DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The Natanz underground nuclear power plant in Iran lost power on Sunday, just hours after the start-up of new advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster, the latest incident to hit the site during negotiations over the ruptured nuclear deal with world powers.
While Iranian officials investigated the outage, many Israeli media outlets gave the similar assessment that a cyber attack darkened Natanz and damaged a facility that is home to sensitive centrifuges. While the reports did not provide sources for the evaluation, the Israeli media maintains a close relationship with the country’s military and intelligence services.
If Israel caused the blackout, it heightens tensions between the two nations already in shadow conflict in the wider Middle East.
It also hampers the efforts of the US, Israel’s main security partner, to rejoin the nuclear deal designed to curtail Tehran’s program so that it could not pursue a nuclear weapon if it wanted to. When news of the blackout got out, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin landed in Israel on Sunday for talks with Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Secretary Benny Gantz.
Power in Natanz was down in the facility, which consisted of above-ground workshops and underground enrichment halls, spokesman for the civil nuclear program Behrouz Kamalvandi told Iranian state television.
“We still don’t know the reason for this power outage and need to investigate further,” said Kamalvandi. “Fortunately, there was no casualty or damage and no specific contamination or problem.”
Asked by the state television correspondent whether it was a “technical defect or sabotage,” Kamalvandi declined to comment.
Malek Shariati Niasar, a Tehran-based lawmaker who acts as spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s energy committee, wrote on Twitter that the incident was “highly suspicious” and expressed concern about possible “sabotage and infiltration”. He said lawmakers are also pursuing the details of the incident.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees Iran’s program, said it was “aware of the media reports,” but declined to comment.
Natanz was largely built underground to withstand enemy air raids. It became a flashpoint for Western fears about Iran’s nuclear program in 2002, when satellite photos showed Iran building its underground centrifuge facility on the site some 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of the capital, Tehran.
Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant in July, which authorities later labeled as sabotage. Iran is now rebuilding that facility deep in a nearby mountain.
Israel, Iran’s regional nemesis, is suspected of carrying out that attack and carrying out other attacks, as world powers are now negotiating their nuclear deal with Tehran in Vienna.
Iran also blamed Israel for the murder of a scientist who started the country’s military nuclear program decades earlier. The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010 and widely believed to be a joint American-Israeli creation, once disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges in Natanz.
“It’s hard for me to believe it’s a coincidence,” Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said of Sunday’s blackout. “If it’s not a coincidence, and that’s a big one, someone is trying to send a message that ‘we can limit Iran’s advance and we have red lines.’ ”
Israel has not claimed any of the attacks, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly described Iran as the biggest threat his country has faced in recent weeks.
At a meeting with Austin on Sunday, Gantz said Israel viewed America as an ally against all threats, including Iran.
“Today’s Tehran is a strategic threat to international security, to the entire Middle East and to the State of Israel,” said Gantz. “And we will work closely with our US allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world, of the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region and protect the State of Israel.”
The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, also appeared to be referring to Iran.
The Israeli military’s operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enemy, Kochavi said. “They look at us, see (our) capabilities and carefully weigh their steps.”
Multiple Israeli media outlets reported on Sunday that a cyber attack caused the power outage in Natanz. Kan public broadcaster said Israel was likely behind the attack, citing Israel’s alleged responsibility for the Stuxnet attacks a decade ago. Channel 12 TV quoted “experts” as estimating the attack had knocked out entire parts of the facility. None of the reports contained sources or explanations of how the outlets arrived at that assessment.
In Tehran, Iranian officials, meanwhile, awaited the arrival of South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, the first visit by a Seoul prime minister since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran released a South Korean oil tanker on Friday that has been detained since January amid a dispute with Seoul over billions of dollars of assets frozen there.
On Saturday, Iran announced that it had launched a chain of 164 IR-6 centrifuges at the plant. Officials also began testing the IR-9 centrifuge, which they say will enrich uranium 50 times faster than Iran’s first-generation centrifuges, the IR-1. The nuclear deal limited Iran to using only IR-1s for enrichment.
Since President Donald Trump’s then-withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran has abandoned all limits on its uranium supply. It now enriches up to 20% purity, a technical step away from 90% weapon quality levels. Iran maintains its nuclear program for peaceful purposes.
On Tuesday, an Iranian freighter that would serve as a floating base for the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard off the coast of Yemen was hit by an explosion, likely from a sea slug mine. Iran has blamed Israel for the explosion. That attack sparked a long-running shadow war in the waterways of the Middle East, targeting shipping in the region.
Ben Zion reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.