran explained in maps & visuals

Military tensions in West Asia escalated after Israel’s targeted strikes on more than a dozen key installations, including three nuclear facilities, and eliminated the majority of Iran’s military leadership early on Friday morning.

A nuclear power plant at Bushehr in southern Iran, the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz in central Iran, and an under-construction nuclear research reactor site in Arak, nearly 230 km southwest of the capital Tehran, were targeted by Israeli forces, according to geo-located footage and the think tank Institute of Study of War (ISW).

However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), after speaking to Iranian authorities, said nuclear sites in Isfahan, Bushehr, and Fordow were not impacted. The Natanz fuel enrichment facility was targeted, but no increase in radiation levels was reported, it said, indicating that the key parts of the facility may not have been impacted.

Natanz is Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility, and is situated more than 300 km south of Tehran.

Israel, the US and other Western nations have long objected to Iran’s nuclear fuel enrichment programme, claiming that it is meant to manufacture nuclear weapons.

An Israeli official has claimed Iran had enough material to make 15 nuclear bombs within days.

KEY LEADERS, SCIENTISTS KILLED

At least five important Iranian figures have been killed in the Israeli strikes. The chief of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami, Army chief Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of Iranian forces unified command Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters (KCHG), Major General Gholam Ali Rashid are among those killed, Iran’s state media reported.

The strikes also killed two nuclear scientists: Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi.

TUSSLE OVER NUCLEAR POWER

Iran dismantled a few nuclear sites after signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with the US and several other Western powers in 2015 in exchange for relief from sanctions placed on Tehran. But President Donald Trump pulled the US away from this deal three years later, claiming it failed to curtail Iran’s missile program and regional influence. Iran began ignoring limitations on its nuclear program in 2019.

Recently, Iran announced that it had completed the construction of another nuclear facility at a “safe” location, but didn’t provide details.
Washington and Tehran have held several rounds of indirect talks mediated by Oman.

The US has said it didn’t wish to see strikes on Iran. After the start of the Israeli air strikes on Iran, President Trump said that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and that the US was hoping to get back to the negotiating table.

The strikes seemed imminent when the US announced to pull back non-essential staff from its embassy in Iraq and families of servicemen from many airbases in the region earlier this week.