{"id":209890,"date":"2020-07-06T06:14:38","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T06:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=209890"},"modified":"2020-07-09T05:56:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T05:56:30","slug":"sabotage-theory-heats-up-after-more-explosions-in-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=209890","title":{"rendered":"Sabotage theory heats up after more explosions in Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Spencer \u2013 The Times July 6, 2020<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Warehouse after it was damaged at the Natanz nuclear facility. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Suspicions that Iran is the victim of an international sabotage operation have intensified after a fire at a power station, the third incident in nine days.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fire broke out on Saturday in the transformer of an electricity plant in the city of Ahvaz, in the west of the country. It was quickly brought under control, with no significant injuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

That was also the case with an explosion at a missile factory at Khojir near Tehran last week and an explosion and fire at the country\u2019s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz early on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the past week there have also been 19 deaths in an oxygen tank explosion at a hospital in Tehran and a chlorine gas leak from a chemical plant near the Gulf coast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Late on Sunday a spokesman for Iran\u2019s atomic energy organisation said the blast at Natanz had caused significant damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident could slow down the development and production of advanced centrifuges in the medium term,\u201d Behrouz Kamalvandi said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIran will replace the damaged building with a bigger one that has more advanced equipment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The incidents have prompted speculation in Iranian media and Israel, where the liberal Haaretz newspaper suggested that the \u00adNatanz blast was a \u201cdirect hit on Iran\u2019s nuclear program\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The explosion was accom\u00adpanied by a warning sent to the BBC\u2019s Persian language service before news of the blast became public.<\/span><\/p>\n

A group of dissidents in the military, the Homeland Cheetahs, claimed responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of internal sabotage would fit a claim by a Middle East intelligence official to The New York Times that an explosive \u00addevice caused the damage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Security analysts say that the Natanz warehouse was being \u00addeveloped as a unit for centrifuges, used to refine uranium to higher levels for civilian and military purposes. Iran has begun \u00adenriching to levels beyond those set by the 2015 nuclear deal since Donald Trump pulled the US out.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Natanz explosion came \u00adalmost 10 years after a cyberattack on the plant in which computer malware caused the centrifuges to break down.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sophisticated operation has long been attributed to the CIA and its Israeli counterpart, Mossad.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ahvaz explosion hints at another culprit: Saudi Arabia. Ahvaz and the surrounding Khuzestan province are home to an ethnic Arab and Sunni Muslim minority and several terrorist \u00adattacks there have been carried out by the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz.<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest incident coincides with an announcement from the navy chief of Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday that Tehran had built underground \u201cmissile cities\u201d along the Gulf coastline.<\/span><\/p>\n

He warned of a \u201cnightmare for Iran\u2019s enemies\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

THE TIMES<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a string of suspicious fires and explosions, speculation mounts that Iran is the target of an international sabotage campaign <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209890"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":209893,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209890\/revisions\/209893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}