The IDF attacked the largest petrochemical facility in Iran, located in Asaluyeh, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Monday. With that operation and another last week, Iran’s two major petrochemical facilities, together accounting for 85% of the country’s total petrochemical exports, are out of action.
“The IDF has now aggressively attacked Iran’s largest petrochemical facility located in Asaluyeh—a major target responsible for about 50% of the country’s petrochemical production, after last week’s second major facility was attacked,” Katz said.
The two attacks constitute “a severe economic blow to the Iranian regime, amounting to tens of billions of dollars.”
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue to attack the national infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime with all its might,” Katz added. “The Iranian terror regime will discover that the continued aggression against Israel and the cowardly and criminal fire at Israeli citizens will lead to the deepening of the economic and strategic damage it is paying and the collapse of its capabilities.”
Israel’s strike follows one on Saturday where its warplanes struck a petrochemical complex in southwestern Iran that the military said was an essential site for producing and exporting chemical materials to the regime’s armed forces, including a “critical component for ballistic missiles” used to target the Jewish state.
As part of the strikes in Mahshahr in Khuzestan Province, the Israeli Air Force targeted a site housing one of two main facilities used to produce materials for explosives, missiles and other weapons.
Katz said following a situation assessment on Sunday that “the petrochemical industry has provided the terrorist organization—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—with about $18 billion over the past two years, directly serving Iran’s ballistic missile production industry.” He warned that as long as rocket fire toward Israeli civilians continues, “Iran will pay painful prices that will erode and collapse its national infrastructure.”
