Following reports of explosions close to a major airbase in the city of Isfahan, Iran activated its air defense batteries early on Friday morning, according to the state-run news agency IRNA.
If the nation was being attacked, that much was still unknown. But after Iran attacked Israel with an unprecedented missile and drone attack, tensions are still high. According to one government official, drones may have targeted these locations.
A request for response from the Israeli military was not immediately answered.
According to IRNA, the defenders opened fire in multiple provinces. People in the vicinity reported hearing the noises, but it did not go into detail as to what caused the batteries to catch fire.
Specifically, IRNA said that air defenses opened fire on a significant airbase in Isfahan, which has long housed Iran’s fleet of F-14 Tomcats, manufactured in the United States and acquired prior to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The sound of explosions was also reported by the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, but no reason was given. “Loud noise” was acknowledged on state television in the vicinity.
There are also locations connected to Iran’s nuclear program in Isfahan.
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over 4:30 a.m. local time, the airlines Emirates and FlyDubai, based in Dubai, started making detours over western Iran. Although local advisories to pilots indicated that the airspace might have been blocked, they provided no explanation.
Later, Iran declared that commercial aircraft were being grounded in Tehran as well as in parts of its central and western regions. Customers at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport were alerted to the situation by loudspeakers, according to alleged internet videos.
Without providing any further details, Iranian state television initiated an on-screen alert that scrolled and acknowledged a “loud noise” in the vicinity of Isfahan.
A representative for Iran’s civilian space program, Hossein Dalirian, said on the social networking site X that multiple small “quadcopter” drones had been shot down. Where that occurred and whether it was connected to the ongoing event in Iran were not immediately apparent.
Meanwhile, residents of Baghdad, in Iraq, the home base of several militias backed by Iran, reported hearing explosion sounds, though it was unclear whence the noise originated.
