The incident at Natanz on Sunday morning was not an “accident” and the damage is much graver than what Iran is presenting to the public, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
An “accident” occurred on Sunday morning in the electricity distribution network at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, the country’s main uranium enrichment facility, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told the Iranian Fars News Agency.
Based on reports, it seems that the so-called accident was caused by a cyber attack, possibly by Israel. Natanz has in the past been targeted by Israeli cyber operations, according to foreign reports. In 2010, the Stuxnet virus attacked the facility in a joint operation with the United States, destroying over 1,000 centrifuges.
No injuries or pollution were caused by the incident, Kamalvandi said, adding that the cause of the incident is under investigation and further information will be announced later.
Malek Shariati Niasar, an Iranian MP and spokesman for a parliamentary energy commission, wrote that the incident is highly suspected as “sabotage,” as it occurred on Iran’s National Nuclear Technology Day and amid the renewal of talks between Iran and western nations on the JCPOA nuclear deal.
Niasar added that the Iranian parliament is following the details of the incident and will announce an opinion on the matter after receiving and summarizing the information.
On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran had begun injecting uranium hexaflouride gas into advanced IR-6 and IR-5 centrifuges at Natanz.
The reported incident comes less than a month after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had restarted enrichment at the Natanz facility and less than a year after Israel was blamed by foreign reports for an alleged attack on the facility which reportedly impacted Iran’s nuclear program significantly.
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Recently the Post reported that Iran is still nowhere near having recovered to the point it had been before that July 2020 explosion in terms of its capacity for assembling new advanced centrifuges.
In the alleged attack last year, Iranian reports also originally referred to the explosion as an “incident” without providing further details.
“The centrifuge assembly hall was blown up by the enemy a few months ago, but we did not stop and temporarily set up the hall that made up for the lost hall,” said AEO head Ali Akbar Salehi on Saturday, according to Fars. Salehi did not specify which “enemy” was behind the attack last year.
Salehi added that Iran is working to move sensitive facilities at Natanz further underground, with hopes that new underground halls will be ready next year.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was set to arrive in Israel on Sunday to discuss Iran’s nuclear program and Iranian activity in the region, among other issues, with Israeli officials. This will be the first visit of a high-ranking official of the Biden administration.
“The IDF’s operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemies,” said IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi during a ceremony on Sunday, according to Army Radio. “Thanks to complex and sophisticated operations, the past year has been one of the safest years known to the citizens of the State of Israel. We will continue to act with power and discretion.”
The incident also comes as tensions rise between Israel and Iran amid a number of attacks on Iranian and Israeli maritime vessels, with recent reports claiming that Israel has hit dozens of Iranian ships in recent years.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Iranian military blamed Israel and the US for causing an explosion on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Saviz vessel in the Red Sea, in a statement to Sputnik news on Thursday.
“The United States undoubtedly has a hand in all attempts to undermine and harm Iran,” said the spokesman, adding that Tehran was not accusing any of the Gulf states of being involved in the incident.
The report also comes as Iran meets with European and American officials to discuss a possible return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name for the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between the Islamic Republic and world powers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned multiple times in the past week that Israel would defend itself against Iranian threats, stressing that Israel would work to combat Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
