IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and the head of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, have announced that the campaign against Iran has entered the “next phase.”

In this phase, the United States and Israel aim to inflict severe and crippling damage to the entire military system in Iran, dismantling the chain of military capabilities from production to finished weapons. For ballistic missile production, that means disrupting the entire process from beginning to end, starting with missile production plants, progressing to missile storage facilities and launchers and ending with the commanders and troops who ultimately operate the weapons.

To that end, the IAF struck one of Iran’s most complex and sensitive military industry sites Thursday, the Parchin military complex. The compound houses multiple military production facilities, including the following:

• Production of warheads, engines and other systems used in Iran’s missile and weapons programs
• Storage of all the above
• Facilities to repair and maintain all of the above

As one of the major centers for Iran’s production of military capabilities, the strike on the Parchin complex represents a major setback for Iran’s military. The site not only produces ballistic missiles but also houses facilities tied to Iran’s nuclear weapons research.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s intergovernmental agency for overseeing nuclear efforts around the world and ensuring that countries adhere to nuclear protocols, confirmed that Iran has carried out tests of conventional weapons at the site and released a report more than 10 years ago showing that these tests were connected to efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.

Israel attacked the Parchin complex in October 2024 and assessed that the damage it inflicted significantly delayed missile production at the site. The IAF also struck the site during the 12-day war in June, which sustained light damage, but at the time, the IAF concentrated its efforts mostly on degrading Iran’s nuclear capabilities and missile production sites that it had not previously touched.