The Israeli military said it attacked Iran’s sprawling Mahshahr petrochemical complex on Monday, its first strike there since a cease-fire was agreed between the countries on April 7.
The Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex, as it is formally known, is Iran’s largest such site. It is near the southern city of Mahshahr and Bandar Imam Khomeini, a major industrial port on the Persian Gulf. The facility is made up of more than 50 separate petrochemical plants and produces about 72 million tons of products annually, according to Iran’s oil ministry.
One of the installations, the Karun petrochemical plant, was hit twice at around 7:30 a.m., Iranian state media reported. No casualties were reported, a local official told Fars, a separate semiofficial news agency, but the facility was damaged. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps condemned the attack as a “dangerous game,” and threatened to expand how it retaliates against Israel, including by targeting energy-related sites.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Monday that it had struck several sites at Mahshahr, which it said were used by Iran’s military to manufacture raw materials for its ballistic missile program.
The Mahshahr complex was previously hit in early April, which prompted criticism that Israel was targeting Iran’s civilian economy. At the time, Iranian officials reported that the strikes had effectively shut down all production across the complex by targeting two utility plants that provided basic services.
As Iran seeks to diversify its economy away from oil, it has become increasingly dependent on exporting petrochemical products, which account for about a quarter of total exports, according to Iranian media reports.
The Mahshahr complex produces a wide range of basic chemicals, polymers and other materials with many uses. Karun, the Iranian petrochemical company that operated the facility targeted on Monday, says on its website that it specializes in the production of isocyanates, a highly reactive class of chemical used in the making of plastic products.
Israel has previously maintained that plants at Mahshahr were “dual-use,” meaning that they produced chemical materials that have both civilian and military purposes, and were therefore legitimate targets.
Dual-use infrastructure is civilian by default, but it can be lawfully targeted in times of war if it makes an effective contribution to the enemy’s military action and offers a definite military advantage, according to experts in international law. Even if a facility is considered dual-use, however, the Geneva Conventions require armed forces to ensure that any attack against it must be proportionate.
