11 minute read
FEATURE
On 25 June, what was otherwise a normal night in the Iranian capital of Tehran, was suddenly and without warning rudely interrupted.
At about midnight local time, a massive explosion was heard throughout the city. To the east, Terhanians saw the sky light up a bright orange as the conflagration caused by the blast began to consume surrounding structures.
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The following morning, regime-owned media published a report that the explosion was the result of a malfunctioned gas tank in the Parchin state administrative zone located about 40 kilometers east of Tehran. No injuries occurred, but the damage was reportedly quite extensive. Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Davoud Abdi told reporters that firefighters eventually managed to bring the blaze under control and investigations were under way to determine the cause.
A String of Accidents
What residents of Tehran heard and saw that fateful evening was the first in a series of mysterious incidents, all involving damage to sensitive locations in Iran, from military bases to industrial zones to historical sites.
The location of the June 25 th explosion was in fact a large Iranian military base. In the early 2000’s, allegations were leveled on the Ayatollahs by international media that Iranian technicians at Parchin were testing highly explosive components for a nuclear warhead. At the time, Iran unequivocally denied any nuclear-related activity at the base. “Parchin is a military site where conventional military activities take place,” said then Foriegn Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast. “Comments about cleaning up military nuclear tests are not accurate or wise. This is invalid propaganda.” However, when inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sought access to Parchin to investigate the site, Iranian officials flatly denied the nuclear watchdogs’ request.
One bizarre incident at a shady military site linked to Iran’s nuclear program could plausibly be dismissed as the accident Iranian officials claim it was. Seven incidents is a different story.
Four days after the blast in Parchin, another explosion took place, this time within the residential area of Tehran itself. On June 30 th , an explosion at a medical clinic in the north of the capital was heard at around 9:00pm. According to reports, nineteen people were killed in the ensuing fire and another four
If this is in fact the case, it shows that the hardline approach to Iran taken by the Trump administration and Israel albeit each in its own way has escalated to a series of short of war targeted strikes, aimed at taking out important Iranian assets.
teen injured. Almost immediately, the event drew suspicion as officials could not agree as to what triggered the blast. The Tehran prosecutor’s office told media sources the cause of the accident was the explosion of three oxygen capsules inside the clinic. But a senior police official said the investigation pointed to a “gas leak” and “a faulty electrical wire” as the source of the incident.
Over the next week and a half, Iran experienced one strange destructive episode after another.
A large fire consumed swaths of public gardens in the city of Shiraz on July 3 rd . The following morning a power plant in the city of Ahwaz, the capital of Khuzestan, caught fire when a transformer exploded. Later that same day, a chlorine gas leak and fire was reported at the Karun petrochemical center in the southwestern city of Mahshahr. Some seventy workers were reported sickened by the gas and required hospitalization. Three days later on July 7 th , a factory blew up in southern Tehran. According to reports, faulty oxygen canisters were responsible for the blast. Local governor Amin Babaei stated the incident was the result of employee negligence, accusing factory workers of being “careless.”
Connecting the Dots
By the time Iran experienced its fourth explosion in the span of a week, observers began to question the regime’s dismissive attitude.
The conversation on the string of “accidents” went where all substantive conversation on Iran policy is forced to take place - social media. Today, there are still a few platforms on which Iranians can be frank about the developments in their country. Accusations on the source of fires and explosions have been abound on chat forums and communication apps. Many posters have leveled accusations on the regime itself, some
going so far as to accuse Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) of organized arson against some of the sites. But while some of the locations that have been damaged could potentially be on the Ayatollah’s hit list - such as several religious minority holy sites - most of them could not. Which brings us to one of the more insightful revelations circulated by Iranian web influencers. As many users have pointed out, there are clear signs Iranian authorities have been trying to hide key details of several of the explosions. For instance, almost a week after the June 25 th blast east of Tehran, the story broke that on the same night the secret missile site in Khojir also experienced an explosion. It is still unclear if the event at Khojir was in addition to the one reported at Parchin or if state media completely made up the Parchin report to distract from the real location. Be that as it may, there is no question as to why Iran would want to repress news about a possible sabotage incident at the Khojir Missile Production Complex (KMPC). KMPC is almost certainly the most important site for the Ayatollah’s ballistic missile program. The site has largely escaped public scrutiny, but it has always been hiding in plain sight, approximately 40 kilometers from the country’s capital. Satellite imagery confirms that KMPC did in fact sustain severe damage sometime around the 26th of June. Iranian authorities may be able to obfuscate the connection Parchin has to any more-than-conventional military activity. On the other hand, KMPC, is without a doubt an important center of Iran’s cutting-edge military research and development and is closely linked to the nation’s Space Industries Organization. If Iran were to ever produce a viable atomic weapon, it would be the people at Khojir that would provide a missile capable of delivering the warhead.
Indeed, the pattern pointing to Iran’s nuclear program becomes all the more apparent when considering the most important in the series of peculiar blasts.
The small city of Natanz is home to Iran’s advanced centrifuge devel
Before and after pictures of Parchin Missle Site
opment and assembly plant. The plant is generally recognized as Iran’s central facility for uranium enrichment with slightly under 20,000 gas centrifuges reportedly operating on site. Natanz was a key point of the negotiations surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. Daily inspection of the site by the IAEA was part of the nuclear enrichment reduction agreement reached in 2013. The Natanz plant was the target of the infamous Stuxnet attack, a cyber breach orchestrated jointly between American and Israeli intelligence agencies between 2007 and 2010. Needless to say, the Natanz facility is a central location of Iran’s nuclear activity, and everybody knows it.
On July 2 nd , Natanz became the third site in Iran to be rocked by an explosion in the span of a few days. The Iranians barely attempted to cover up Natanz in the guise of an accident. The damage inflicted on the facility was too severe to have been the result of mistake or mechanical failure. All signs point to the placement of a high impact explosive device, likely near a key gas line, as the
source of the explosion. Satellite images from above Natanz, recently retrieved, have forced western analysts to update their damage assessment for the site. According to statements from unnamed intelligence sources gathered by the New York Times, it is estimated the Iranians would need up to two years to return their nuclear program to the place it was before the explosion.
What does this all mean?
Many regional observers were concerned that the combination of COVID and annexation would distract Israel from the Iranian threat. While there is no hard evidence yet that Jerusalem is behind these incidents, developments in Iran over the past several weeks strongly indicate at least some tertiary involvement by both Israel and the United States. If this is in fact the case, it shows that the hardline approach to Iran taken by the Trump administration and Israel - albeit each in its own way - has escalated to a series of short-of-war targeted strikes, aimed at taking out important Iranian assets. The first sign of this policy being put into motion came with the killing of IRGC general Qasem Soleimani earlier this year. That attack however, at least took place outside of the Islamic Republic. These recent ones - if they are all indeed attacks - took place deep inside Iran’s territory.
A second element to consider is what the attacks say about Iran’s internal security. Simply put, it is highly unlikely, nearly impossible, for any nation to have carried out these acts of sabotage without inside help. This is not the first sign of western collaborators inside Iran. Two years ago, a Mossad raid of a warehouse in Tehran resulted in the theft and extraction of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons-planning documents. This operation clearly had the assistance of insiders. The recent string of incidents affecting highly sensitive Iranian sites shows there is an extensive network of operatives throughout the country prepared and capable of acting against the regime.
Finally, recent events in Iran show the breakdown of the Ayatollah’s intelligence apparatus. As one strange explosion was reported after the other, the prevailing question was, understandably, “whodunit?” But an equally, if not more obvious question was how were these attacks ever carried out successfully? While the Iranians may not be quite on par with the West when it comes to spy catching, they are certainly not fools when it comes to counterintelligence. In the early 2000’s, Iran successfully identified and broke up a CIA network in the country. Iran regularly claims to uncover spies deployed by Israel and other regional countries. In this recent string of attacks, not only did
Iranians burning down their own cities over economic hardship
Satellite image of damage at Natanz
the IRGC fail to stop the saboteurs, but the regime’s silence over the past week and a half indicates they barely have so much as a lead. The only conclusion is that Iran’s security agencies are not doing well. The most obvious root cause is lack of funding and the result of years of U.S. sanctions coupled with sinking oil prices. Regardless of what underpins the trend, clearly the IRGC is not functioning as well as it needs to be. Which means there is now an opening for Iran’s enemies to push forward with even bolder clandestine operations. This could trigger a serious shift in the modus operandi of the regime’s domestic adversaries, namely the slew of armed Iranian opposition groups that reject the Islamic Revolution. Seeing that the Ayatollahs are incapable of stopping attacks, organizations ranging from the Iranian Peoples’ Mojahedin to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan may begin ramping up their activities targeting the regime. This would in turn force authorities in Tehran to shift focus inward and redeploy assets to reestablish domestic security. There is little doubt that even now, the IRGC is investigating links between the recent sabotage and opposition militias.
Of course, at some point Iran will not need ‘evidence’ of Western meddling. If push comes to shove, Iran will lash out at any target it can - American or Israeli - in retaliation for sabotage bombings. While such a scenario may be an escalation to Tehran’s detriment, not even Iran’s most bitter adversaries are seeking a full scale conflict with the Islamic Republic. Which is why whoever is behind the recent events in the country will want to proceed with caution. The purpose of these targeted attacks was not to make Iran capitulate per se, but rather to lay bare the fundamental weakness of Iran’s position.
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