[By Guancha Net Columnist Hammas]
The新一轮 conflict between Israel and Iran continues to escalate. Despite Iran's two rounds of missile attacks on Israel, the results have been minimal so far.
In comparison, Iran's ability to counterattack with medium-range missiles has shown particular weakness in this conflict, suffering heavy losses, which has attracted widespread attention and questions. As an important force in the Middle East, Iran has always been highly regarded in terms of military equipment and tactical deployment. However, this conflict has exposed its obvious shortcomings in missile defense and counterattack capabilities.
Given that Israel's attack targets appear to be Iran's nuclear facilities, we will start from this part to discuss Iran's nuclear capabilities and the vulnerabilities present in this round of conflict.
Zero, Introduction to Relevant Information on Iran's Nuclear Facilities
1. Yellow Cake Factory
Alardakan Yellow Cake Production Plant
The Alardakan yellow cake plant has an annual processing capacity of about 50-70 tons, perfectly matching the annual production potential of the Sangand uranium mine. This facility is named after Iranian scientist Darioush Rezaeinejad, who was assassinated in 2011.
Bandar Abbas Uranium Processing Plant
This uranium processing plant began trial operations in July 2004, producing 40-50 kilograms of yellow cake using ore from the adjacent Gachin uranium mine (Gachin Uranium Mine), with an annual processing capacity of 21 tons of uranium.
Both of these factories lack protective bunkers.
2. Uranium Conversion Facility
Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility
The uranium conversion facility at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center has multiple production lines capable of converting yellow cake into uranium dioxide (UO₂) and uranium hexafluoride (UF₆). Among them, the line for converting yellow cake into uranium hexafluoride has an annual processing capacity of 200 tons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pointed out in 2004 (the same year the first UCF production line was completed) that the uranium hexafluoride produced by this facility would be transported to the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, where it would be enriched to a 5% uranium-235 content. This factory lacks bunker protection.
3. Uranium Enrichment Facility
Natanz Fuel Enrichment Complex
The Natanz Fuel Enrichment Complex is the core base of Iran's gas centrifuge program. This nuclear complex consists of a ground-level "fuel enrichment test plant" (PFEP) and an underground "fuel enrichment plant" (FEP). PFEP serves as a centrifuge research facility for R&D and testing of centrifuge-related technologies and production lines. The mature production lines are located underground at FEP.
Despite multiple layers of safety precautions, this location has been attacked several times by Israel through various means (such as the famous "Stuxnet" virus). Therefore, since 2023, Iran has attempted to transfer centrifuges to nearby newly built Zagros Mountains bunkers to prevent them from being destroyed by airstrikes.
Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant
The Fordow fuel enrichment plant is located near Qom and was converted from old IRGC bunkers. It was designed to withstand military strikes from the outset. This facility began construction between 2002 and 2004 to produce weapons-grade uranium. Iran’s 233 kg of 60% enriched uranium is believed to be stored here for use in a nuclear sprint at an appropriate time.
4. Nuclear Warhead Plant
The Parchin complex, located northeast of Tehran, is entirely made up of bunkers. According to Mossad-revealed information, the Parchin complex consists of two building complexes, one for producing solid ballistic missile propellant and the other for producing and designing nuclear warheads.
According to information disclosed by Mossad, Iran has completed the design of nuclear bombs and even produced untested atomic bombs, but Iran ultimately hesitated to make a decision.
5. Heavy Water Research Facility
The Arak Heavy Water Research and Production Complex, located in western Iran, features several heavy water research reactors and a heavy water plant for studying plutonium and heavy water. This complex is the center for Iran's research on enhanced atomic bombs and plutonium route atomic bombs. This complex lacks bunker protection.
Other nuclear-related facilities are not discussed further, please forgive me.
One, The Storm Before the Storm
On April 19, the second round of formal talks on the Iranian nuclear issue between the US and Iran took place; in mid-May, the second round of US-Iran nuclear negotiations continued to reveal disharmonious signals. The expectations of all three parties—US, Israel, and Iran—to reach a second round of the Iran nuclear deal by June 13th kept decreasing. Under pressure of security concerns or to extend their political lives, Netanyahu's government issued military threats against Iran. Meanwhile, Iran also sensed the increasing possibility of Israel using air forces to conduct tactical strikes against Iran, initiating the largest-scale air defense exercise of 2025, "Eqtedar 1404".
On June 12, General Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Iran, announced the launch of the Eqtedar 1404 air defense exercise, and died the next day.
This exercise began preparations around May 3rd and ran from May 3rd to June 8th, involving Shiraz, Tehran, Isfahan, and other locations.
The Shiraz Electronics Industry Group (SEI) is the largest subsidiary of the Iranian Electronics Industries Corporation (IEI), handling almost all the research and production of military electronics technology in Iran. Most of Iran's independently developed radars and air defense missile systems are tested in Shiraz. The importance of Tehran needs no explanation, and Isfahan is Iran's second-largest city and a center for nuclear technology. It can be seen that Iran's main nuclear technology centers are concentrated between Tehran and Isfahan, the two major cities.
Iranian Main Nuclear Facility Locations
Based on satellite imagery analysis, Iran deployed several new types of radars and air defense systems during this air defense exercise, aiming to deter Israeli Air Force attacks.
Various New Iranian Air Defense Systems
New Iranian Anti-Stealth Radar
Considering that most of Iran's key facilities are located in Tehran and Isfahan, Iran's air defense weapons are also concentrated here. Below is a map of the positions of Iran's air defense weapons in April 2025, made by foreign osinter.
It can be seen that most of the air defense systems are located in Tehran and Isfahan.
In addition, during the air defense exercises, the commanders of the air force and anti-aircraft defense were stationed at several major air defense command centers in Iran, laying the groundwork for the "one-pot stew" on June 13th.
As the deadline for the June 13th nuclear negotiations approached, the tension gradually reached its peak.
On June 8, Iran announced that it had obtained confidential documents on Israel's nuclear program through the Lebanese channel and would release them in batches.
On the 10th, the U.S.-based office of the Iranian opposition government (a channel for CIA and Mossad spy documents) released more confidential documents on Iran's nuclear program obtained by Mossad/CIA.
On the 11th, the U.S. announced the evacuation of some staff from the Iraqi embassy and the evacuation of family members from all Middle Eastern embassies. On the same day, some foreign companies began evacuating personnel from the Middle East.
On the 12th, Iran released the first batch of obtained Israeli nuclear secrets documents and officially announced the start of the air defense exercise.
Everything seemed to be waiting for June 13th to arrive.
Two, Black Friday
Early in the morning on June 13 local time, Israel launched a large-scale air strike on Iran. The operation code-named "Awakening Lion" included the following five rounds of attacks:
1. First airstrike — assassination of senior Iranian officials
2. Assassination of Iranian scientists (completed jointly by Mossad and IAF)
3. Attack on Natanz nuclear facilities and Tehran area air defense systems
4. Attack on Iran's western area air defense systems
5. Suppression of Iran's medium-range missile launch bunkers
After the five rounds of attacks, a large number of bombings targeted Iran's medium-range missile bunkers/command nodes/ammunition depots/military factories/airports, etc. In particular, Israel invested a large number of bombs to suppress Iran's medium-range missile bunker targets, resulting in no Iranian medium-range missiles being fired toward Israel within 24 hours of the start of the air strike on June 13th.
Startling bombing of the bunker targets by the IAF in Tabriz
Although the IAF struck several of Iran's nuclear facilities and claimed to have destroyed the underground uranium enrichment facilities at the Natanz nuclear facility, the enrichment facilities had already been transferred to nearby mountains, and Israel only bombed the old surface areas of the site.
Iran's most robust nuclear facility—the Fordow nuclear facility—stores 233 kg of 60% enriched uranium. Although Israel also claimed to have attacked Fordow, it did not announce the destruction of the facility. At the same time, Israel did not strike the Parchin nuclear warhead production facility located in northeastern Tehran in the first round of attacks. This shows that Iran's nuclear sprint capability remained relatively intact as of June 14th, while other nuclear facilities with only surface structures were more vulnerable.
Israel's published underground part of the Natanz nuclear facility
Satellite image showing the non-bunker parts of the Natanz nuclear facility were destroyed, while the bunker parts were not yet bombed
Destroyed buildings in Tehran
This attack was different from previous ones in that Israel received U.S. permission to use F35 aircraft to attack targets within Iran. In the past, the U.S. has been cautious about providing Israel with long-range strike weapons (such as AGEM158 Tomahawks) and did not allow Israel to use F-35 aircraft in Iran. Previously, Israel could only use F15 and F16 aircraft and modified "Blue Sparrow" series air-launched ballistic missiles for airstrikes on Iran. These ballistic missiles have very small payloads, making them almost indistinguishable from direct kinetic kills.
Below is the effect of Israel's Sparrow ballistic missile striking Iran's long-range early warning radar. As can be seen, this ballistic missile cannot destroy any antenna arrays, only blowing up a radar control room about the size of a guardhouse. Such "touching" strike effects, combined with the lack of stealth fighters for SEAD/DEAD operations, allowed IAF aircraft to only dare to stay near the Iraq-Iran border to launch air-launched ballistic missiles or cruise missiles, giving Iran confidence in facing the IAF.
Effect of Sparrow ballistic missiles striking Iran's radar
However, unlike previous attacks, the IAF, authorized by the United States, unlocked its full potential. It turns out that the Tehran air defense circle still cannot withstand F-35 aircraft. Below are the author's statistics of the situation in Tehran City attacked by Israel on June 13th at noon.
According to open-source messages, as of Beijing time June 13th at 12:00 PM, 16 locations in Tehran were attacked, including supporting residential areas near Tehran University, Iran University of Science and Technology, and Sharif University of Technology (for assassinating nuclear scientists), an air defense command center in central Tehran (possibly killing the commander), several residences of government officials in northern Tehran, and a radar station in western Tehran.
In this operation, Israel almost decapitated the entire leadership of the Revolutionary Guards system. The residence of Khamenei was suspected to have been attacked, indicating the deep penetration of Mossad/CIA into Iran (if the leaders of the Revolutionary Guards were blown up, then who leaked the information about the Revolutionary Guards' high-ranking officials? Could it be Khamenei himself?).
In addition, according to official Israeli announcements, the commander of the air defense forces and the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force were killed in an underground air defense command post. This naturally raises doubts about the reliability of Iran's bunkers. Of course, such statements might also be Israeli information warfare.
According to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Katam al-Anbia air defense headquarters is Iran's highest air defense command facility, coordinating information sharing between Iran's Revolutionary Guard air defense forces and Iran's armed forces air defense forces. If the IAF really blew up the Katam al-Anbia air defense headquarters, then Iran's road-based radar automated air situation sharing would basically be gone, leaving only local air defense units to fight individually or use other less efficient methods for information sharing.
Notably, Israel imitated Ukraine's "Spider Web Operation" during this operation, pre-deploying destruction teams using Spike missiles or drones near ground-to-air missile sites or medium-range missile bunkers. They destroyed discovered ground-to-air/TEL equipment at the first opportunity, greatly crippling Iran's air defense and strategic counterattack capabilities.
Destroyed "March Third" air defense system by unmanned munitions
Destroyed Iranian ballistic missile launcher
Israel's destruction teams even destroyed Iran's advanced ground-to-air missile "March Fifteenth" system, which is equipped with Sayyad-2/3 series semi-active air defense missiles and "Najm-804" series S-band active phased array radars, with a defensive range of up to 120 km (though the destruction team destroyed it in an un-deployed state).
Destroyed radar of the "March Fifteenth" ground-to-air missile system, note the launcher in the upper left corner
IAF officially announced the destruction of Iran's RAAD/S300/Hawk/March Third/Tabas air defense systems, and will not detail each one here. Iran itself tried to build two sets of anti-stealth fighter systems. There are conventional meter-wave radar anti-stealth systems and infrared/optical guidance ground-to-air missile systems. However, based on existing data analysis, Iran's anti-stealth radar cannot directly provide fire control information to ground-to-air missiles, only serving as an air situation radar. And Iran's infrared/optical passive detection-guided ground-to-air missiles currently do not seem to achieve the goal of countering F-35.
"Merhan" infrared/radar composite-guided ground-to-air missile
"Majid" optical/infrared composite-guided ground-to-air missile
Of course, the author is not saying that Iran's ground-to-air missile systems have become worthless. On June 13th, some videos of Iran intercepting Israeli ballistic missiles were reported, and some debris of interception missiles were found. On June 14th, Iran even claimed to have shot down an Israeli manned aircraft. But no matter what, Iran's constructed air defense system did not accomplish its envisioned mission, leading us to realize that developing an "one-legged air force" relying solely on ground-to-air defenses is insufficient for modern warfare.
Three, Delayed Counterattack
In the 24 hours following the Israeli air raid, Iran only organized a medium-scale drone counterattack and did not carry out any medium-range missile counterattacks. On June 14th, Iran launched a medium-range missile counterattack (operation code name "True Promise 3"), but so far, Israeli fighter jets continue to attack Iran's mainland, and the anticipated suppression of airports has not been achieved.
So, what problems exist in Iran's construction of medium-range missile bunker counterattack capabilities?
Iran has three types of medium-range missile bunker structures. Figure 1 is the most common type, featuring prefabricated openings and ammunition storage bunkers. These launch silos are generally compatible with both solid and liquid missile launches (solid missiles are placed on conveyor belts), as liquid missiles require entering the silo for vertical erection and injection (Figure 4), so the openings are relatively large, plus Iran's poor construction capabilities, lacking sufficient strength launch covers, and many are directly exposed, making these openings prone to collapse, and Iran may be unable to clear obstacles in the short term, leading to delayed retaliation.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figures 5 and