At least seven Iranian ships caught fire in the port city of Bushehr on Wednesday as part of a continuation of mysterious explosions occurring throughout the country, according to state media. The port is just 12 miles away from Iran’s only nuclear power station. No casualties were reported.
On Friday, The Israeli Water Authority confirmed a report that two cyber attacks were carried out against Israeli water infrastructure in recent weeks but no damage was inflicted. One attack targeted agricultural water pumps in the upper Galilee, while the other struck infrastructure in the center of the country.
“These were specific, small drainage installations in the agriculture sector that were immediately and independently repaired by the locals, causing no harm to serve or any real-world effects,” the Water Authority said in a statement. The Water Authority did not speculate who was behind the attacks but it is known that in May, Iran launched an unsuccessful; cyberattack targeting Israel’s water infrastructure, and poison the water by increasing chlorine levels in water flowing to residential areas. Israel responded by launching a cyberattack that shut down the Shahid Rajaee port—one of two major shipping terminals in the coastal city of Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian police said earlier in the week that they are investigating an explosion that started a fire at an industrial complex that contains gas-condensate storage tanks, Reuters reported on Monday.
According to the report based on Iranian news outlets, Javad Jahandoust, the fire chief at the Kavian Fariman industrial complex, said that six storage tanks were ablaze and one had exploded.
These were the most recent in a series of explosions that began on June 26 when a huge explosion rocked Parchin military and weapons development base about 20 miles southeast of the capital Tehran. Authorities initially claimed the explosion took place at a gas storage facility in a “public area” of Parchin rather than the military base. It was later revealed that the explosion was the result of a cyberattack, possibly carried out by Israel.
In July 2015, there were claims based on satellite imagery that there was activity in the Parchin military complex associated with nuclear weapons. UN and international inspectors were denied access to the site and Iran denied the claims saying the satellite photos were fabricated.
At about the same time as the explosion at the Parchin facility, a large explosion at the local power station left half of the city of Tehran without electricity.
Four days later, an explosion from a gas leak in the Sina Athar Medical Center in northern Tehran killed 19 people. Video posted online appeared to show more than one explosion
Ten days ago, a fire broke out at a ground-level building at Iran’s underground Natanz facility which authorities said had caused significant damage. Natanz nuclear facility is generally recognized as Iran’s central facility for uranium enrichment with over 19,000 gas centrifuges currently operational and nearly half of them being fed with uranium hexafluoride. Between 2007–2010 Natanz nuclear power plant was hit by a sophisticated cyberattack that was carried out by German, French, British, American, Dutch and Israeli intelligence organizations. The attack used a Stuxnet worm which hampered the operation of the plant’s centrifuges and caused damage to them over time.
The local fire chief told ILNA that the explosion caused extensive damage to the company and to a neighboring company but did not cause casualties.
In an interview on Russian Today television on Saturday, former Iranian diplomat Amir Mousavi warned that Iran is prepared to retaliate against “the Zionist entity”, the US, and an Arab nation he claims participated in the attacks. He claimed the reaction could be a cyberattack or a military attack.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said earlier this month that the country is not behind every incident that occurs in Iran.
