Iran says Israel is saboteur; foreign minister promises revenge

This satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. shows Iran's Natanz nuclear facility on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Iran's Natanz nuclear site suffered a problem Sunday, April 11, involving its electrical distribution grid just hours after starting up new advanced centrifuges that more quickly enrich uranium, state TV reported. It was the latest incident to strike one of Tehran's most-secured sites amid negotiations over the tattered atomic accord with world powers. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs Inc. shows Iran's Natanz nuclear facility on Wednesday, April 7, 2021. Iran's Natanz nuclear site suffered a problem Sunday, April 11, involving its electrical distribution grid just hours after starting up new advanced centrifuges that more quickly enrich uranium, state TV reported. It was the latest incident to strike one of Tehran's most-secured sites amid negotiations over the tattered atomic accord with world powers. (Planet Labs Inc. via AP)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran blamed Israel on Monday for an attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged its centrifuges -- sabotage that imperils ongoing talks over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal and brings a shadow war between the two countries into the light.

Iranian officials said Sunday that the Natanz nuclear site had suffered a mysterious electrical outage, which the head of Iran's civilian nuclear agency later blamed on "nuclear terrorism" and another official called a "crime against humanity." Suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which for years has carried out a campaign of high-profile explosions, assassinations and other forms of sabotage aimed at Iran's nuclear program.

In comments quoted Monday by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed the attack on Israel, saying "the Zionists want to take revenge on the Iranian people for their success in lifting the oppressive sanctions, but we will not allow it and we will take revenge on the Zionists themselves."

Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Israeli media widely reported that the country had orchestrated a devastating cyberattack that caused a blackout at the nuclear facility. Israeli officials rarely acknowledge operations carried out by the country's secret military units or its Mossad intelligence agency.

On Sunday, the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, citing unnamed Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources, reported that Israel was behind the cyberattack on the Natanz facility and that the "Mossad was involved." The sources said the damage to centrifuges at the site as a result of the attack was "significant" and would delay Iranian efforts to enrich uranium. The assertions could not be immediately confirmed.

The alleged attack casts a shadow over the tense negotiations underway in Vienna intended to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers.

The attack also further strains relations between the U.S., which under President Joe Biden is now negotiating to reenter the nuclear accord, and Israel, whose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to stop the deal at all costs.

Netanyahu met Monday with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, whose arrival in Israel coincided with the first word of the attack. The two spoke briefly to journalists but took no questions.

"My policy as prime minister of Israel is clear: I will never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel," Netanyahu said. "And Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran's aggression and terrorism."

At an earlier news conference at Israel's Nevatim air base, Austin declined to say whether the Natanz attack could impede the Biden administration's efforts to reengage with Iran in its nuclear program.

"Those efforts will continue," Austin said. Former President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, leading Iran to begin abandoning the limits on its atomic program set by the accord.

But German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed concern that it could affect the talks. "All of what we are hearing from Tehran is not a positive contribution to this," Maas told reporters.

In a statement, the White House said it was aware of the Natanz attack and that "the U.S. was not involved in any manner," without elaborating.

TALKS GROW TOUGHER

Neither Iran nor the U.S. says the incident will crater the negotiations. But the attack and the destruction of a significant amount of Iran's uranium enrichment capability add uncertainty to the discussions in Vienna.

The attack gives both sides reason to harden their positions, yet each has incentives to keep the talks on track.

Iran wants Washington to lift sanctions that have contributed to damaging its economy, including measures not related to its nuclear program. It insists that the sanctions be lifted before it returns to compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement.

For the Biden administration, the talks are an attempt to salvage what the Obama administration considered one of its prime foreign policy achievements and slow Iran's programs, even as critics claim the accord gave Iran a pathway to a nuclear weapon instead of closing it off.

The U.S. has said it is prepared to lift or ease sanctions that are "inconsistent" with the nuclear deal along with sanctions that are "inconsistent with the benefits" that Iran expected to get from agreeing to the accord. The deal had removed nuclear sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its atomic program, although critics noted that many of those restrictions are time-limited and will expire before 2030.

Those same critics, including many in Congress, have expressed concerns that non-nuclear sanctions -- such as those imposed for terrorism, ballistic missile activity and human rights abuses -- may be on the table in the negotiations. The administration has not specifically commented on that but has said it will not offer Iran sweeteners unrelated to the agreement.

PRECISE DAMAGE UNKNOWN

Details remained scarce about what happened early Sunday at the facility. The event was initially described only as a blackout in the electrical grid feeding aboveground workshops and underground enrichment halls -- but later Iranian officials began referring to it as an attack.

A former chief of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said the attack had set off a fire at the site and called for improvements in security. In a tweet, Gen. Mohsen Rezaei said the second assault at Natanz in a year signaled "the seriousness of the infiltration phenomenon." Rezaei did not say where he got his information.

The facility seemed to be in such disarray that, following the attack, a prominent nuclear spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, walking aboveground at the site fell 23 feet through an open ventilation shaft covered by aluminum debris, breaking both his legs and hurting his head.

"A possible minor explosion had scattered debris," Kamalvandi said, without elaborating.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh acknowledged that IR-1 centrifuges, the first-generation workhorse of Iran's uranium enrichment, had been damaged, but did not elaborate. State television has yet to show images from the site, which saw new advanced centrifuges turned on there Saturday.

"The answer for Natanz is to take revenge against Israel," Khatibzadeh said. "Israel will receive its answer through its own path." He did not elaborate.

Zarif, meanwhile, warned Natanz would be reconstructed with more advanced machines. That would allow Iran to more quickly enrich uranium, complicating the nuclear talks.

He said late Monday on Twitter he had sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council asking it to hold Israel accountable. "Deliberate targeting of a safeguarded nuclear facility--w/ high risk of indiscriminate release of radioactive material--is nuclear terrorism & a war crime," he tweeted.

Iran delivered a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations body that monitors Tehran's atomic program, urging it to condemn the attack, state TV reported Monday.

The agency earlier said it was aware of media reports about the blackout at Natanz and had spoken with Iranian officials about it. It did not elaborate.

Officials launched an effort Monday to provide emergency power to Natanz, said Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's civilian nuclear program. He said the sabotage had not stopped enrichment there, without elaborating.

A HISTORY OF INCIDENTS

Natanz has been targeted by sabotage in the past. The Stuxnet computer virus, discovered in 2010 and widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation, once disrupted and destroyed Iranian centrifuges there during an earlier period of Western fears about Tehran's program.

In July, Natanz suffered a mysterious explosion at its advanced centrifuge assembly plant that authorities later described as sabotage. Iran now is rebuilding that facility deep inside a nearby mountain. Iran also blamed Israel for that, as well as the November killing of a scientist who began the country's military nuclear program decades ago.

Israel also has launched a series of airstrikes in neighboring Syria targeting Iranian forces and their equipment. Israel also is suspected in an attack last week on an Iranian cargo ship that is said to serve as a floating base for Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard forces off the coast of Yemen.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu repeatedly has described Iran as the major threat to his country as he struggles to hold onto power after multiple elections and while facing corruption charges. Stopping the nuclear deal has been a repeated theme of his comments.

Information for this article was contributed by Jon Gambrell, Nasser Karimi, Amir Vahdat, Robert Burns, Ilan Ben Zion, Matthew Lee and Frank Jordans of The Associated Press; and by Shira Rubin, Kareem Fahim, Paul Schemm and Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post.

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