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CNN: Amid ceasefire, Iran digs for missile launchers trapped underground

15 April 2026 11:01 (UTC +04:00)

Iran has been working to remove debris blocking the entrances to its underground missile bases during the ceasefire, according to satellite images reviewed by CNN.

In the images, front-end loaders can be seen scooping up rubble from the blocked tunnels and loading it into nearby dump trucks.

A previous CNN investigation found that the United States and Israel had been striking entrances to the bases to block missile launchers from driving out and firing or returning to base to reload. US intelligence assessed that roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers were still intact after a month of fighting, according to sources who spoke with CNN. Many of those launchers may have been buried underground by the strikes on tunnel entrances.

The efforts to restore access to the bases, commonly known as missile cities, would have been expected, according to Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“[A ceasefire] requires you to accept that your adversary is going to reconstitute some of their military capacity that you just spent a bunch of time and effort and money destroying.”

Lair added that this was part of Iran’s design for the bases working. “This aligns with the overall concept of operations for the missile city, which was, you eat the first attack, dig yourself out, and then launch again.”