Previously undisclosed documents reveal 2020 arson at Iran nuclear facility

A workshop belonging to Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization in the Shadabad area of Tehran was set on fire in July 2020, information concealed until now by Iranian officials, according to Iran International who claimed to have viewed judicial documents relating to the arson. The documents confirmed that Iran believes the Mossad orchestrated the fire.

The judicial documents were obtained as part of a trove that a network of hacktivists leaked to the source on Thursday. Some of the referenced Iranian government documents are among millions of judicial records that the group announced they obtained Thursday.

The industrial weapons production workshop was reportedly set ablaze by Masoud Rahimi, his two brothers and six other accomplices, although Iran believed Israel was responsible for the fire, the source reported. Masoud Rahimi, along with his accomplices, entered the workshop with weapons, tied up the guard, and set fire to some of the equipment inside.

An anonymous creditor reportedly gave the nine alleged arsonists the equivalent of $10,000 to start the fire as revenge. An additional payment had been promised if the group filmed themselves carrying out the crime, Iran International revealed.

The accused group was quickly arrested and accused of "acts against national security through cooperation with Israel."

It was reported that the group was unaware of the structure’s purpose before the arson, and the location had not been disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) despite Iran’s legal obligation to do so.

The arson was one of the most significant issues in Iran, as reports of the arson reached the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei. 

Previous sabotage operations

This sabotage operation is not the first one carried out at Iranian nuclear facilities. Between 2009 and 2011, five individuals involved in Iran's nuclear industry, whom the Islamic Republic named as scientists, were assassinated.

In 2010, the former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran escaped an assassination attempt.

These assassination attempts have been blamed on Israel by the Islamic Republic. In 2010, the Stuxnet virus infiltrated computers in Iran's nuclear facilities, which reportedly caused damage to some uranium enrichment centrifuges.

Among the sabotage operations the Iranian Regime has accused Israel of conducting, the theft of Iran's nuclear documents from a warehouse in the Shourabad area of Tehran was one of the few actions Israel confirmed it conducted. In May 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented documents and CDs, revealing that Israel had gained access to 55,000 pages and 55,000 digital files of information related to Iran's nuclear program in an intelligence operation.

Several explosions and fires occurred at Iran's nuclear facilities in 2020 and 2021, the largest of which occurred in 2020 at the Natanz nuclear facility, which caused significant damage, according to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. This delayed the installation of centrifuges at the site in the "medium term."

The former head of the Ministry of Defense's Research and Innovation Organization, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in November, 2020, another apparent sabotage of Iran’s nuclear activities. Israel referred to him as one of the officials of the "nuclear weapons program" in Iran in 2018.

The arson at the nuclear warehouse in Shadabad occurred just less than five months before Fakhrizadeh's assassination. 

An Azerbaijani citizen named Rajab contacted one of the suspects and asked him to carry out "sabotage by a team of ruffians and thugs” in exchange for payment, according to one of the judicial documents. He has been introduced as a Mossad agent in the judicial documents.

The Israeli Prime Minister's Office responded with “no comment” to Iran International regarding the sabotage at Iran's secret nuclear facility in Shadabad.