2 more Iranian sites hit in string of mysterious 'incidents' - News Agencies and ILH Staff

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by News Agencies and ILH Staff

A fire breaks out at a power station in southwestern Iran, followed by a chlorine gas leak at the Karoon petrochemicals plant near the port of Bandar Imam Khomeini. Head of Iran's civilian defense: We will retaliate against any country that carries out cyberattacks on its nuclear sites.

This satellite image from Planet Labs Inc from Friday, July 3, 2020, shows a damaged building after a fire and explosion at Iran's Natanz nuclear site | Photo: Planet Labs Inc., James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies via AP

A fire broke out at a power station in southwestern Iran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, the latest in a string of fires and explosions, some of which have hit sensitive sites.

The blaze, which affected a transformer in the power station in the city of Ahvaz, was put out by firefighters and electricity was restored after partial outages, Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, a spokesman for state-run power company TAVANIR, told the semi-official news agency Tasnim.

There have been several other incidents at facilities across the country recently.

Also Saturday, a chlorine gas leak occurred at a unit of the Karoon petrochemicals plant near the port of Bandar Imam Khomeini on the Gulf on Saturday, injuring dozens, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported.

"In this incident, 70 members of the personnel who were near the unit suffered slight injuries [due to chlorine inhalation] and were taken to a hospital with the help of rescue workers," the plant's spokesman, Massoud Shabanlou, told ILNA, adding that all but two had been released.

On July 2, a fire broke out at Iran's Natanz nuclear facility but officials said operations were not affected.

A former official suggested the incident could have been an attempt to sabotage work at the plant, which has been involved in activities that breach an international nuclear deal.

On June 30, 19 people were killed in an explosion at a medical clinic in the north of the capital Tehran, which an official said was caused by a gas leak.

On June 26, an explosion occurred east of Tehran near the Parchin military and weapons development base that Iranian authorities claimed was caused by a leak in a gas storage facility in an area outside the base.

The head of Iran's civilian defense said over the weekend that the Islamic republic will retaliate against any country that carries out cyberattacks on its nuclear sites.

The Natanz uranium-enrichment site, much of which is underground, is one of several Iranian facilities monitored by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran's top security body said on Friday the cause of the "incident" at the nuclear site had been determined, but "due to security considerations," it would be announced at a convenient time.

Iran's Atomic Energy Organization initially reported an "incident" had occurred early on Thursday at Natanz, located in the desert in the central province of Isfahan.

It later published a photo of a one-story brick building with its roof and walls partly burned. A door hanging off its hinges suggested there had been an explosion inside the building.

A building after it was allegedly damaged by a fire, at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility 

(AP/Atomic Energy Organization of Iran)

"Responding to cyberattacks is part of the country's defense might. If it is proven that our country has been targeted by a cyberattack, we will respond," civil defense chief Gholamreza Jalali told state TV late on Thursday.

An article issued on Thursday by state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States, although it stopped short of accusing either directly.

"Thus far Iran has tried to prevent intensifying crises and the formation of unpredictable conditions and situations," IRNA said. "But the crossing of red lines of the Islamic Republic of Iran by hostile countries, especially the Zionist regime and the US, means that strategy ... should be revised."

Three Iranian officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said they believed the fire was the result of a cyberattack, but did not cite any evidence.

One of the officials said the attack had targeted a centrifuge assembly building, referring to the delicate cylindrical machines that enrich uranium, and said Iran's enemies had carried out similar acts in the past.

In 2010, the Stuxnet computer virus, which is widely believed to have been developed by the United States and Israel, was discovered after it was used to attack the Natanz facility.

Lukasz Olejnik, a Brussels-based independent cybersecurity researcher and consultant, said that incident did not necessarily say much about what transpired on Thursday.

"Events taking place more than 10 years ago, and once, in themselves cannot form any evidence about things happening today," Olejnik, who formerly worked as scientific adviser on cyberwarfare at the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in an email.

He added that talk of a cyberattack was "way too premature" and that invoking the specter of digital sabotage "might be a convenient explanation for natural events, or incompetence."

Two of the Iranian officials said Israel could have been behind the Natanz incident but offered no evidence.

Asked on Thursday evening about recent incidents reported at strategic Iranian sites, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters: "Clearly we can't get into that."

The IDF and the Prime Minister's Office, which oversees Israel's foreign intelligence service Mossad, did not immediately respond to Reuters queries on Friday.

Natanz is the centerpiece of Iran's enrichment program, which Tehran insists is only for peaceful purposes. Western intelligence agencies and the IAEA believe it had a coordinated, clandestine nuclear arms program that it halted in 2003.

News Agencies and ILH Staff

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/07/05/2-more-iranian-sites-hit-in-string-of-mysterious-incidents/

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