Israel’s decades-long battle against Iran’s centrifuges at Natanz

2002

Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, held a press conference and revealed the existence of an underground enrichment plant in Natanz. Built in a heavily-fortified bunker, Natanz showed that the Iranians had learned the mistakes of the Iraqis whose Osirak reactor, destroyed by Israel in 1981, was located above ground. The Mossad was suspected of having provided the group with the information.

2007

Power supplies, used to regulate voltage current at the Natanz enrichment plant, blew up destroying dozens of centrifuges.

2010

Stuxnet, a virus reportedly created by Israel and the United States, infiltrates Natanz and succeeds in destroying over 1,000 centrifuges, causing significant delays to Iran’s nuclear program. The Stuxnet code caused the engines in Iran’s IR-1 centrifuges to increase and decrease their speed. Iran usually ran its motors at 1,007 cycles per second to prevent damage, while Stuxnet seemed to increase the motor speed to 1,064 cycles per second, causing the engines to explode.

August 2020

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An explosion destroys an advanced centrifuge assembly facility at Natanz, setting back advanced centrifuge development – according to estimates – by one to two years.

The explosion was meant to send a message of determination to stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, The Jerusalem Post learned at the time with the purpose of sending an unambiguous deterrent message that progress toward a nuclear weapon beyond certain redlines would not be tolerated.

March 2021

Iran starts enriching uranium at its underground Natanz nuclear facility using the advanced IR-4 centrifuge, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog said in a report.

The development was not only a further breach of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with the P5+1 major world powers, but also reflected its recovery from a blow suffered on July 2, 2020.

April 2021

An “accident” was reported Sunday morning at the Natanz electricity distribution network, 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 cyberattack, possibly by Israel. 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.