What took place at the Iranian Natanz nuclear facility?

The plot thickened on Thursday afternoon hours after a building at a nuclear facility looked to have blown up in Iran. Reports of a “explosive device planted,” and an early warning, as well as a dissident group taking responsibility now adds to questions and concerns about what happened at the sensitive site.

The building affected by some kind of an explosion is located at the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility. Iran had alerted the world to the incident in the morning of July 2 and even took state media for a tour to show that while there had been some kind of incident, the nuclear facility was not in danger. It is the third mysterious explosion in a week and has led to many questions.

The New York Times reported that “a Middle Eastern intelligence official…said the blast was caused by an explosive device planted inside the facility. The explosion, he said, destroyed much of the above ground parts of the facility.”

This is important because it was allegedly the above ground portion of a larger area where new centrifuges are “balanced before they are put into operations.” Iran is known for building underground facilities that obscure or protect their activities, including at missile and nuclear sites.

It now looks increasingly likely the incident was deliberate, an attack of act of sabotage. Adding to the question of how this happened, a group called the “Homeland Panthers” claimed responsibility, according to emails allegedly sent to BBC Persian. The emails arrived “hours before any news of the incident had emerged,” according to Radio Farda. The emails however claimed something more complex. They asserted there was an attack and then a cover up. They wanted to blow the lid on the cover up.

When did the attack happen?

Around two in the morning on July 2. It was not widely reported in Iranian media until some eight hours later. IRIB News gave a tour of the area that was burned in the afternoon. The Associated Press noted that the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has data from a satellite tracking fires that shows a fire at around 2 a.m. This corresponds with someone on the ground who allegedly heard an explosion.

IRIB is now broadcasting footage of the spokesman of #Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization giving a tour of the wreckage from the incident at #Natanz. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/zk9b6HK2zg

The Associated Press report quotes Fabian Hinz of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies as noting the fire took place at a new centrifuge production facility. David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security agreed that the fire was at a new production facility. This would be a set back for Iran’s production. Hinz said it could delay the advancement of centrifuge technology.

Iran may be hinting at threats to Israel now.

An analysis piece at IRNA news said the “Zionist regime and the US” were crossing red lines. Natanz has been struck in the past. In 2010 workers found that high-speed centrifuges had been sabotaged by the Stuxnet computer worm. In November 2019 as Iran began to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal in response to the US also leaving the deal, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said it had doubled the number of advanced centrifuges at the site. Iran had previously agreed to install only 5,060 of the lesser efficient centrifuges it had at Natanz until 2026. An inspector of the site was also denied entry the same month. This means it was widely known last year that Iran was progressing with enrichment at Natanz. According to reports at the end of last year it had unveiled 30 IR-6 centrifuges and there were 60 of these spinning at Natanz at the time.