Israeli plane focused the bunker of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on June 16, in accordance with a report by the Iranian state-affiliated media outlet Fars. The president was barely injured within the assault, which was a part of a broader air marketing campaign launched in opposition to the nation from June 13-24. Six bombs of unknown measurement focused entry factors to a secret underground facility in western Tehran, the place the president and different senior officers had been attending a gathering of Iran’s Supreme Nationwide Safety Council. The bombs reduce energy to the ability, forcing the president to flee via an emergency shaft which injured his legs. In accordance with the native outlet, the failed assault appeared to have been modelled on a strike which killed Hezbollah chief Secretary Normal Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut in September 2024.
Claims of commonality between the operations concentrating on Tehran and Beirut stay questionable, because the latter assault noticed a number of house buildings levelled and over 300 individuals killed after F-15 fighters dropped over 80,000 kilograms of explosives to penetrate a bunker. Related assaults in opposition to fortifications in Iranian inhabitants centres aren’t thought of viable because of the a lot higher capabilities of air defences in place. Israel has been capable of launch penetration bombings deep inside Iranian airspace, however solely utilizing F-35I fifth technology fighters with superior stealth capabilities. These plane are fielded in solely restricted numbers, and are a lot lighter than the F-15s used to focus on Hezbollah’s management, whereas being additional constrained by the necessity to carry their bombs in restricted inside weapons bays when in stealth configuration.
Each when configured for stealth, working deep inside Iranian territory stays extremely harmful for F-35 items, with 4 of the plane reported to have been shot down through the two nations’ 11 days of hostilities. Ought to claims be Iranian sources be true {that a} main underground advanced in Tehran was focused utilizing bombs, slightly than missiles, it’s extremely probably that F-35s had been accountable, as Israel fields no different plane with comparable survivability for such penetration missions. A major weak point of Iranian defences stays the nation’s lack of contemporary fighter plane, with its predominantly Vietnam Struggle period fleet thought of lengthy since out of date, inserting a heavy burden on the nation’s extra trendy ground-based air defence community. Tehran itself was guarded by Iran’s most superior fighters, MiG-29A/UB early fourth technology fight jets ordered from the Soviet Union in 1989. The capabilities of those fighters are thought of overwhelmingly inferior to these of contemporary MiG-29 variants such because the MiG-29M, and moreso to these of newer fighter lessons such because the J-10C or Su-35. The shortage of a viable fighter fleet is taken into account to have been a pivotal issue in Tehran’s failure to discourage Israel and its supporters within the Western world from initiating hostilities.
