Israel: deadly blast may have slowed Iran’s nuclear drive

A deadly blast at an Iranian military base this month may have slowed the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, a senior Israeli military official said in a report on Monday. “The explosion at the site where ground-to-ground missiles are developed could delay or even bring a complete halt to the production of these missiles at that site,” said General Itai Baron, head of the military’s intelligence research unit, quoted by the media. The general, who was speaking before Israel’s parliamentary committee for defense and foreign affairs, said that Iran also has other sites for the development of these missiles. According to Haaretz newspaper, he denied “speculation” that Israel or the United States were responsible for the November 12 blast which killed at least 36 Revolutionary Guards at the base in Bid Ganeh, near Tehran. Among those who died was Iranian General Hassan Moqaddam, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards force’s missile program. Iran’s military has repeatedly said the explosion was the result of an accident. The chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, has said the base was being used in the production of “an experimental product” being developed to unleash “a strong fist in the face” of the United States and Israel. He did not elaborate, but said development of the military product had been delayed by “two weeks” because of the blast. Meanwhile, the sound of an apparent explosion was heard from Iran’s Isfahan city on Monday afternoon, the head of the judiciary in the province said, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency. “In the afternoon, there was a noise like an explosion, but we don’t have any information from security forces on the source of the noise,” Gholamreza Ansari was quoted as saying. An important Iranian nuclear facility involved in processing uranium is located near Isfahan city, although Iranian media reports of the incident did not say whether the explosion was near the nuclear centre. Gill Tudor, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the U.N. watchdog was aware of the media reports but had no further information. Iranian media provided contradictory information about the incident. The Fars news agency reported a large blast in the province but later removed the report from its website. The Mehr news agency cited other Iranian news media, which it did not identify, as reporting that a blast had taken place at a petrol station at a town near Isfahan city. However, it also quoted the deputy governor of the province as saying he had no reports of a big explosion in his region. “So far no report of a major explosion has been heard from any government body in Isfahan,” Deputy Governor Mohammad Mehdi was quoted as saying by the semi-official news agency. Several residents of the city contacted by Reuters by telephone said they heard nothing. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation operates several nuclear facilities east of Isfahan, according to the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a leading Washington-based think tank. They include the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF), which began operating in 2006 and produces uranium hexafluoride gas, the feed material that Iran uses to make refined uranium at its Natanz nuclear enrichment site.