Iran secretly obtained a Chinese-built spy satellite in late 2024 and used it to surveil major US military installations across the Middle East in the lead-up to drone and missile strikes, the Financial Times reported on 15 April, citing leaked Iranian military documents. The TEE-01B satellite, built and launched by Chinese firm Earth Eye Co, was acquired by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — the ideological military branch of the Islamic Republic — and directed to photograph sites including Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, the US Fifth Fleet naval base in Manama, Bahrain, and Erbil airport in Iraq, with images captured in March coinciding with IRGC-claimed attacks on those locations. The report, which China's Washington embassy dismissed as "speculative and insinuative disinformation," raises significant concerns about military-intelligence cooperation between Beijing and Tehran at a time when the US has already warned China of consequences for supporting Iran.