by WorldTribune Staff, October 27, 2024 Contract With Our Readers

After seeing key components of his nation’s missile infrastructure destroyed by precision Israeli air strikes, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the international community to forge a “military coalition” to confront the Jewish state.

The Israeli Air Force practicing aerial refueling of fighter jets in Israeli airspace. The exercise simulated long-range flight deep behind enemy lines on Aug. 18. / IDF photo

The Israel Air Force struck a dozen targets in Iran on Friday night that were used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles, severely harming Teheran’s ability to replenish its inventory, reports say.

In response to the attack in the aftermath of a series of assassinations of the leadership of its key proxies Hamas and Hizbullah, Khamenei said: “A global coalition must be formed, as well as a political coalition, an economic coalition, and, if necessary, a military coalition, against the malicious Zionist regime that is committing the most brutal war crimes today.”

The Israeli Defense Forces said that Friday’s strikes were necessitated by relentless attacks on Israel by Hizbullah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and, on two occasions, the Iranian military itself. Those attacks have continued in the year since Hamas, another Iran-backed group, launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.

The targets struck on Friday were sophisticated equipment that Iran could not produce on its own and had to be purchased from China, Walla reported. The targets were a critical component of Iran’s ballistic missile program, Walla cited three anonymous Israeli sources as saying.

Related: Iran prioritizes ties with Turkey, Russia after Sinwar; Nasrallah’s fatal miscalculation, October 22, 2024

“Israel says they targeted buildings housing solid-fuel mixers,” David Eveleth, an associate research analyst at Washington, DC-based think tank CNA, told Reuters. “These industrial mixers are hard to make and export-controlled. Iran imported many over the years at great expense, and will likely have a hard time replacing them.”

With a limited operation, he said, Israel may have struck a significant blow against Iran’s ability to mass-produce missiles and made it more difficult for any future Iranian missile attack to pierce Israel’s missile defenses.

“The strikes appear to be highly accurate,” he said.

The Arabic independent online newspaper Elaph reported that Israel targeted a secret ballistic missile factory in Iran, destroying a large number of heavy fuel mixers used to power Kheibar and Haj Qasem missiles – both of which were fired by Iran at Israel at the beginning of the month. The report also claimed that Russian-made S-300 air defense batteries were attacked were and radars that feed these systems and others in Syria and Iraq were destroyed.

The report said that the ballistic missile factory was completely destroyed. One source told Elaph that it was the “backbone of Iran’s missile industry” and that Israel had “put it out of service,” also reporting that each heavy fuel mixer destroyed was estimated to be at least two million dollars and about twenty mixers of this type were destroyed.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement in response to a “completely false” local television report that Israel had avoided striking Iranian gas and oil facilities because of U.S. pressure.

The Biden-Harris administration had no influence in how Israel chose its targets in Iran, Netanyahu said. The prime minister said his country chose where to strike based on “national interests, not according to what America dictates.”

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  Iran’s Khamenei calls for global ‘coalition’ to confront Israel after ‘highly accurate’ strikes, WorldTribune.com