According to the Financial Times, equipment was acquired in secret to map installations in the Middle East before and after bombings.
Iran acquired from secret wayat the end of 2024, a spy satellite of Chinese originwhich began to be used in monitoring of United States military installations in the Middle East during the conflict in the region. The information was released this Wednesday (15), by the Financial Times newspaper. THE China denies the accusations.
According to the publication, the equipment, identified as TEE-01B and developed by the company Earth Eye Co., would have been launched from China and later incorporated into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Force. The newspaper claims to have had access to Iranian military documents classified as leaked.
Still according to the report, the satellite would have been used to map US strategic military bases in the region, using orbital images, geographic coordinates e time-stamped analytics. The observations would have been carried out in March, before and after drone and missile attacks against these installations.
The documents also indicate that, as part of the cooperation, the Revolutionary Guard now has access to commercial ground stations operated by Emposat, a Beijing-based company specializing in satellite control services.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry classified the accusations as “fabricated rumors” in a statement to Reuters. According to the ministry, “some forces have been committed to maliciously associating China with this type of narrative”, reiterating opposition to “practices motivated by ulterior motives”.
The White House, CIA and Pentagon have not commented on the case, according to the Financial Times. The companies mentioned in the report also did not respond to requests for positioning
The British newspaper also adds that the satellite would have captured images of bases such as the Prince Sultan Air Base, in Saudi Arabia, as well as installations in Jordan, Bahrain and Iraq, on dates close to attacks attributed to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard against targets in the region.
*With information from Estadão Conteúdo
