We sensed that Iran bombed US military bases with help. Some coordinates have revealed its name, and it is Made in China

During the Gulf War, a group of Iraqi soldiers were located in the middle of the desert not by ground patrols, but by images taken from satellites that detected recent vehicle tracks in the sand. That episode marked one of the first moments in which looking from space began to be so decisive how to shoot from the ground. A satellite as an invisible weapon. A series of leaked documents held by the Financial Times have revealed that Iran not only had missiles and drones to attack US bases, but also a much quieter and decisive tool: an observation satellite capable of provide precise coordinates before and after each blow. The system, known like TEE-01Bwas acquired by the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in late 2024, after its launch from China, and allowed Iranian commanders to monitor key installations throughout the region, identify targets with a level of detail unprecedented for the country and evaluate the impact of their attacks in almost real time. In other words, what seemed like a direct fire war actually hid a previous layer of orbital intelligence which multiplied the effectiveness of each operation. A secret agreement. The middle counted in its exclusive that behind this capacity is a little visible but strategic agreement with Chinese actors, one that not only facilitated access to the satellite already in orbit, but also to the infrastructure necessary to operate it from any point in the world. This model, based on the “in orbit” transfer and in networks of globally distributed ground stations (a little-known export model by which spacecraft launched in China are transferred to customers abroad once they reach orbit), allowed Iran to overcome one of its main weaknesses: the vulnerability of its own facilities to attack. By outsourcing control and data flow, Tehran turned a commercial asset on a military tool difficult to neutralize. Satellite image of the Prince Sultan Air Base From limited precision to a qualitative leap. The technical impact of this jump is key to understanding its importance. Compared to its previous systems, incapable of clearly identifying complex targets, the new satellite offered high resolution images (the TEE-01B is capable of capturing images with a resolution of approximately half a meter) that allowed aircraft, vehicles and changes in military infrastructure to be distinguished. This transformed Iranian attack planning from general estimates to data-driven decisions, and consolidated a combination of human intelligence, satellite imagery, and external support that significantly elevated Iran’s operational capabilities. Attack on the bases. Among the records they obtained showed that the satellite captured images from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 13, 14 and 15. On March 14, Donald Trump confirmed that American planes at the base had been hit. Five US Air Force refueling aircraft were damaged. The satellite also carried out surveillance of the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan and from locations near the naval base of the Fifth Fleet of the United States in Manama, Bahrain, and the airport in Erbil, Iraq, around the date of the attacks claimed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard against facilities in those areas. Launch of TEE-01B And more bases. Other areas monitored by the satellite included Camp Buehring and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, the US military base Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Duqm International Airport in Oman. Also included in the Persian Gulf civil infrastructure monitored was the Khor Fakkan container port and the Qidfa desalination and power plant in the United Arab Emirates, as well as the Alba plant in Bahrain, one of the largest aluminum smelters in the world. Decades of relationship that explain the present. In parallel to FT reportthe New York Times published this morning one piece where he explains that these types of advances are not an isolated event, but rather the result of a relationship built over decades between Iran and China in the military and technological field. Since the 1980s, when Beijing supplied weapons directly, to recent decades, when it has opted for more discreet support based on components, dual technology and knowledge transfer, cooperation has evolved. to adapt to sanctions and regional balances. In that process, China has gone from selling weapons to facilitating capabilities that allow Iran to develop and improve its own without openly exposing itself. Strategic ambiguity as a tool. One of the most relevant elements of this relationship has been its ambiguous characterwhere the border between civil and military is constantly blurred. Commercial companies, seemingly neutral technologies and systems designed for civilian uses end up being integrated into military structures, offering China a way to influence without assuming directly the political cost of explicit support. This approach allows for simultaneous relations with Iran’s regional rivals while strengthening its strategic capabilities. A new type of war. In short, the end result is a scenario in which the battlefield no longer begins on land, but miles away from herin orbit, where information has become the most decisive factor and actor. The combination of satellites, global networks and discreet agreements It redefines that way of waging war, allowing actors with fewer resources to compensate for their limitations through access to advanced technology. In that context, the history of the TEE-01B It is not just that of a satellite, but how a network of cooperation and decades of technological evolution can completely transform the way an attack is planned and executed. Image | US Navy, Planet Labs In Xataka | The US already has the first response to its blockade of Hormuz: a boomerang of unpredictable consequences called China In Xataka | The US has closed all exits from the Strait of Hormuz. And now Iran can put into practice what it has been preparing for 25 years

They have analyzed the coordinates of the rescue of the pilot in Iran. Not only do they not add up, they point to a very different mission from the US

In the most complex military operations, it is not uncommon for open data (images, coordinates or videos) to allow reconstruct scenarios with a level of detail that was previously only available to the intelligence services. In recent years, independent analysts have come to identify locationsmovements and even operational failures crossing public information in a matter of hours. Because sometimes, the key is not in what is told, but in how they fit (or don’t) the visible pieces. The official version: Mission Impossible. It we count yesterday. The official narrative describes a rescue operation on a large scale to recover a crew member from an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down in Iran, with special forces deployed on the ground, multiple aircraft involved and direct confrontations with Iranian units. The pilot would have survived thanks to his training, emitting a signal from an elevated area while elite teams located and extracted him in a complex but successful mission. However, from the beginning it has attracted attention the enormous cost material, with aircraft destroyed or damaged worth hundreds of millions of dollars, something disproportionate for a conventional rescue operation. The first step: follow the coordinates. More than 48 hours after the rescue, the analyst of the popular Simplicius Substack has compiled all the information that has appeared about the operation. Its analysis begins by dismantling the official version based on a basic element: geolocation. The first information places the demolition in the southwest of Iran, near the coast (about 80 km), an area consistent with the type of operations that a combat fighter of this type would carry out. The problem? That the appearance of the subsequent videos and remains identified on the land that we commented yesterdaywith C-130 transport planes and destroyed American helicopters, appear at hundreds of kilometers awayin the vicinity of Isfahan, which introduces a contradiction that is difficult to ignore and forces us to rethink the entire sequence of events. One more thing. As clarified Also the analyst, the geolocation of the CSAR (rescue operation) only showed a group of search helicopters passing through that areathat is, it did not geolocate the remains of the downed F-15E. For all we know, those helicopters could have been passing from there to the place of the accident in Isfahan. However, it must be remembered that even official sources from the main US media outlets, all with direct contacts in the government, initially reported that the accident occurred precisely in the area where the CSAR helicopters were sighted and geolocated. That is, the inconsistency in the geolocation found is not based solely in a single test. Plus: it seems evident that it makes more sense for an F-15E to be operating in the coastal area and not hundreds of km deep in Isfahan dropping short-range bombs, a task that should correspond to stealthier aircraft. Even so, a subsequent geolocation supposedly located the F-15E accident just south of Isfahan. C-130 and MH-6 helicopters destroyed The pieces don’t fit. From there, the data has accumulated inconsistencies that further distort the official version. For example, the use of huge transport planes to rescue a single pilot, the alleged mechanical failures that forced to destroy aircraft on the ground despite evidence of impacts and shrapnel through images and videos. Not only that. The lack of coherence about how was he evacuated to the staff after these failures generate more than reasonable doubts. What real chance is there that the two MC-130s that flew some 100 US special forces members to Iran to rescue the last F-15 crew member, suffer at the same time mechanical failures and could not take off? But even if it were true,how they managed then remove that same number of people after both planes suffered those “mechanical failures”? The photo used for geolocation, which shows the crater, belongs to an original series of photos with remains of the F-15E The landing strip. Each detail, in isolation, could be explained, but together they draw a pattern that suggests something else was going on. In fact, the analyst explained that the geolocated remains of the C-130s, which apparently used a local “agricultural landing strip”, are located just on the other side of a mountain, about 35 km from the Isfahan nuclear facilitywhere Iranian near-military-grade enriched uranium is supposedly stored. This result comes from the previous image, that is, this would place the distance between the two places of the remains at about 25 km. The location to the northwest is the F-15E crash site, and the location to the southeast is the C-130 wreckage field. The geolocated remains of the C-130s, which apparently used the agricultural landing strip (32.223369, 51.897678), and which are located just on the other side of a mountain, about 35 km from the Isfahan nuclear facility, where Iran’s near-military-grade enriched uranium is supposedly stored Plot twist: the nuclear hypothesis. That proximity, just 35 km southeast of one of Iran’s main uranium deposits, it doesn’t seem casual and opens an alternative hypothesis: that the rescue operation was actually a cover for a mission much more ambitious. In fact, Trump I had already spoken to extract Iranian uranium, an operation that would require the construction of landing strips in the country. Therefore, it is plausible that the plan was already underway for some time, while the American president bought time by stating that it was only a theoretical “possibility” under consideration. Under this scenario, the presence of special forces, the volume of resources deployed and the risk assumed seem to fit better as part of a clandestine operation than as a simple rescue. A parallel narrative. With the official data taken together, the story evolves towards a different interpretation in which airstrikes, special forces activity and even the possible disinformation campaign attributed to the CIA They would be part of a coordinated operation to distract, confuse and execute deeply hidden objectives. Of course, the rescue would still be real, but it would cease to be the main objective and become the … Read more

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