Internet services suspended across the #Iran after multiple drone strikes on Iranian cities Tehran, Karaj, Narmak, Hamadan, Isfahan, Khoy, Azarshahr and Tabriz. Drone factories and other military installations targeted. Irani fighter jets are hovering in own sky.
(CNN)Drones attacked a military plant in Iran's central city of Isfahan, Tehran said on Sunday.
"An explosion has occurred in one of the military centers affiliated to the Ministry of Defense," the deputy head of security for Isfahan Governorate Mohammad Reza Jan-Nesari told the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Jan-Nesari said the explosion left some damage, "but fortunately there were no casualties."
The state news agency IRNA later said the explosion had been caused by "small drones."
"There was an unsuccessful attack by small drones against a defense ministry industrial complex and fortunately with predictions and air defense arrangements already in place, one of them (struck)," IRNA said in a post on Twitter, citing the country's defense ministry.
"The air defense system of the complex was able to destroy two other drones. Fortunately, this unsuccessful attack killed no one and minor damage was sustained to the roof of the complex."
The ministry said the attack took place at 10:30 p.m. local time. Some reports said several facilities were hit around Iran within a period of a few hours. The Guardian was unable to confirm those reports, but Iran’s IRNA news agency reported a fire at an oil refinery in the northern city of Tabriz, saying one person was injured. It did not say what caused the fire or if it was related to the incident in Isfahan.
Iran’s defence ministry claimed the drone attack was “unsuccessful”, with one drone shot down by air defence and two blowing up when they were “caught in defence traps”. There was “minor damage to the workshop’s roof”.
The deputy governor of Isfahan province, Mohammad Reza Jan-Nesari, said on television there had been “no casualties” from the attack there, adding that “the cause of the incident is under investigation”.
Authorities did not elaborate on the activities at the targeted site, north of the city of Isfahan.
Iran has several known nuclear research sites in the region, including a uranium conversion plant.
There have been a number of explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities in the past few years.
In July, Iran said it had arrested a sabotage team made up of Kurdish militants working for Israel who planned to blow up a “sensitive” defence industry centre in Isfahan.
Israel has long threatened military action against Iran if indirect talks between Washington and Tehran fail to salvage a 2015 nuclear pact. Israel says Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran denies this.
Iranian state television’s English-language arm, Press TV, aired mobile phone video apparently showing the moment that drone struck along the busy Imam Khomeini Expressway that heads northwest out of Isfahan, one of several ways for drivers to go to the holy city of Qom and Tehran, Iran’s capital. A small crowd stood gathered, drawn by anti-aircraft fire, watching as an explosion and sparks struck a dark building.
“Oh my God! That was a drone, wasn’t it?” the man filming shouts. “Yeah, it was a drone.”
Those there fled after the strike.
That footage of the strike, as well as footage of the aftermath analyzed by The Associated Press, corresponded to a site on Minoo Street in northwestern Isfahan that’s near a shopping center that includes a carpet and an electronics store.
The Defense Ministry only called the site a “workshop,” without elaborating on what it made. Isfahan, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) south of Tehran, is home to both a large air base built for its fleet of American-made F-14 fighter jets and its Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Center.
Separately, Iran’s state TV said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial zone near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known, as it showed footage of firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze.
State TV also said the magnitude-5.9 earthquake killed two people and injured some 580 more in rural areas in West Azerbaijan province, damaging buildings in many villages.
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