Could US be behind Iran power line blasts?

Ynetnews

Could the United States be behind a move to sabotage power lines at Iran's nuclear facilities? The Daily Beast on Wednesday suggested that US Special Forces, which have been training for operation inside Islamic Republic for years, could already be on the ground .

On Monday, Fereydoun Abbasi, Iran’s vice president and the chief of its nuclear energy agency, said that power lines between the city of Qom and the underground Fordo nuclear centrifuge facility were blown up with explosives on August 17. The power lines leading to Iran’s Natanz facilities were blown up as well, he said.

According to the report in The Daily Beast, The US military been studying Iran’s infrastructure closely, and in 2009 discovered a weakness in Iran’s electrical grids that made it vulnerable to a cyber attack.

But Abbasi's disclosure indicates opponents of the Iranian program are targeting the country’s electrical grid and are doing so on the ground, via a physical explosion as opposed to a cyber attack.

Easing PM's concerns

A retired US intelligence officer who still works as a contractor with the US military on Iran-related operations said the US Special Forces have trained for sabotage missions inside Iran for years.

“From the first reports, this attack looks like something from our guys,” he told The Daily Beast.

The unnamed source also said US Special Forces conducted a series of targeted attacks on Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in late 2011 as the US military was exiting Iraq – an offensive credited with stopping Iran from attacking US forces as they left Iraq.

The news website posited that If the United States conducted the interference with Iran’s power lines, it may help Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's concerns about the US' resolve to stop Tehran from developing an atom bomb.

Ynet's military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai explained immediately after Abbasi's statement was released that the covert war against Iran – initiated by the US, Israel and Britain – is ongoing. He said the sabotage at Fordo has been confirmed and proves that Iran's nuclear work can be stopped without the use of bunker buster bombs.

In recent years, the West’s stealth war on the disputed atom program has been waged through industrial explosions, cyber viruses and targeted killings, but the recent blasts could mark the first time that Iran's civilian infrastructure is targeted.