The IDF said Thursday it struck the Taleghan site at Iran’s sensitive Parchin military complex, saying Tehran had sought to use the facility to advance capabilities linked to nuclear weapons development.
The military said the site had been used in recent years to develop advanced explosives and conduct sensitive tests as part of AMAD Project, the secret Iranian nuclear weapons program that Israel says operated in the early 2000s.
The site was previously struck in October 2024 after Iran’s second ballistic missile attack on Israel that year, the military said. Israel accused Iran of continuing efforts tied to its nuclear program and said it had recently identified work to restore the site after that earlier attack.
“The Iranian regime has continued efforts to advance and develop capabilities required for the development of a nuclear weapon,” the military said in a statement. It said the latest strike was part of an ongoing effort to deny Iran the core components needed to obtain such a weapon.
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Satellite images appear to show damage at the Taleghan facility
(Photo: AFP PHOTO / Satellite image ©2026 Vantor)
Satellite images published Thursday appeared to show three large holes in a concrete structure that Iran had built over the facility at the sprawling Parchin complex, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from Tehran. The holes resembled, to some extent, damage previously documented at Iran’s Fordow site after a U.S. strike there, raising the possibility that bunker-busting munitions were used, though that could not be independently confirmed.
Earlier satellite images published from around October 2025 showed fortification work around the site. A structural frame was built first, followed by the placement of a metal roof. By February, that roof also had been covered with a concrete structure.
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The Parchin military complex
(Photo: 2026 Planet Labs PBC and Vantor/Handout via REUTERS)
David Albright, a U.S. nuclear expert, had warned before the war began that Iran could turn the Taleghan 2 facility into what he described as an unrecognizable bunker that would provide protection from airstrikes. The Institute for Science and International Security, which Albright founded, wrote last month on X that Iran had previously used the facility to test explosives that could be used in the device intended to trigger a chain reaction and detonation in a nuclear bomb.
The Israeli Air Force struck the Parchin compound, where the Taleghan 2 site is located, last Thursday, according to the military. The compound is considered one of Iran’s largest and most sensitive defense industrial sites. It houses major military industries, including facilities involved in the production and storage of warheads, engines and systems for missile and munitions arrays, as well as sites used to repair and maintain equipment for Iran’s heavy military industry.
Damage was also documented at the complex during an earlier Israeli operation, though at that stage the military’s strikes focused on other nuclear and missile sites that had not previously been targeted.