Satellite imagery "clearly showing billowing smoke and
destruction" has proven that an explosion Monday damaged a nuclear
facility in the Iranian city of Ifsahan, according to a Wednesday Times of London report .
The
report quoted Israeli intelligence officials as saying that there was "no
doubt" that the blast damaged a uranium enrichment site, and asserted
that it was "no accident."
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Iran: Military research caused missile base blast Officials
from Isfahan have been denying that the city had
been hit by an explosion.
Mohammad-Mahdi
Esma'ili, Isfahan's deputy governor in political and security affairs,
called the reports "sheer lies" according to the IRNA news agency. An
official from the city's fire department also denied that there had been
an explosion.
The mysterious explosion Monday rocked the Iranian city of Isfahan, which hosts a nuclear facility
involved in processing uranium fed to the Natanz fuel enrichment
facility.
The source and target of the
explosion were initially unclear. Some reports claimed it took place in a military
base and others said it was a gas explosion.
Two weeks ago, on November 12, an explosion hit an Iranian
military base near the town of Bid Kaneh, killing 17 members of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps and Maj.-Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, chief architect of the
Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program. Israel’s Mossad has been accused
of orchestrating the blast.
Head of the Military Intelligence Research Directorate
Brig.-Gen. Itay Brun told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on
Monday that the November 12 blast at the missile base could delay Tehran’s
development of long-range missiles.
“The explosion at the site to develop
surface-to-surface missiles could stop or delay activities on that track and in
that location, but we must emphasize that Iran has other development tracks in
addition to that facility,” Brun said.
Reuters contributed
to the report.