Satellite imagery has revealed that Iran has started regaining access to its underground missile facilities, reported CNN based on figures from Airbus Defence and Space.
The development casts doubt on US President Donald Trump’s claims of having all but obliterated Tehran’s arsenal, said CNN.
During the war, Israeli-US strikes put many of these complexes out of commission by blocking their entry points, trapping a large portion of Iran’s launchers and crippling its ability to fire missiles.
“Now, using just bulldozers and dump trucks, Iran is undoing the effects of a strategy that involved an enormous amount of Israeli-US firepower,” added CNN.
According to the report, since the ceasefire between Iran and the United States began, Iran has cleared at least 50 access points at 18 missile sites.
Airbus satellite images from April 10 showed efforts to remove debris from the blocked entrance to a tunnel at a missile base south of Tabriz.
Additional satellite imagery showed debris being cleared at a missile base in Khomein, where a truck was seen removing rubble from a tunnel entrance while waste-removal trucks waited nearby.
The Pentagon stands by the success of its campaign.
CNN also reported that Iran has already restarted some of its drone production during the six-week ceasefire that began in early April, one sign it is “rapidly rebuilding certain military capabilities” degraded by US-Israeli strikes, according to two sources familiar with US intelligence assessments.
Four sources told CNN that US intelligence indicates Iran’s military “is reconstituting much faster than initially estimated.”
The rebuilding of military capabilities, including replacing missile sites, launchers and production capacity for key weapons systems destroyed during the current conflict “calls into question claims about the extent to which US-Israeli strikes have degraded Iran’s military in the long term.”
While the time to restart production of different weapons components varies, some US intelligence estimates indicate Iran could fully reconstitute its drone attack capability in as soon as six months, one of the sources, a US official, told CNN.
“The Iranians have exceeded all timelines the IC had for reconstitution,” the US official said.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume combat operations against Iran if the two countries fail to reach a deal to end the war.
“Iran has been able to rebuild much faster than expected due to a combination of factors, ranging from support it is receiving from Russia and China to the fact that the US and Israel did not inflict as much damage as the two countries had hoped,” one of the sources told CNN.
For example, China has continued to provide Iran with components during the conflict that can be used to build missiles, two sources familiar with US intelligence assessments told CNN, though that has likely been curtailed by the ongoing US blockade.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS last week that China is giving Iran “components of missile manufacturing” but declined to elaborate further.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun denied the allegation during a press conference, calling it “not based on facts.”
