The IDF reportedly hit a research facility around 20 miles from Tehran

Israel destroyed a secret nuclear weapons site during its missile strikes against Iran in October, Axios claimed on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex around 20 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios said, citing three unnamed US officials, one current Israeli official, and one former Israeli official.

A former Israeli official told the outlet that the strike destroyed “sophisticated equipment” used to make explosives for the detonation of nuclear devices. 

The Islamic Republic halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 but continued related research and expertise, according to past US intelligence assessments. US President-elect Donald Trump tore up the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement during his first term in office. Tehran responded by rolling back its own participation in the accord and ramping up the enrichment of uranium.

Read more

Iran insists that it only conducts nuclear research for civilian purposes. “We have repeatedly emphasized that we do not seek nuclear weapons,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said in September. “Our goal is to meet our technical and scientific needs.”

On October 1, Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in response to the war in Gaza and the assassinations of top Hamas and Hezbollah officials. According to the Israeli military, the vast majority of the missiles were intercepted mid-air. The only fatality of the strikes was a Palestinian man killed by a falling missile fragment in the West Bank.

Israel carried out its own strikes on Iranian military sites on October 25. According to Iranian officials, four soldiers and one security guard were killed.