Mysterious Explosion and Fire Damage Iranian Nuclear Enrichment Facility
Iran released a photograph showing evidence of what appeared to be a major explosion at the site. Early evidence suggests it was most likely an act of sabotage.
An image released by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization shows a factory that was damaged at the Natanz enrichment facility.Credit...Iran Atomic Energy Organization, via Agence France-Presse
By
David E. Sanger,
William J. Broad,
Ronen Bergman and Farnaz Fassihi
July 2, 2020, 2:33 p.m. ET
A fire ripped through a building at Iran’s main nuclear-fuel production site early Thursday, causing extensive damage to what appeared to be a factory where the country has boasted of producing a new generation of centrifuges. The United States has repeatedly warned that such machinery could speed Tehran’s path to building nuclear weapons.
The Atomic Energy Agency of Iran acknowledged an “incident” at the desert site, but did not term it sabotage. It released a photograph showing what seemed to be destruction from a major explosion that ripped doors from their hinges and caused the roof to collapse. Parts of the building, which was recently inaugurated, were blackened by fire.
But it was not clear how much damage was done underground, where video released by the Iranian government last year suggested most of the assembly work is conducted on next-generation centrifuges — the machines that purify uranium.
The fire took place inside the nuclear complex at Natanz, where the Iranian desert gives way to barbed wire, antiaircraft guns and an industrial maze. The damaged building is adjacent to the underground fuel production facilities where, a decade ago, the United States and Israel conducted the most sophisticated cyberattack in modern history, code-named
“Olympic Games.” That attack, which lasted for several years, altered the computer code of Iran’s industrial equipment and destroyed roughly 1,000 centrifuges, setting back Iran’s nuclear program for a year or more.
The early evidence strongly suggested on Thursday the damage was in fact sabotage, though the possibility remained that it was the result of an industrial accident.
The timing was suspicious:
A series of unexplained fires have broken out in recent days at other facilities related to the nuclear program. Still, experts noted that if the explosion was deliberately set, it showed none of the stealth and secrecy surrounding the complex cyberattacks by the United States and Israel that were first ordered by President George W. Bush toward the end of his term, and then extended by President Barack Obama.
Mysterious Explosion and Fire Damage Iranian Nuclear Enrichment Facility
