Communications sites have circulated video footage of the explosion at the heavily fortified Parchin facility in southeast Tehran.
The Parchin facility is engaged in the research, development and production of chemical weapons, laser technologies for uranium enrichment, as well as high-explosive testing of nuclear weapons, as well as the production of missiles and weapons. In April last year, the Intel Lab security research team released satellite imagery showing the expansion of buildings at Parchin Base. It includes four new buildings surrounded by anti-explosive embankments. In November 2020, dozens of new buildings were completed at the site, surrounded by high, thick concrete walls.
And in June 2020, there was an explosion from a tank leak in the same area at a gas storage facility, and the accident was among the mysterious explosions that rocked Iranian facilities, including the Natanz uranium enrichment plant at the time. Suspicions of the existence of secret nuclear activities of a military nature were one of the burning issues that preceded the implementation of the nuclear agreement in mid-January 2016.
In 2015, Tehran allowed the then-director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the late Yukiya Amano, to enter the base and take environmental samples from a military facility to assess “potential military aspects” of Iran’s nuclear program.
