Israel's Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter on Sunday welcomed a report that Iran's Fordo nuclear facility had been rocked by a huge kaboom.The report was published Friday on the website wnd.com, under the sensational headline: "Sabotage! Key Iranian nuclear facility hit?" It claimed that a blast deep within Fordo last Monday "destroyed much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep underground," citing information from former intelligence officer Hamidreza Zakeri, who it said used to work with the Islamic regime's Ministry of Intelligence and National Security.
The article claimed the blast "shook facilities within a radius of three miles," that Iranian security forces had "enforced a no-traffic radius of 15 miles," that the Tehran-Qom highway was shut down for several hours after the blast, and that, "as of Wednesday afternoon, rescue workers had failed to reach the trapped personnel." It said US officials were aware of the reported blast.
There was no independent confirmation of the claims. Nonetheless, Israel's biggest-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth led its Sunday paper with the report on the alleged blast, which it said might be "the most significant incidence of sabotage in the Iranian nuclear program to date."
Asked about the story, Dichter said, "Any kaboom in Iran that doesn't hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome."
The wnd.com report noted that Fordo "has become a center for Iran's nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges [there] enriching uranium to the 20-percent level... The regime's uranium enrichment process takes place at two known sites: the Natanz facility with more than 10,000 centrifuges and Fordow with more than 2,700. The regime currently has enough low-grade (3.5 percent) uranium stockpiled for six nuclear bombs if further enriched."
The report said that Iran's regime considers the explosion to be a case of sabotage and believes the explosives "could have reached the area disguised as equipment or in the uranium hexafluoride stock transferred to the site... The explosion occurred at the third centrifuge chambers, with the high-grade enriched uranium reserves below them."