An Iranian local news agency and activists reported, late Saturday night, that mysterious explosions were heard in several cities in western Iran.
The local Iranian news agency "Rukna" noted that a huge explosion was heard in the city of Assadbad in the western Iranian province of Hamdan, adding that no explanation was given for the explosion which increased fears among the city's residents.
The Iranian agency noted that "the sound of the explosion in the city of Assadbad shook the doors and windows of the houses, forcing people to leave their homes and go out into the public spaces."
The Iranian website "Urgent News" reported hearing explosions with anti-aircraft fire in the cities of Sanjang, the capital of Kurdistan province in western Iran, and Kremenchi province in the west of the country.
Iranian opposition journalist Saman Rasulfur said in a tweet through his official Twitter account: "Reports of loud explosions in parts of Kremenchi and Kurdistan."
Many Iranian tweeters also circulated information about the occurrence of these mysterious explosions in areas in the west of the country, while the director of the Yedioth Urgent News website, journalist Muhammad Raza Danai, presented four hypotheses about what happened when he heard the sounds of explosions in the West.
And he stated in a post on his channel on the Telegram, "So far, four theories have been presented for the last minute voices that have taken place in the west of the country, specifically in Assabad in the Madan province."
He said that the first hypothesis is that Iranian planes are adding elements to the clouds to bring more rain which is needed, the second hypothesis is a military attack on Turkish bases in Iraq, and the third hypothesis is the testing of the operation of air defense systems in western Iran, while the fourth hypothesis is unidentified UAVs that attacked Iranian airspace.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards news sites noted that "the sounds of explosions heard in Kremnesha, Sanjad and Hamadan, western Iran, are the result of a large-scale exercise by the Iranian air defense system to test new air defense systems that have recently joined the arsenal of Iranian armed forces."
The unusual events come as part of tensions that run parallel to attempts to revive the Iran-West nuclear deal, which has apparently reached a dead end, while Israel has been preparing for years for a military attack on Iran's nuclear program, and has previously uncovered targets in Iran.
It should be noted that according to public aerial maps the entire area where the explosions were heard was emptied of all civil air traffic.