Thread on Iran's very first missile base and first missile tunnel: the Shahid Montazeri Garrison near Kermanshah. 34.482781° 47.010240°
In November 1984, Iran's missile force began to take shape. While Moghadddam and his team were busy training in Syria, he tasked his deputy with finding a facility for Iran's first Scuds. It was the first big task for 22-year old Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Relatively quickly, he identified Shahid Montazeri Garrison as a candidate that met all requirements: decent facilities, Scud-range to Baghdad, a mountain for tunneling and it even came with a lake where Moghaddam and his band of brothers would frolick in summers.
Digging a simple tunnel to protect launchers and missiles from aerial attack was the next task. It's quite likely that the Iranians chose this basing mode after their study trip to Syria but it's also possible they came up with it independently. 34.479226° 47.015689°
At first, the IRGC's Khatem al-Anbiya was instructed with construction but after their OPSEC left something to be desired, an own engineering unit was formed. The leaker got arrested, fled from his captors through a bathroom window and promptly got arrested again.
The tunnel built at Shahdi Montazeri Garrison was rather primitive compared to Iran's current underground facilities. Ventilation was bad and the walls were rough. Still, it did its job and continues to exist to this day.
Scuds were flown from Tripoli to Tehran-Mehrabad Airport on 747s and a special warehouse at Mehrabad was requisitioned for temporary storage of the top secret cargo. And this is where the first big SNAFU of Hajizadeh's career happened.
To get the missiles to Kermanshah, truck drivers had been hired but there was a delay until late at night and the drivers become successively more aggravated. Shortly after the Scuds had been loaded onto the trucks, one of them simply disappeared.
Seeing the top secret new weapon of the Islamic Republic vanish into thin air, Hajizadeh almost panicked. However, it soon turned out that one of the drivers had gotten so angry, he drove home to sleep and had simply parked the truck with Scuds next to his house.
After passing this challenge, the Scuds finally arrived at the garrison and IRGC photographers took some shots while the missiles, some still inscribed with their Libyan motto „Border Crossers,“ were being loaded into the tunnel.
Now, launch positions had to be established and another problem arose. Libyan hand-held navigation devices didn't work in Iran. So the exact coordinates of sites had to be painstakingly established by working from a few geodetic reference points established before the revolution.
The first launch position to be established was the Zeynab position North of Eslamabad, which I haven't been able to geolocate yet (pics below). Another one was named „Scorpion 3“ and located on the Eslamabad-Poldokhtar road.
And then there was Panj Peleh launch position which exists to this day and has been modified and expanded quite a bit over the years. 34.368793° 47.236917°
Operations from Shahid Montazeri Garrison and the associated launch positions soon began. However, after about a year and a half, Iranian intelligence learned that Iraq had discovered the location of the base and was planning an attack.
All missiles and TELs were evacuated to Imam Ali Garrison, Iran's second missile base (33.551836° 48.191328°) and when the Iraqi air force struck on November 11, 1986, it severely damaged a mostly empty base.
Somewhat ironically, the Iraqis failed to hit the crucial tunnel entrance. Apparently, they had made the standard OSINT beginner's mistake, mistaking the buried ammunition bunkers for tunnel entrances.
As a sign of defiance, the Iranians decided to launch their next missile against Baghdad directly from the devastated Shahid Montazeri garrison only a few days later. And this is basically the story of the base during the Iran—Iraq War.
Now fast forward to June 18, 2017. That day, the IRGC launched Operation Laylat ul-Qadr to strike Islamic State targets in Syria using ballistic missiles. And they launched it from no other site than the good old Shahid Montazeri Garrison.
More precisely, Zolfaghars were fired from the base's shooting range (34.472304° 47.032255°) and an adjacent area (34.475997° 47.027113°). If I remember correctly, it was @DaveSchmerler who first identified the launch sites back then.
On October 1, 2018, another missile strike against the IS (Operation Zarbat-e Moharram) was launched from Shahid Montazeri Garrison. And guess where the IRGC decided to launch one of its Qiam missiles from? From right next to Iran's first missile tunnel.
Remember those pics of Iran's first missiles being loaded into the tunnel after arriving from Libya? Exact same spot, only 34 years later. The IRGC clearly loves historical symbolism.
END.
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