Iran hit more U.S. military targets than has been reported, satellite images

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/05/06/iran-us-bases-satellite-images/

by SanjayMehta • 3 months ago

155 91 3 months ago

washingtonpost.com

WorkerBee28474• 3 months ago

This is normal. Confirming hits gives your enemy valuable information about their accuracy.

AnimalMuppet• 3 months ago

It also gives them propaganda wins.

iugtmkbdfil834• 3 months ago

Sigh, there would be no need for propaganda wins or worrying about enemy learning about their accuracy level if this elective war did not take place at all.

But none of it is a surprise, is it? Iran was on the list for a while now and last time I mentioned it on this forum, I was laughed, because "it didn't happen yet" either missing the concerted effort to make it happen or being part of the deflection campaign.

dylan6045• 3 months ago

To me the propaganda win would be showing Hegseth saying the US is doing really well and not acknowledging losses while showing all of the damage the US has sustained. In this day and age, only the die hard loyal MAGA followers are unwilling to accept these bald-faced lies, and even their eagerness is waning.

acdha• 3 months ago

There’s always a tension in democratic societies, however, where civilian oversight is important. Claiming the war is going really well until asking for $200,000,000,0000 because it isn’t has little military benefit compared to the political ramifications of preventing public oversight.

resters• 3 months ago

We learned from WikiLeaks that the US government classified (hid) significant information that was not relevant to national security, simply to conceal information about the war effort that would likely have turned public opinion against the war.

That is a clear abuse of power, which like most of the abuses revealed by Wikileaks, Snowden, etc., get solid bipartisan support.

muteh• 3 months ago

It’s not 1943. They know they hit.

seg_lol• 3 months ago

And so does every satellite operator.

dylan6045• 3 months ago

Why is it assumed that they cannot get that information in other ways? If only they had an ally with satellite imaging capabilities that have a vested interest in seeing the US struggle. Sure, they can tune into CNN and see what's being said there too, but to assume that's their sole source of information is just farcical.

snickerbockers2• 3 months ago

There's a limit to how many photos you can take with somebody else's satellite. Even if the russkies are complying with every Iranian request, that would at least serve to deny russia the ability to use their own surveillance resources to their fullest potential.

magicalhippo• 3 months ago

Iran reportedly bought[1] a TEE-01B satellite from China in 2024, giving them quite detailed images directly with ~half meter (~1.7 feet) resolution[2]. Granted they reportedly also got help from Chinese ground stations.

So they could probably just check themselves how it was going, unless they wanted rapid feedback I suppose.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-used-chinese-spy-sa...

[2] https://thedefensewatch.com/product/tee-01b-earth-observatio...

hirvi742• 3 months ago

This allegedly ally has likely considered all the potential advantages and disadvantages and is acting accordingly. Sometimes the smartest move one can make is no move at all.

wesapien• 3 months ago

If only other countries just gave away their sovereignty then we wouldn't have to preemptively take away their sovereignty because if we don't then they will do it to us. If we don't instigate war then it will come to us and our stocks won't go up and contracts dry up.

globalnode• 3 months ago

those satellite images are from the "enemy" lol

Thaxll• 3 months ago

This is nonsense, they have the same information as everyone else right? Iran knows because Russia knows. Even the private sector has satellites. There is no secret.

Waterluvian2• 3 months ago

Americans have a very low tolerance for the true cost of war (which I think is probably a good thing when they’re in the aggressor role).

The full truth of the situation going public is probably one of few ways to pull back on this unchecked government behaviour, given Congress seems all but dead.

pbhjpbhj• 3 months ago

unchecked government behaviour //

It's not "government behaviour", it's unchecked dictator's behaviour. It's not democratic, and the former service personnel who are doing it know they're contravening the constitution, committing war crimes, and so breaking their vows and promises. And all seemingly to just be a lever for Trump and his cronies to pull on to steal multi-generational wealth from everyone invested in USA markets; to add to the multi-generational wealth they're stealing via contracts and just taking as bribes, clear as day, right under the noses of congress.

USAians who support Trump seemed to tolerate his militia and the former USA army being used against your own citizens, and tolerate war-crimes that are written as the definition of the types of orders that soldiers must refuse to carry out.

I wonder how long it took the provinces of Rome to realise Rome had fallen.

sgnelson• 3 months ago

I'm going to go with a "lol, Iran doesn't have access to Russian and Chinese state-based and public satellite imagery?"

Sure, "this is fine."

stavros2• 3 months ago

"This is actually good news for the US."

plugger2• 3 months ago

Iran currently has tasking control of a single Chinese military spy satellite with sub meter resolution. They struck this arrangement before the war. This capability has provided them targeting/tasking info as well as post attack BDA capabilities.

The delay on commercial imagery purchase isn't to hinder Iran, it's to hinder our understanding of the conflict.

spwa4• 3 months ago

Yes, Iran's tactic is to take as many hostages as they can and then vilifying their opponent. Denying or just resisting that tactic, obviously, means denying as much of this as possible, while keeping general correct information about the conflict available.

JohnTHaller• 3 months ago

Iran already has confirmation from Chinese satellites

Game_Ender• 3 months ago

Apple News Link for those that have it: https://apple.news/ATepjelNTSd-GZ0GpBtjjxw

OutOfHere• 3 months ago

Trump and Hegseth have been hiding and covering up way too much about the war wrt the damage incurred.

mythz• 3 months ago

Everyone has to rely on Iran's satellite images to find out what's happening because Trump is censoring the war by forcing a blackout of commercial satellites from providing any images.

Ancapistani2• 3 months ago

The highest resolution imaging satellite Iran has is "Paya", and it's 5m base resolution. These do not appear to be that at all.

Waterluvian2• 3 months ago

I’d bet all the money in my pocket they’re getting imagery from the Russians, who obviously want to maximize pain for the Americans.

Kavelach• 3 months ago

Iran has had access [0] to a satellite capable of capturing images with 0.5 m resolution [1] since 2024.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/iran-used-chinese-spy-sa...

[1] https://thedefensewatch.com/product/tee-01b-earth-observatio...

diego_moita2• 3 months ago

Brazilian proverb: when gangsters fight, I cheer for the fight.

Among Trumpistan, Israel and Iran there is no good guy in this war.

cwillu• 3 months ago

Too bad about the bystanders.

ignoramous• 3 months ago

There's a gulf between run-of-the-mill Brazlian gangsters and military superpowers.

dyauspitr• 3 months ago

Sad because in the US, more than half are the “good guys” with no way to stop what is happening. I’m sure the same is true of Iran too and maybe Israel.

stavros2• 3 months ago

Of these three countries, only one has been trying to stop what is happening so hard that tens of thousands of its people have died protesting.

diego_moita2• 3 months ago

and maybe Israel.

I doubt. Israel is a racist project and zionism is just apartheid with better PR.

Jensson• 3 months ago

80-90% of Iran are the good guys, doesn't really matter if your system still enables bad regimes.

Ekaros2• 3 months ago

So how come these good guys in USA have not punished the previous administrations and their funders for any outright murders they committed over seas? Or at least done the right thing that is ship the responsible and all of their funders to face peers of victims in fair trial following local laws. And here I am talking about drone strikes and campaign donations.

elephant81• 3 months ago

I cant recall a war in my lifetime (45 years) where is has been impossible to have any idea of damage. Very little coming out of Iran, very little out of the US.

The whole conspiracy around the downed airman https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/a-ruse-to-snatch-urani... only adds to it.

bix6• 3 months ago

Paywall.

They were trying to take Uranium out?

tristanj8• 3 months ago

no, it's confirmed bullshit, the uranium is buried under a mountain of rubble and the equipment brought with the special forces (2 MC-130Js worth and ~100 soldiers) is not enough to retrieve anything. There are several tons of uranium buried under the mountain. Any operation to retrieve tons of buried uranium would require dozens of heavy vehicles and weeks to carry out.

the narrative exists for Iranian propaganda purposes because if you look at what happened (US forces set up a forward-operating-base deep within Iranian territory, held it for hours, found the airman, then left without casualties) it's very embarrassing for the Iranians.

tristanj8• 3 months ago

I have no idea what you are talking about. Modern war is far more documented than at any other point in history. Videos of strikes appear on social media within minutes of happening, there are play-by-play recaps of the exact times and locations strikes occur, and on social media people share pre-warnings of strikes ~30 mins before they happen. People announce and post videos of "planes/cruise missiles spotted over Iraq", meaning strikes are imminent.

Realtime updates of this quantity did not exist for any of the Gulf war, Kosovo War, Iraq war.

cardanome• 3 months ago

If you follow established news media, yes. The war is pretty well documented by independent journalists, good information is just harder the find.

I guess it is a combination of established media not doing well financially and lacking in quality and expertise and the general rise of authoritarianism and death of (mainstream) critical journalism. Free press has been severely limited these days.

jmyeet3• 3 months ago

There are some observations we can make here:

1. Drones are a relatively recent evolution but are really a continuation of asymmetric warfare that has been wildly successful post-1945. The US has been woefully unprepared for cheap, mass-produced drones that, as evidenced by these satellite images, are equivalent to high-precision missiles in terms of effectiveness but are substantially cheaper;

2. Censoring these images serves no military purpose. Iran, China and Russia (among others) have access to accurate satellite imagery so censoring these images really just belies a fear of public opinion. Any cost estimates of this war given by the administration (which tend to be $1-2B/day) don't seem to include repairing and replacing lost weapons, radars, facilities, aircraft and other base infrastructure. That's going to be billions more;

3. It seems clear that this war so ill-considered and the US was so unprepared that (IMHO) will go down as the biggest strategic blunder in US history as the US military and Gulf security guarantees have shown to be a paper tiger and there is no military out of this conflict short of the use of nuclear weapons;

4. Despite claims to the contrary, the US does not appear to have air superiority over Iran. The evidence for this is the continued use of missiles and other so-called "stand off" weapons (ie fired at range to avoid SAMs and anti-aircraft batteries);

5. Despite administration claims to the contrary, there are now desperate shortages of munitions for missile defences, Tomahawk missiles and various other missiles. Some of these had already been dseriously depleted in the 12 day War. This has made things substantially worse and it will likely take years to replenish supplies;

6. The future of Gulf bases and secruity guarantees is now unclear given it's now been demonstrated that the US can't protect them; and

7. I'm not sure the UAE (and Duabi in particular) ever recovers from this. The image that Dubai is some stable center for business and finance in the MIddle East has been shattered. Will the wealthy come back knowing the US can't protect Dubai? I honestly don't know. Dubai is a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" (to quote Star Wars). It's key in Iran evading sanctions, Russia evading sanctions and instrumental in the South Sudan genocide (ie there's a trade between UAE arms from the US and stolen South Sudanese gold from the RSF). The UAE has left OPEC. I honestly don't know if this will be a good or bad decision long-term.

There are 3 players in this war and they all have very different goals. Israel wants to wreck Iran. The US wants out. Iran simply needs to survive. I'm not sure where we go from here. To back down, the US would need to split with Israel and that's a pill likely too difficult to swallow given that Israel is the only reason we're in this war at all.

Looming over all this is the upcoming summit between the US and China, currently set for next week. It's already been delayed once because of this war. Having this situation unresolved is going to greatly weaken the American negotiating position. The US may well want to delay it again. If so, (IMHO) China may well cancel it entirely.

jmward01• 3 months ago

You are thinking of air supremacy, not air superiority. We clearly have air superiority. We can conduct operations of our choosing in the places/times we choose, we just can't do it with no ability for enemy intervention. This is also true for the straits, we have superiority but need supremacy for civilian shipping to consider transiting.

rabidonrails4• 3 months ago

Let me give you a new perspective.

First, I agree with you on the drones. They're a new entrant to the battlefield and the US has had to learn to adapt.

You're viewing Iran as a simple country vs. country war. This war is not about just Iran, this war is about energy, technology, and dominance against Russia and China.

Iran is a destabilizing power in the middle east. Not only does it control a bunch of oil itself, but it controls the Strait of Hormuz. This chokepoint means that Iran has had the oppprtunity to disrupt the world's energy supply. If you think you think this isn't a global risk then you don't understand the global economy. Instability in the global economy is a risk to US dominance.

The US has a very strong partner in Israel not only as an outpost, but as a technological partner and a strong intelligence partner. You might read articles about Israel making trouble in the region, but most of this has no true basis. In fact the Arab countries around Israel have enjoyed peace with Israel for quite some time. Further, the other Arab nations (especially the ones that aren't Russia/China aligned) want stability like the UAE, Bahrain, and even SA and they are sick of proxies in the region being used to create instability. They want to sell their oil and they want US and Israeli technology.

There's no question that Iran is/was a threat to Israel - that's well documented. There's no question that Iran is/was a threat to US forces in the middle east, that's documented too.

So, who's the biggest winner if Iran ceases to be a destabilizing force in the middle east and no longer has a chokehold on global energy supply - the US. This truly reenforces US dominance.

Somehow you see this as making China stronger - it doesn't do that. At best it drives Russia closer to China but that has already happened.

Right now the US is energy dominant in almost all categories. Having a strong foothold in the Gulf especially loosely controlling the SoH would solidify this.

Quick side note - air superiority means that you can fly planes around the country without major risks of being shot down. The US maintains complete air superiority since essentially this started. Until the ceasefire they were able to bomb targets at will.

MrBuddyCasino2• 3 months ago

This chokepoint means that Iran has had the opportunity to disrupt the world's energy supply.

So this is a war to prevent Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz, which made Iran close the Strait of Hormuz for the very first time ever, did I get this right.

tw042• 3 months ago

And yet oil was flowing freely for decades because Iran had no reason to pick a fight. All your theoretical doesn’t reflect the real world. Israel started a war the US can’t finish, and even if we were to turn Iran into a parking lot, ignoring the fact the rest of the world would outright shun us, we would literally be in no better shape than before we got into this mess.

Trump is an idiot and thought starting a war would help his odds in the midterm elections, and he needed a bigger distraction from the Epstein files. That’s the beginning and end of it. Any claims that this was some strategic move to assert US dominance is a poor attempt grasping at straws.

IAmGraydon• 3 months ago

An utterly ridiculous assessment that ignores how this destabilization even started.

MrBuddyCasino2• 3 months ago

Correct on all accounts, except that in a „democracy“, controlling public opinion is absolutely vital military.

kshacker• 3 months ago

There is noise for years that China will eventually take over Taiwan. Date set to be 2028 or so. How else to prepare for that than run this war, figure out your weak points and work to fix them.

So maybe US got taught a lesson, but saying it will take years to replenish seems extreme. If that's what it takes, then maybe US was never a superpower and then the 2028 war (hypothetical) would have been a shock. If it got taught lessons, it should use these lessons to improve its capabilities - building drones, resupplying weapons, and fix whatever else is needed. And I am not sure I understand the meaning of phrase "air superiority". It does not mean bombing everything below and taking un-necessary risks. The fact that 7-20 soldiers got killed (and similarly low numbers on Iranian side compared to the Iraq war), is a testament to their ability to reduce risk. Any war will have deaths, but this provided US a stress test like the bankers should have received in 2008.

The question is whether the military and political leadership can learn those lessons or will they pass it on to the next administration. If what is being said is true, this requires a Covid level mobilization effort.

jmyeet3• 3 months ago

I don't accept the premise that China intends to invade Taiwan. Or, rather, that claims certainly requires some proof. This is an idea that the US has been pushing but maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't take fearmongering from the guy who runs the protection racket and sells all the weapons.

The first problem is that China simply doesn't have that military capability. Water is an incredible barrier, even in modern warfare. There are roughly 100 miles of open ocean between mainland China and Taiwan. China would need to transport somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million troops at a minimum with all th elogistics, air support, etc that that entails. They don't have that Navy. They're not building that Navy. Do you have any idea how badly Taiwan or the US could disrupt supply lines over 100 miles of ocean?

At its height, Nazi Germany's army was something like 8 to 10 million soldiers IIRC. You can see the white cliffs of Dover from Calais on a clear day. It's a distance of 17 miles. And that was completely impassable in an era without radar where the Germans essentially had air superiority. Now nobody has that military, not the US, not China, for a large-scale amphibious landing.

Second, China has no need to invade Taiwan. China thinks very long term. They believe this issue will be resolved in the future, possibly far in the futrure. And all but 10 countries agree with them. This is the so-called "One China" policy. It's the official policy of some ~180 countries including the US and all of Europe.

If they had the military and they chose to use it, it would do untold damage to them diplomatically and economically when the world already agrees with them. Think of it like Russia invading Ukraine. Suddenly formerly neutral countries like Finland and Sweden and lining up to join NATO. Do you think that helped Russia's security situation, economy or diplomatic relations?

Lastly, and this is the point where people really get in their feelings for some reason, China has no modern history of imperialism and military intervention. The standard rejoined is "But Tibet!!!". Yeah, that was 1950. There were some other minor border disputes with Vietnam and I think the USSR. This is all projection because the US loves doing imperialism and military intervention. China doesn't have that history.

So, for a country that can't invade, has no need to and has no history of doing similar, one really should question where this idea is coming from.

xbmcuser• 3 months ago

This was known long ago maybe even days into the attack if you follow independent journalists. Made US ask some satellite data companies to stop releasing images to individuals. Now they are just releasing it slowly for US media consumption so that people don't realize how bad it is. They had to bring back installed equipment from South Korea pointed at China that tells you how badly they were hit.

nalinidash• 3 months ago

Can you list few of them?

tristanj8• 3 months ago

[the US] had to bring back installed equipment from South Korea pointed at China

This didn't happen. The only thing that was sent from Korea was interceptors, which there is a global shortage of.

Korea-based THAAD system was not dispatched to Middle East, says USFK commander https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2026-04-22/tha...

mikeyouse2• 3 months ago

Per your link, he denied they moved THAAD but admitted they moved other radar systems…

In previous moves, radars were taken off the peninsula, Brunson said, without specifying their types. “This was in advance of Midnight Hammer,” he said of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June. Some of those have not yet returned to South Korea, but the THAAD systems remain on the peninsula, Brunson said.

And I’m not sure taking the word of the US military in the comment section of an article about how the US Military has been lying about the war is super convincing..

plugger2• 3 months ago

THAAD is the radar systems + missiles. The radar stayed, it was the interceptors that were pulled from Korea. I assume you can accept that to intercept a missile you need tracking and another missile in that system.

drivingmenuts• 3 months ago

Something tells me we're (the US) not winning this war nearly as well as the Trump administration wants us to believe. It's starting to smell like it's not exactly a rose-strewn walk in the park that they thought it would be. We are burning a lot of money for not a whole lot of tangible results and we're burning even more credibility.

All this to bury the Epstein files.

smartbit• 3 months ago

https://archive.is/OcpgB

Iran hit more U.S. military targets than has been reported, satellite images

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