Tehran secretly purchased a Chinese spy satellite in late 2024 to monitor and attack American military bases in the Middle East.
This is evidenced by an investigation by the Financial Times.
According to Iranian military documents, the TEE-01B satellite was acquired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after it was launched into space by the Chinese company Earth Eye Co. As part of the deal, the IRGC gained access to commercial ground stations from the Chinese company Emposat. Their network covers Asia, Latin America and other regions.
Time-stamped coordinate lists, satellite imagery, and orbital analysis show that TEE-01B subsequently monitored major US military bases. The images were taken in March before and after the attacks on US military facilities.
For example, the Chinese “TEE-01B” satellite photographed Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 13, 14, and 15. The US President Donald Trump confirmed on Truth Social on March 14 that the base had been hit. The Wall Street Journal reported at the time that five aircraft were damaged.
The satellite also monitored Muwaffak Salti Air Base in Jordan and locations near the US 5th Fleet naval base in Manama, Bahrain, and Erbil Airport, Iraq. Around the same time, the IRGC said, targets in these areas were attacked.
Among other things, the TEE-01B monitored the following facilities: Camp Buring and Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait, the US military base Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, Duqm International Airport in Oman, the Khor Fakkan container port and power plant in the UAE, and the Alba aluminum plant in Bahrain.
Former CIA analyst Jim Lamson said that the TEE-01B satellite significantly expanded Iranʼs ability to monitor US military facilities.
War in the Middle East and negotiations between Iran and the US
On the morning of February 28, the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran. Iranʼs Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and almost the entire military leadership of the country — about 40 key high-ranking officials — were killed.
Iran, in response to the US and Israeli attacks, began shelling Arab countries and Israel. The war also halted tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which almost a fifth of the worldʼs oil exports passed. This led to a sharp increase in oil and gas prices.
On the night of April 8, Trump wrote that he had agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran. Later, Iran published a 10-point peace plan: under it, the parties would cease hostilities, the US would withdraw troops from the Middle East and would no longer attack Iranian bases, and ships would have limited access to the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks.
Iran would also be required to lift primary and secondary sanctions and compensate for losses. Iran would commit not to developing nuclear weapons, and the US would recognize Iranʼs right to enrich uranium.
But on the afternoon of April 8, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that ceasefire violations had been recorded in several places in the conflict zone in the Middle East.
Reuters sources reported that Iran had struck the East-West oil pipeline in Saudi Arabia, which is currently the only channel for exporting crude oil from the country, and other facilities. Before that, Iran announced an American attack on the refinery on Laban Island and threatened to respond.
At the same time, Israel launched its largest attack on Lebanon since the start of the new war: in 10 minutes, the Israeli army attacked more than 100 sites of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, killing more than 350 people. Israel claims that the ceasefire does not apply to Lebanon, while Pakistani mediators wrote that the cessation of hostilities also applies to Lebanon.
The talks took place on April 10-11 and lasted almost 21 hours. The US and Iran did not agree on a final end to the war.
After the US-Pakistani talks in Islamabad on April 10-11, US President Donald Trump said that the main reason for their failure was Iranʼs refusal to dismantle its nuclear program. And the main US negotiator, Vice President J.D. Vance, called the positions of the parties completely opposite on the issue of guarantees that Iran will never be able to create nuclear weapons — "not just now, not just in two years, but in the long term”.
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