Tehran blames sabotage for nuclear site blackout
A power failure that appeared to have been caused by a deliberately planned explosion struck Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment site Sunday, in what Iranian officials called an act of sabotage that they suggested had been carried out by Israel.
The blackout injected new uncertainty into diplomatic efforts that began last week to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal repudiated by the Trump administration.
Iran did not say precisely what had caused the blackout at the heavily fortified site, which has been a target of previous sabotage, and Israel declined to confirm or deny any responsibility. But U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials said there had been an Israeli role.
Two intelligence officials briefed on the damage said it had been caused by a large explosion that destroyed the independent — and heavily protected — internal power system that supplies the underground centrifuges that enrich uranium.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the explosion had dealt a severe blow to Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and that it could take at least nine months to restore Natanz’s production.
If so, Iran’s leverage in new talks sought by the Biden administration to restore the nuclear agreement could be significantly compromised. Iran has said it will take increas
ingly strong actions prohibited under the agreement until the sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump have been rescinded.
It was not immediately clear how much advance word — if any — the Biden administration received about the Natanz operation, which happened on the same morning that the U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was visiting Israel. But Israeli officials have made no secret of their unhappiness over President Biden’s desire to revive the nuclear agreement that his predecessor renounced in 2018.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, described the blackout as an act of “nuclear terrorism” and said the international community must confront this threat.
Israel, which considers Iran a dire adversary, has sabotaged Iran’s nuclear work before with tactics ranging from cyber attacks to outright assassinations.
The explosion at Natanz struck barely a week
after the United States and Iran, in their first significant diplomacy under the Biden administration, participated in new talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the nuclear agreement abandoned by Trump.
Power was cut across the Natanz facility, Behrouz Kamalvandi, a civilian nuclear program spokesperson, told Iranian state television. He said there had been no casualties or damage.
Malek Shariati Niasar, an Iranian lawmaker who serves as a spokesperson for the Parliament’s energy committee, wrote on Twitter of the possibility of “sabotage and infiltration.”
The blackout came less than year after a mysterious fire ravaged another part of the Natanz facility, about 155 miles south of Tehran. Iranian officials initially played down the effect of the fire, but later admitted that it had caused extensive damage.