The damaged radar equipment is near the 8th Shekari airbase, just north-east of Isfahan, a central Iranian city where the sounds of multiple explosions were reported early on Friday morning.

A report by CNN, also citing satellite imagery, said there was no evidence of extensive damage at the airbase, suggesting it was a deliberately limited attack.

“There [do] not appear to be any large craters in the ground and there are no apparent destroyed buildings,” CNN’s report said.

Israeli media reports also suggested that the attack was targeting infrastructure used to provide air cover to Natanz, a secretive facility involved in Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israeli intelligence and defence analyst Ronen Solomon told The Telegraph: “From what we have seen, Israel’s strike intended to neutralise Iran’s air defence advance systems that cover Natanz and Isfahan’s nuclear sites that are involved in enrichment and could convert it to a uranium metal for a bomb.

“This is like a yellow card in football before the red card that is a full strike to destroy them.”

Limited attacks

He claimed the “limited attacks” meant Iran would now scramble to restore the defence systems, starting with those around Isfahan city, a key area in terms of Iran’s nuclear and defence capabilities.

Senior US military sources told Fox News that the attack was intended to be a warning to Tehran that Israel was capable of striking the nuclear programme if tensions escalated. It showed that Israel “can reach out and touch you”, the source said.

Israel’s strike was calculated to show Tehran that it could bypass Iranian defence systems undetected and paralyse them using a fraction of the firepower Iran deployed last week, Western officials told the New York Times.