Iran blames Israel for sabotage at Natanz nuclear site

Iran blames Israel for sabotage at Natanz nuclear site

Iran blamed Israel on Monday for a sabotage attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges, an attack that jeopardizes ongoing talks over its tattered nuclear deal and brings to light a shadow war between Both countries.

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack. It rarely does so for operations carried out by its secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency. However, Israeli media widely reported that the country had orchestrated a devastating cyberattack that sparked a blackout at the nuclear facility. Meanwhile, a former Iranian official said the attack caused a fire.

The attack further strains relations between the United States, which under President Joe Biden is now negotiating in Vienna to re-enter the nuclear deal, and Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to stop the deal at all costs. Netanyahu met Monday with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whose arrival in Israel coincided with the first word of the attack.

At a press conference at Israel’s Nevatim airbase on Monday, where he saw the Israeli air and missile defense systems and his F-35 fighter jet, Austin declined to say whether the Natanz strike could impede the efforts. of the Biden, administration to reengage with Iran on its nuclear program.

“Those efforts will continue,” Austin said. The previous US administration under Donald Trump had withdrawn from the nuclear deal with world powers, prompting Iran to begin to abandon its limits.

Details remained scant about what happened early Sunday at the facility. The event was initially described only as a blackout in the power grid that powered its above-ground workshops and underground enrichment rooms, but then Iranian officials began referring to it as an attack.

A former head of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the attack also set a fire at the site and called for improvements in security. In a tweet, General Mohsen Rezaei said that the second attack in Natanz in a year signaled “the severity of the infiltration phenomenon.” Rezaei did not say where he obtained his information from.

“The answer for Natanz is to get revenge on Israel,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh. “Israel will receive its answer through its own way.” He did not elaborate.

Khatibzadeh acknowledged that the IR-1 centrifuges, Iran’s first-generation workhorse of uranium enrichment, had been damaged in the attack, but did not elaborate. State television has not yet shown images of the installation. However, the facility appeared to be so messy that after the attack, a prominent nuclear spokesperson, Behrouz Kamalvandi, who was walking above ground at the site, fell 7 meters (23 feet) through an open ventilation shaft covered by aluminum debris, breaking both legs and injuring his head.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned that Natanz would be rebuilt with more advanced machines. That would allow Iran to enrich uranium more quickly, complicating nuclear talks.

“The Zionists wanted revenge on the Iranian people for their success on the road to lifting sanctions,” Zairf was quoted as saying by Iran’s state IRNA news agency. “But we will not allow it, and we will take revenge for this action against the Zionists.”

Authorities launched an effort on Monday to provide emergency power to Natanz, said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s civilian nuclear program. He said the sabotage hadn’t stopped enrichment there, without elaborating.

The IAEA, the United Nations body that monitors Tehran’s atomic program, previously said it was aware of media reports about the Natanz blackout and had spoken with Iranian officials about it. The agency did not elaborate.

Natanz has been the target of sabotage in the past. The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010 and believed to be a joint creation of the United States and Israel, once disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges there during an earlier period of Western fears about the Tehran program.

In July, Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant that authorities later described as sabotage. Iran is now rebuilding that facility deep in a nearby mountain. Iran also blamed Israel for that, as well as the November assassination of a scientist who started the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier.

Israel has also launched a series of airstrikes in neighboring Syria against Iranian forces and their equipment. Israel is also suspected in an attack last week on an Iranian cargo ship said to serve as a floating base for Iranian Revolutionary Guard paramilitary forces off the coast of Yemen.

Several Israeli media outlets reported Sunday that an Israeli cyber attack caused the blackout, but it is unclear what actually happened there. Kan public broadcaster said Mossad was behind the attack. Channel 12 TV cited “experts” in estimating that the attack shut down entire sections of the facility.

While the reports did not offer sources for their information, the Israeli media maintains a close relationship with the country’s military and intelligence agencies.