The alleged Israeli attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility targeted an electrical substation located 40 to 50 meters underground and damaged “thousands of centrifuges,” Iranian officials revealed in recent days.
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, told Iranian media on Monday that the attack hit an electrical substation located deep underground and managed to damage both the power distribution system and the cable leading to the centrifuges in order to cut power to them.
The Iranian official stressed that such an operation takes years, saying “the design of the enemy was very beautiful.”
Davani added that the substation was built underground in order to protect it from air and missile strikes, and that the attack was carried out either via cyber, sabotaged equipment or sabotage committed by agents.
The Jerusalem Post has learned that the attack was carried out through an explosive device that was smuggled into the facility and detonated remotely. An intelligence official told The New York Times on Tuesday that the attack took out both the primary and backup electrical systems.
Davani confirmed on Monday that the attack last July was also carried out with explosives that were smuggled into a centrifuge assembly facility at the site, with the explosives embedded in a heavy table that was brought into the facility.
Ali Rabiei, the spokesperson for the Iranian government, stated on Tuesday that the attack was “not an external attack” and that a “traitor” has been identified, adding that “the necessary measures are being taken.”
An informed official in the Iranian Intelligence Ministry told the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency on Monday that the identity of the disruption’s cause had been found and that “necessary measures are being taken to arrest the main cause of the disruption in the electricity system of the Natanz complex.”
