Israel speculated to be behind mysterious explosion at Iranian nuclear site

A suspicious explosion last week badly damaged one of the most sensitive and prized sites in Iran’s nuclear programme. Now speculation has begun to mount over who or what caused it, and what Iran might do in response.

The focus of allegations of an attack fall on Israel, which has conducted clandestine operations on Iranian soil in the past – seizing documents and files about Iran’s nuclear programme – and has a motive for slowing down Tehran’s nuclear technology development.

Sabotage of the site by Israel or any other group or country would mean glaring security deficiencies and possible enemy infiltration at one of Iran’s most sensitive sites.

The explosion on Thursday took place at a workshop near the central Iranian city of Natanz, where scientists and engineers have been striving to build advanced centrifuges to more quickly and efficiently produce enriched uranium that could be used for atomic weapons. It followed a 26 June explosion at the missile facility of Parchin, which was allegedly used to conduct nuclear research in the 1990s, on the outskirts of Tehran.

Iran has now admitted that the 2 July explosion caused “significant damage” but has not disclosed what caused it. It has yet to react to allegations in published reports that Israel placed a bomb in the building but has insisted it plans to build an even bigger facility to replace it.

“There were no casualties as a result of the incident, but significant damage was incurred,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy authority. “There were advanced equipment and precision measurement devices at this site that were either destroyed or damaged ... possibly causing a delay in development and production of advanced centrifuge machines in the medium term.”

There were no reports of radiation leaks from the site, a research facility well known to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who monitor Iran’s nuclear programme. Uranium enriched in centrifuges to lower levels of purity can be used for peaceful power generation, medicine and scientific research.

According to satellite imagery, the damage was extensive, and potentially caused a major setback in Iran’s nuclear research and development programme.

“Centrifuges are incredibly sensitive; even if you have a basic design getting them running is quite a feat,” Fabian Hinz, a researcher at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in California. “Because they spin at such insane speeds you have to balance the rotors very, very exactly so that the whole thing won’t just blow apart, which in turn requires sensitive instrumentation, and all of that would have been done in that building.”

Iran spends an estimated 3 or 4 per cent of its gross domestic product on defence, and allocates a significant part of its government budget towards policing, surveilling, prosecuting and imprisoning an increasingly restless population of 83 million. Yet it could not protect one of its most important sites from sabotage by a foreign power.

Speculation first centred on a possible cyber-attack, but the size of the blast made it likely that some sort of explosive device had been placed at the site.

“The really interesting question here is how did they do it?” said Mr Hinz. “If it was a cyberattack you would need something already inside that causes an explosion like this. If this was a missile factory or an explosives workshop sure. But a centrifuge assembly workshop? I don’t think so.”

But any risky Israeli or American sabotage operation against Iranian attempts to develop advanced centrifuges would also underscore the incoherence of policies on Iran’s nuclear programme. Iran accelerated its development of advanced centrifuges only after the US president, Donald Trump, opted to pull out of the 2015 nuclear deal under the tutelage of Israel and a small cluster of influential of pro-Israel operatives in Washington.

Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, and the Trump administration are convinced Iran is using the guise of a civilian nuclear programme to pursue weapons capability.

But US intelligence officials have repeatedly concluded Iran abandoned a clandestine nuclear weapons programme in 2003. Most independent researchers and experts surmise that Iran is attempting to assemble all the necessary components of a nuclear weapons programme to give itself the option to break its non-proliferation treaty obligations and weaponise its programme. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – the nuclear deal assembled by the US, European nations, Russia and China – was meant to guide Iran’s nuclear programme towards civilian ends with a package of economic and diplomatic incentives.

In contrast to attacks on Iranian allies in Syria, Israel has kept mum about any role it may have had in any recent explosions, likely an attempt to avoid compelling an Iranian response. “We have a long-term policy over the course of many administrations not to allow Iran to have nuclear abilities,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said Sunday. “We take actions that are better left unsaid.”

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Defence minister Benny Gantz alluded to Iran’s long track record of industrial accidents. “Not every incident that happens in Iran necessarily has something to do with us,” he was quoted as saying.

Iran’s atomic spokesman Mr Kamalvandi said that Iranian security officials would not disclose the cause of the blast due to “security reasons”. The Natanz facility was inaugurated in 2013 but had not been completely finished by the time Iran agreed to reduce its nuclear activities in 2015.

Domestic and international dynamics may force Iran to respond in some way for the blast, even as it awaits November elections that could see Trump ousted and the resurrection of the nuclear deal under a Joe Biden presidency.

“Iran’s first suspect is Israel,” said Ali Omidi, a professor of international relations at Iran’s University of Isfahan. “Given that Israeli authorities did not publicly take responsibility for the Natanz incident, I think Iran will react with a cyber-attack. If Israeli authorities take responsibility, in my opinion, Iran will attack more openly.”

Pressure could be mounting for a response, despite counsel by JCPOA signatories eager to prevent armed conflict in the Middle East. An Iranian parliament dominated by noisy hardliners was recently sworn in and appears eager to make its mark and humiliate the pragmatist administration of President Hassan Rouhani. An Iranian official boasted on Sunday that the Revolutionary Guard had installed batteries of underground missiles aimed at the Persian Gulf.

“They’re going to ramp up rhetoric against Israel and the Gulf countries,” said Sanam Vakil, an Iran specialist at Chatham House. “I don’t think they’re going to want to demonstrate any weakness to the domestic constituency. It’s going to be a rhetorical response unless there is very clear evidence implicating the Israelis or another government.”