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Iran is stepping up its preparations for war at its sprawling underground missile bases hidden beneath five layers of concrete.

Opposition groups revealed previously unseen images of the regime’s missile sites which are littered across Iran.

Hidden bases are said to be buried beneath up to five layers of concrete to fend off bomb blasts and missile strikes, Daily Star Online can reveal.

The largest of the sites is alleged to be the base at Khojir – known as Code 7500 – with a tunnel around 1,000 metres long packed with missiles.

Pictures have previously been revealed by Iranian state media of inside the bases.

And now unseen aerial photos of some of the mysterious sites have been released to this website, sourced by People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

(Image: X80001)

Shahin Gobadi, of the opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), revealed they estimate the Iranian regime has ploughed “billions of dollars” into its missile programme.

He added since the signing of the now-cancelled nuclear deal, the Iranian missile force has been stepping up its efforts with the purpose of “warmongering”.

Iranian military forces burrowed out most of its sprawling tunnel complexes from between 1997 to 2002.

Despite a flurry of activity at the turn of the millennium, some sites are believed to date back as far as 1984.

The underground networks were built with the express intent of concealing missiles and to act as “launching sites to intimate and threaten” Iran's neighbours, Gobadi said.

Missile bases are primarily found around the Persian Gulf, but Code 7500 is found just outside Tehran.

It is alleged the Iranian regime used shell companies linked to the Revolutionary Guard – a powerful military faction in Tehran – to covertly construct the sites.

(Image: NCRI)

Pictures provided to Daily Star Online by the NCRI show missile sites with tunnel complexes around Iran.

Images of Khojir show the military base with at least three roads appearing to go burrowing beneath a nearby hillside.

Code 7500 is believed to be the final construction site of the Shahab 3 medium-range missiles.

In western Iran there is the Imam Ali base, which also has a road disappearing into a mountainside.

Finally, the Lar garrison is hewn into the terrain in western Iran – once again vanishing underground.

(Image: NCRI)

Lar is described by NCRI sources as a “sprawling tunnel complex” that is “highly protected and secure”.

It is this complex which is believed to have been featured in the regime propaganda – being dubbed the “missile city”.

Mobile phone signals are blocked around the base.

Other sites – such as the Queshm Missile Centre on the Iranian coast – are understood to be hidden under up to five layers of concrete.

Iran has allegedly used the facility to export missiles to their proxy forces in Yemen.

(Image: NCRI)

Mr Gobadi told Daily Star Online: “In the span of more than three decades, the regime has invested billions of dollars in its missile force.

“To this effect, by devoting enormous resources, it has extensively used technology acquired from other countries, in particular from North Korea.”

He added: “The clerical regime stepped up its ballistic missile tests and forward positioning of exported missiles to the countries in the region, including Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, for warmongering purposes, subsequent to the signing the nuclear agreement in July 2015.”

Iran is believed to use a network of proxy forces to supply weapons to terrorist forces to cause chaos in the Middle East.

And Iran has been roundly the blamed by the West for the recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities which brought the Middle East to brink of a third Gulf War.

NCRI forces said the exact number of missiles in the regime’s arsenal remains unknown.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Reports from the Centre for Strategic and Internal Studies (CSIS) describe the Iranian arsenal as the “largest and most diverse” in the Middle East.

CSIS estimates claim Iran has at least 12 types of operational missiles, with a further four in development.

“Missiles have become a central tool of Iranian power projection and anti-accts/area denial capabilities,” it said.

It also describes Iran has providing proxy groups with a “steady supply of missiles and rockets”.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Mr Gobadi told Daily Star Online: “From its inception, the clerical regime has relied on domestic repression and export of terrorism and warmongering in the region as two pillars of its survival.

“The missile program is an integral part of this belligerent strategy.

“Crises from all directions have engulfed the Iranian regime, including ongoing protests and strikes as well as an upsurge in activities by resistance units of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) at home.

“As popular resistance inevitably weakens and isolates the regime domestically, it will step up its activities to export terrorism and its brand of Islamic fundamentalism to distract from the Iranian people’s aspirations for regime change.

“The regime is unlikely to stop exporting terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism as it will lose its reason for existence and driving force, thus accelerating its downfall.”

(Image: X80001)

Iranian-allied Houthi rebels were initially blamed for the attack on the Aramco oil plants in Saudi Arabia, but the accusations have shifted to single out Iran.

Fears of a third Gulf War have flared since the US cancelled the so-called nuclear deal.

It exchanged a reduction in sanctions for a commitment for Iran not to develop nuclear weapons.

US President Donald Trump’s administration has now reimposed crushing sanctions, which have led to a series of clashes in the Middle East.

Britain’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the UK Government has also concluded Iran was behind the attack on Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s latest alleged attack came amid months of tensions in region, including a string of attacks on oil tankers and a tit-for-tat seizure of shipping between Tehran and Britain.

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

Tehran also shot down a US military drone, which sparked a military response by the US.

Trump claims he cancelled a planned strike at the eleventh hour as planes were in the air in June.



Iran has warned it will destroy any aggressor as the region sits on a knife edge.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is understood to be considering various options but is wary of the UK being dragged into a third Gulf War.

(Image: X80001)

Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said the regime will not succumb to economic pressure from the West.

In an interview with NPR, he said: “We are resisting unprovoked aggression by the United States.

“I can assure you that the United States will not be able to bring us to our knees through pressure."

"Abandon the illusion that Iran can be defeated by pressure.”

Zarif has previously warned that if the US or Saudi Arabia militarily attacked Iran, it would lead to “all out war”.