Official: Blasts Targeted Iran Nuclear Sites

Abbasi says Atomic Energy Agency has been infiltrated by 'terrorists'
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 18, 2012 3:13 AM CDT
Official: Blasts Targeted Iran Nuclear Sites
Fereydoun Abbasi addresses the media during a news conference in Vienna yesterday.   (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Two explosions targeted power supplies to Iran's main uranium enrichment sites, according to an Iranian official who indicated the blasts were the work of Western "terrorists." One of the explosions occurred last month, a day before international inspectors arrived at one of the sites, Fordow, says scientist Fereydoon Abbasi, Iran's senior atomic energy official. Abbasi, who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt two years ago, accused the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency in a speech in Vienna yesterday of being infiltrated by "terrorists and saboteurs," reports the New York Times.

He told reporters later that backup power supplies protected both Iranian sites from serious harm after the explosions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Iran could be on the brink of building a nuclear bomb in as few as seven months. Iranian and EU representatives are meeting in Turkey today in an attempt to restart stalled nuclear negotiations, reports AP. The US fears that if the talks don't get underway again, Israel will attack Iran. (More Fereydoon Abbasi stories.)

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