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A series of US and Israeli strikes has according to analysis sunk or crippled a minimum of eleven Iran's navy ships since the weekend, freshly analyzed orbital imagery reveal, with launch facilities and nuclear sites also sustaining hits.

Pictures of the southerly Konarak military port and the Bandar Abbas port installation, which is located on the strategic Hormuz Strait and is home to the main command of the Iranian navy, depict black smoke pouring from a number of warships on recent days.

Naval Fleet Incurred Substantial Losses

Among the targets eliminated was the IRINS Makran, Iran's biggest warship which had served as a drone carrier. Orbital photos indicated black smoke rising from the ship which had been stationed at the Bandar Abbas naval base.

Intelligence reports state that no fewer than a quintet of warships at Bandar Abbas were "struck or destroyed". Pictures of the southern end of the harbor depict smoke emanating from the Makran, while additional ships are visibly impacted, with a single one visibly ablaze.

At the Konarak base, photos show numerous damaged ships, with analysis pointing to damage to six vessels. Pictures taken on the start of the week also show that a number of facilities at the installation have been leveled.

"For decades the Tehran government has disrupted global maritime traffic," a senior US military official said. "Today, there is not a single Iranian vessel operational in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz or Gulf of Oman, and we will persist."

Some ships reportedly destroyed may have been obscured in satellite images by haze or plumes, or struck at sea, and have not been conclusively proven. Separate reports suggested that an Iranian vessel was going down off the coast of Sri Lankan territorial waters, prompting a rescue operation.

Rocket Installations and Nuclear Locations Hit

Neutralizing Iran's rocket sites and the prevention of atomic bomb programs were listed as additional objectives of the military strikes. Aerial imagery also depicted damage at the southern Khorgu and northwestern Tabriz missile missile bases, and at the Konarak air base, where rocket warehouses and bunkers were targeted.

Over at the Choqa Balk-e drone UAV facility west of Kermanshah, significant destruction was observed to warehouses, bunkers and unmanned aircraft systems.

Destruction was also observed at a radar installation at the Zahedan airbase military airport in eastern Iran, close to the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Significantly, the most recent series of attacks have apparently targeted sites at the Natanz complex – long said to be at the core of Iran's nuclear programme. A global monitoring agency commented that the affected buildings were used for access to the facility's underground nuclear plant and that "no radiological consequence" was anticipated.

Broader Consequences and Assessment

Defense experts stated that the offensive appeared to have "greatly reduced" the Iran's naval capability to sustain conventional attacks using its most significant vessels. But, it was stressed that Tehran maintains the option to launch unconventional attacks at sea through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, small submarines and its so-called "clandestine network" of oil ships.

The overall scale of the damage caused to Iranian military facilities is still uncertain, with strikes reportedly ongoing. Pictures also indicates widespread destruction to the command center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the city of Tehran.

A large number of civilian buildings also are reported to have been struck in the capital and across Iran after the fighting escalated. Toll estimates from local officials state that many hundreds of non-combatants may have been killed in the attacks.

As the situation develops, monitoring of space-based data will carry on to document the evolving scope of damage.