Iranian state television says a defense factory was hit in a drone strike

Drones attacked an Iranian defense factory in downtown Isfahan overnight, state news agency IRNA reported early Sunday.

It included a statement from the Department of Defense that said the attack happened late Saturday and caused minor damage to a roof. According to the report, three drones were shot down by Iranian air defenses.

The ministry did not say who is suspected of carrying out the attack.

Separately, Iranian state television said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in an industrial area near the northwestern city of Tabriz. It said the cause was not yet known as it showed footage of firefighters trying to put out the blaze.

Iran and Israel have long been engaged in a shadow war that has included covert attacks on the Iranian military and others nuclear plants.

Last year, Iran said an engineer was killed and another employee injured in an unexplained incident at the Parchin military and weapons development base, east of the capital Tehran. The ministry called it an accident without giving further details.

Parchin is home to a military base where the International Atomic Energy Agency has said it suspects Iran has been conducting tests of explosive triggers that could be used in nuclear weapons.

in April 2021, Iran blamed Israel for an attack on its underground nuclear facility at Natanz that damaged its centrifuges.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media widely reported that the country had orchestrated a devastating cyberattack that caused a power outage at the nuclear facility. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations conducted by the country’s clandestine military units or its intelligence agency Mossad.

In 2020, Iran blamed Israel for a sophisticated attack that killed its top nuclear scientist.

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program be for purely peaceful purposes. US intelligence, Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency have said Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program up until 2003.

The United Nations’ top nuclear official, Rafael Mariano Grossi, recently warned that Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build “multiple” nuclear weapons if it so desires.

Efforts to revive a 2015 deal with world powers that set limits Iran’s nuclear activities came to a standstill last year. Both the US and Israel have vowed to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons, and neither have ruled out military action.