Iranian officials have sought to downplay the fire, which erupted early on Thursday, calling it only an “incident” that affected an “industrial shed.” However, a released photo and video of the site broadcast by Iranian state television showed a two-story brick building with scorch marks and its roof apparently destroyed. Debris on the ground and a door that looked blown off its hinges suggested an explosion accompanied the blaze.
“Due to some security considerations, the cause and manner of the accident will be announced at the appropriate time,” Keyvan Khosravi reportedly said on Friday, without elaborating. A video claimed the group included “soldiers from the heart of regime’s security organizations” who wanted to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran long has maintained its atomic program is for peaceful purposes. However, the IAEA has said that Iran “carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device” in a “structured program” through the end of 2003.
The purported group’s name, “the Cheetahs of the Homeland,” also struck some as odd, given that “cheetahs” is a nickname for Iran’s national football club. Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist who works with The New York Times and published a book on the Mossad titled “Rise and Kill First,” questioned why an Iranian opposition group would name itself that.
Meir Javedanfar, an Iran lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, who viewed the “Cheetahs of the Homeland” video, said any domestic group that managed to penetrate Iran’s heavily guarded nuclear facilities would be unlikely to risk being captured by distributing such a video. He said “it’s difficult to know” if Israel’s Mossad or another foreign intelligence agency produced the video.
Destroying a centrifuge assembly facility could greatly impact Iran’s ability to more-quickly enrich greater amounts of uranium, which would be a goal for either Israel or the U.S.in the wake of the U.S. unilaterally withdrawing two years ago from Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. However, it took years for Iran to perfect its first-generation IR-1 centrifuge off designs it purchased from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan’s black market network.
Stuxnet v.2
Philippines Latest News, Philippines Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: rapplerdotcom - 🏆 4. / 86 Read more »
Source: inquirerdotnet - 🏆 3. / 86 Read more »
Source: ABSCBNNews - 🏆 5. / 83 Read more »
Source: inquirerdotnet - 🏆 3. / 86 Read more »
Source: ABSCBNNews - 🏆 5. / 83 Read more »
Source: CNN Philippines - 🏆 13. / 63 Read more »