Going Nuclear II

Jan. 2006

Just as Iran began to enrich its first batch of uranium hexafluoride gas in a small cascade with 50 centrifuges at Natanz, the centrifuges went haywire. The centrifuges operated fine for about ten days, but then one night all 50 of them “exploded.” There was a surge in the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) that controlled the electricity operating the centrifuges. An Iranian official later explained that “the UPS we had imported through Turkey had been manipulated.” Iran begins to carefully examine all imported instruments before using them.

Late 2007-July 2010

A digital weapon known as Stuxnet was unleashed by the U.S. and Israel against the computers controlling centrifuges at the Natanz facility in Iran. The first version was unleashed in 2007, which closed exit valves on the centrifuges so gas could get in but not out. A second version of Stuxnet was unleashed in 2009 and 2010, which caused the centrifuges to speed up and slow down, damaging some of the centrifuges and sabotaging the enrichment process.

Nov. 29, 2010

On the same morning, in two separate but identical incidents, assassins in Tehran targeted two nuclear scientists as they headed to work, killing one and injuring the other.

Majid Shahriari, a 40-year-old professor of nuclear physics, was on his way to Shahid Beheshti University, where he was a lecturer. In the car were his wife, also a nuclear physics professor, and their bodyguard. As the sedan approached a busy intersection, assailants on a motorcycle pulled alongside the car and slapped a “sticky” bomb to the driver’s-side door. Shahriari was killed; his wife and bodyguard were injured. Shahriari was an expert in neutron transport — essential to creating nuclear chain reactions for reactors and bombs. Only political appointees ranked higher than Shahriari in Iran’s nuclear program.

Minutes later, in another part of Tehran, Fereydoon Abbasi, a 52-year-old expert in nuclear isotope separation, was driving to the same university when he saw a motorcycle approach his car and heard something being attached to his door. Abbasi, a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, quickly leapt from the car and pulled his wife from her seat. The two were injured, but survived. Abbasi was one of only a few specialists in Iran with expertise in separating uranium isotopes, a core part of the uranium enrichment process.

The timing of the assassinations was not random. On Nov. 12 security researchers at Symantec in the U.S. had published a report that made it clear the Stuxnet code had been built to sabotage centrifuges at Natanz (until then Iranian technicians had experienced problems with the centrifuges but didn’t know the cause). Four days later enrichment at Natanz halted, while presumably technicians worked to wipe the malicious worm from the plant’s computers. A week after enrichment resumed on Nov. 22, the assassins struck, suggesting that Iran’s adversaries had resorted to this more lethal tactic once the digital weapon had been

Nov. 12, 2011

A massive explosion at Alghadir missile base, which housed Iran's Shehab-3 long-range missiles, killed more than 17 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and shook windows 30 miles away. The dead included Major General Hassan Moghaddam who was said to be the architect of Iran’s missile program. Iran claimed the explosion was an accident, not sabotage. But about two weeks later, another explosion rocked

January 2012

Motorcycle assassins struck again, this time killing Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan with an explosive attached to his car. An Iranian official revealed that he managed the Natanz facility and also procured special equipment for Iran’s nuclear program.