Iran finally admitted what the world suspected when a top official acknowledged Monday that a mysterious explosion last month at a military research center was no accident.
The May 25 explosion at a facility in Parchin that killed one engineer and injured another was attributed to a drone attack by western media. It followed the assassinations of key defense officials and other clandestine efforts to impede the Islamic Republic’s alleged efforts to develop nuclear weapons. But at the time, Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics insisted the explosion was an accident.
On Monday, Iranian media outlets quoted Imam Hussein University President Hasani Ahangar attributing the explosion to “industrial sabotage.”
An IRGC official says an engineer with the Defense Ministry died as the result of "industrial sabotage."
Mohammad Reza Hasani-Ahangar, head of the IRGC-affiliated Imam Hussein University, appeared to refer to a May 25 incident at Parchin military site. https://t.co/6tRNAAj6eZ
— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) June 20, 2022
Iran denies that the Parchin site is used to conduct nuclear weapons research, although it did admit that it has tested parts used for nuclear detonators there. Another mysterious explosion occurred there in June of 2020, which Iran denied had even taken place but which was proven using satellite images. Still, another explosion occurred at the site in 2014.
Mysterious deaths and attacks on key facilities have accelerated inside the rogue nation in recent months, prompting speculation that Israel or another state actor could be trying to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Earlier this month, Col. Ali Esmailzadeh of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force reportedly died after falling from his roof. Opponents of the Islamic Republic claimed he was killed by the state because they suspected him of being a spy.
And in late May, assassins on motorcycles gunned down Col. Hassan Sayad Khodayari, another key member of the Quds Force who had planned attacks on Israelis in a brazen hit in Tehran. Khodayari, who was known to work in Syria on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards unit, was involved in planning attacks on Jews and Israelis around the world, The Jerusalem Post reported.
He was shot dead in front of his home on Mojahedin Eslam Street by assailants who fled, according to Iranian reports.
Israel was accused of poisoning two Iranian scientists last month. Ayoub Entezari, an aerospace engineer at a missile and drone research facility in the city of Yazd, fell sick after returning from a May 31 dinner and died of suspected poisoning. The host who invited him to the dinner subsequently vanished, according to The New York Times, and Iranian officials told the paper it blamed Israel. Kamran Aghamolaei, a geologist who worked at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz, died June 2 of multiple organ failure after allegedly being poisoned while on a business trip.