U.S.-based analysts have told The Associated Press that they believe a fire at an Iran nuclear site struck a new centrifuge production facility.
The fire happened early on Thursday at Natanz, an underground facility where Iran enriches uranium.
The third time is enemy action. I await the third accident at a facility related to Iranian nuclear missile ambitions.
UPDATE: The Cheetahs of the Homeland claims responsibility for the Natanz fire. Who the heck are they?
The disparate messages, as well as the fact Iran experts had never heard of the group before, raised questions about whether Natanz again had faced sabotage by a foreign nation as it had during the Stuxnet computer virus outbreak believed to have been engineered by the U.S. and Israel.
All we really need to do is wait for a third "accident" to know if we've seen a coincidence or the second enemy action.
Then the only question is who did it. I won't put any money on the Cheetahs.
Still, you can't rule out coincidence yet. Someone might be exploiting Iranian bad luck, trying to make the Iranians believe they are under attack and have inadequate security.
And note this about the (thus far) incident:
Stratfor warned: “If there is a campaign by the United States, Israel and/or local groups in Iran underway, then Iran is likely to eventually respond in kind, potentially against Western targets in the Persian Gulf.”
Iran will strike Western targets in the Persian Gulf regardless of who did it.
UPDATE: I don't count a fire at an Iranian medical center as the third accident.
UPDATE: The damage at the Natanz facility is apparently much worse than Iran admits.
UPDATE: The Iranians claim to know what happened, but officially seem at the coincidence stage.
UPDATE: I do not call a quickly contained fire at a power plant a third bad thing in a series of similar bad things.
UPDATE: Nope. A chlorine gas leak is close, but no cigar.
At this point the media is probably noticing every industrial accident that comes along lest it miss the third incident that indicates enemy action.
UPDATE: It seems like Israel hit the nuclear site, at least:
A Middle Eastern intelligence official was quoted Sunday by The New York Times as saying the fire that damaged a building used for producing centrifuges at Natanz was sparked by Israel and was caused by a powerful bomb.
But the unidentified official said Israel was not linked to several other recent mysterious fires in Iran over the past week.
It seems likely that the missile facility would be in the same target set, if you ask me.
The question is whether the other blasts were caused by the Israelis to confuse the issue--but why are there leaks that Israel did this if that is the case?
Or maybe there is a resistance movement taking advantage of the Israeli attacks.
Perhaps Iran has expanded their nuclear weapons work to civilian sites hoping to evade detection?
Or maybe these are truly industrial accidents that paranoia elevates to attacks until proven otherwise.
Remember, you only need a third incident to strongly suggest enemy action in the absence of hard evidence. Hard evidence that an incident is an attack does not require two more to confirm.
UPDATE: Did we get the third incident anyway?
UPDATE: If attacks, I'm going to ask if this is sabotage by infiltrated or local agents on the ground or F-35 stealth fighters using internal loads only and perhaps flying from a Saudi air base. Is this how the Saudis are paying Iran back for attacking Saudi oil infrastructure with drones and missiles last year?
UPDATE: Strategypage writes:
Iran has experienced six mysterious explosions, fires and expensive equipment failures since June 25th at facilities related to Iranian nuclear and missile research and development. ... In addition there have been bombs going off in some of these facilities, indicating Israeli agents were able to gain access and plant explosives. This is particularly disturbing for Iranian leaders because it indicates that Israel is able to recruit agents inside Iran. ...
Iranian officials also believe this latest offensive is connected to the early 2018 commando operation that the Israeli prime minister went on TV to reveal. The Israeli leader described how Mossad (Israeli intel) agents took over 110,000 documents from a warehouse in the Iran capital.
So those other seemingly unrelated incidents were nuclear-related facilities identified by the 2018 raid and information extraction. There was no coincidence.
