Iran’s nuclear programme has suffered an electrical failure that was blamed last night on a Mossad cyberattack.
The Natanz nuclear facility ground to a halt the day after a new generation of centrifuges, which enrich uranium, came online. Iranian officials played down the incident initially but their claim that it had caused no injuries raised immediate suspicion.
Israeli intelligence sources were quoted in Hebrew-language media last night claiming credit for the attack. They said that a cyberattack by the Mossad foreign intelligence agency inflicted “severe damage at the heart of Iran’s enrichment programme”.
The Iranians upgraded their assessment later, saying that the site had been a victim of “nuclear terrorism”.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation and its main nuclear negotiator, said that he condemned “this despicable move”.
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“Iran emphasises the need for the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency to deal with this nuclear terrorism and reserves the right to take action against the perpetrators,” he said.
If confirmed, the timing of the attack will be widely linked to talks between Iran and the US to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, being mediated by the European Union. In 2018, President Trump tore up that deal, which restricted Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of UN sanctions.
Since then Iran has been buckling under America’s reimposed sanctions on its oil exports and financing.
President Biden made restoring the deal a centrepiece of his election campaign last year.
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is bitterly opposed to the deal and has argued without avail so far against Biden’s plan to revive it.
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The claim that this latest crisis for the programme is Mossad’s response is given credence by its similarity to previous incidents. An explosion at the Natanz plant in July last year caused a fire that was said to have set back the programme by a year.
Responsibility for the blaze was never claimed but Tehran said that it believed it was caused by sabotage.
In 2010, Mossad and the CIA are said to have jointly carried out one of the most sophisticated cyberattacks yet recorded. They introduced a computer virus remotely that sent the centrifuges spinning out of control.
Mossad regularly liaises with the CIA on such actions and might have done so again this time, even if the attack appeared targeted at a key US policy.
Washington will not see it as a disadvantage if Tehran knows that it can pay a penalty for not agreeing to US demands in negotiations.
