End Of Days News
An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed
much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep
underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic
regime.
The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s
nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to
the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take
only weeks, experts say.
The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli
officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned
about the 20-percent enriched stockpile.
The explosion occurred Monday, the day before Israeli elections weakened Netanyahu’s political control.
Iran, to avoid alarm, had converted part of the stockpile to fuel
plates for use in the Tehran Research Reactor. However, days after the
recent failed talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iranian
officials announced the enrichment process will not stop even “for a
moment.”
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.
However, more time is needed for conversion of the low-grade uranium
than what would be needed for a stockpile at 20 percent. It takes 225
kilograms of enriched uranium at the 20-percent level to further enrich
to the 90-percent level for one nuclear bomb.
According to a source in the security forces protecting Fordow, an
explosion on Monday at 11:30 a.m. Tehran time rocked the site, which is
buried deep under a mountain and immune not only to airstrikes but to
most bunker-buster bombs.
The report of the blast came via Hamidreza
Zakeri, formerly with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and
National Security,
The blast shook facilities within a radius of three miles. Security
forces have enforced a no-traffic radius of 15 miles, and the Tehran-Qom
highway was shut down for several hours after the blast, the source
said. As of Wednesday afternoon, rescue workers had failed to reach the
trapped personnel.
The site, about 300 feet under a mountain, had two elevators which
now are out of commission. One elevator descended about 240 feet and was
used to reach centrifuge chambers. The other went to the bottom to
carry heavy equipment and transfer yellow cake. One emergency staircase
reaches the bottom of the site and another one was not complete. The
source said the emergency exit southwest of the site is unreachable.
The regime believes the blast was sabotage and the explosives could
have reached the area disguised as equipment or in the yellow cake stock
transferred to the site, the source said. The explosion occurred at the
third centrifuge chambers, with the high-grade enriched uranium
reserves below them.
The information was passed on to U.S. officials but has not been
verified or denied by the regime or other sources within the regime.
Though the news of the explosion has not been independently verified, other sources
previously have provided WND
with information on plans for covert operations against Iran’s nuclear
facilities as an option before going to war. The hope is to avoid a
larger-scale conflict. Israel, the U.S. and other allies already have
concluded the Islamic regime has crossed its red line in its quest for
nuclear weapons, other sources have said.
However, this information was not revealed for security reasons until
several days ago when sources said the regime’s intelligence agency,
through an alleged spy in the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, had
learned of the decision to conduct sabotage on Iran’s nuclear sites on a
much larger scale than before.
As reported, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an urgent meeting
Tuesday with the intelligence minister, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy
Organization and other officials to discuss the threat, and now it’s
clear the meeting included the sabotage at Fordow.
Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent
years. Last year, saboteurs struck the power supply to the Fordow
facility, temporarily disrupting production. And a computer worm called
Stuxnet, believed to have originated in the U.S., set Iran’s plans for
nuclear weapons back substantially.
The 5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and
Germany) hope to resume talks with Iran over its illicit nuclear
program. The talks ended last year after regime officials refused to
negotiate.
Sources in the Islamic regime previously have revealed exclusively to WND the existence of:
