WSJ: Satellite images show Iran is rebuilding. Fast

Pic.: investinglive.com

Iran has quickly rebuilt infrastructure damaged during the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign over recent months, from missile bases nestled deep inside mountains to bridges, ports and production facilities, according to Israeli and Western officials and a review of satellite imagery, The Wall Street Journal writes.

The faster-than-expected progress worries some Israeli officials. It helps explain Iran’s continued resilience despite an air campaign that involved more than 20,000 strikes at the height of the war and that continues along Iran’s coast in an effort to break Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

Near Kangavar, in western Iran, satellite imagery from Planet Labs in March showed two tunnel entrances and an access road damaged by airstrikes aimed at blocking access to an Iranian missile base. Within weeks, imagery from Airbus revealed a neatly paved road leading to freshly excavated entrances.

In another case, an Israeli military official said Iran repaired a bridge that Israel had struck with three bombs within days, surprising Israeli officials and prompting them to question the effectiveness of their targeting.

Planet Labs satellite images from the beginning of July also showed partial reconstruction efforts at a shipyard in the port of Bandar Anzali on the Caspian Sea that is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary group tasked with defending the regime. Israel said it hit dozens of targets there in March, including warships, the port, a command center and a shipyard used to repair and maintain vessels, aiming at a Russia-Iran supply line and calling it one of its most significant attacks of the war.

Ran Kochav, a former commander of Israel’s air and missile defense forces, said the rapid recovery is consistent with skills Iran demonstrated in rebuilding its infrastructure and missile stockpile after the 12-day Israel-Iran war last June, before the new war began in February.

“They refilled their stockpiles,” he said. “They have very impressive industrialization and reconstruction capabilities.”

Iran faces an enormous, costly and time-consuming effort to dig out from under the damage caused by the U.S. and Israeli attacks. But the speedy work across the country cuts into claims by President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that their bombing campaign dealt a devastating blow.

Israeli military officials have privately voiced frustration with the results of the bombing campaign, pointing to the active rebuilding. One official familiar with the targeting effort thought Israel could have done more damage if it had stayed focused on military sites rather than shifting early in the war to target Iran’s internal security services and even individual checkpoints staffed by the Basij militia in hopes of undermining the regime.

“Iran is rebuilding everything,” the official said. “I am very worried.”

A second Israeli military official said that Iran was capable of rebuilding almost everything, including missile production, as it still has the know-how.

Israel and the U.S. often only succeeded in collapsing entry points to missile bases deep inside mountains rather than destroying them fully, Israeli military officials said. Weapons stored inside these collapsed sites were left intact, and Iran has since been digging them out, they said.

Satellite images from Planet Labs also show partial reconstruction in recent weeks near Tehran at Raja Shimi Industries, a plant believed to be involved in the production of missile components, according to a King’s College London report. The images show several new structures that appear to have been rebuilt.

Some facilities that make more advanced components needed for manufacturing missiles, such as carbon fiber, might take Iran months if not years to re-establish following Israeli and American strikes, said Jim Lamson, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London and former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who wrote the report.

But Iran may have stockpiled those components at underground production facilities that can be used to assemble dozens or hundreds of new missiles and drones in the short term, Lamson said.

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