Was There a Major Explosion at a Key Iranian Nuclear Site?

Satellite photo of the Fordow uranium enrichment facility near Qom, Iran. What really happened there last week?

Last week, Reza Kahlili — a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officer who became a double-agent for the CIA — reported the following: “An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime. The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say….The blast shook facilities within a radius of three miles. Security forces have enforced a no-traffic radius of 15 miles, and the Tehran-Qom highway was shut down for several hours after the blast, the source said. As of Wednesday afternoon, rescue workers had failed to reach the trapped personnel.”

Not a single major media outlet in Iran, Israel, the U.S. or elsewhere reported on the story at the time, much less confirmed it. Iranian officials flat out denied there had been any explosions. This led to concern that Kahlili’s report was unreliable and that this was all mere rumor.

Now, however, Israeli security and intelligence officials are indicating that there was, in fact, such an explosion. They’re not taking credit for it, mind you. But they seem to be happy about it. “Israeli intelligence officials have confirmed that a major explosion has rocked an Iranian nuclear facility, according to a report Monday in The Times of London,” reports the Times of Israel. “The British daily cited officials in Tel Aviv who said the blast occurred last week, as originally reported on the website wnd.com. Iran is not believed to have evacuated the area surrounding the Fordo plant, according to the same Israeli sources, who said that an investigation into the blast was ongoing. ‘We are still in the preliminary stages of understanding what happened and how significant it is,’ one Israeli official told the London Times. He did not know if the explosion was ‘sabotage or accident’ and refused to comment on reports that Israeli aircraft were seen near Fordo at the time of the blast. On Sunday, two senior Iranian officials dismissed reports of the explosion. Deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency Seyyed Shamseddin Barbroudi said there had been no explosion at the Fordo facility whatsoever, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The chairman of the Iranian parliament’s Committee for Foreign Policy and National Security, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, referred to rumors of the blast as ‘Western-made propaganda’ and said they were ‘baseless lies’ meant to impact ongoing talks on Iran’s nuclear program, reported IRNA.”

Over the weekend, Avi Dichter, Minister of Israel’s Home Front Defense Command and former head of the Shin Bet (Israel’s FBI), welcomed the news. “Any explosion in Iran that doesn’t hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome,” he said.

The German newspaper Die Welt also reports a major explosion did happen, at some 190 workers were injured or killed.

If such an explosion really happened, was it an accident, or sabotage? If it was a covert operation, was it was run by Israel, or by the U.S.? For now, it’s a mystery, and a fascinating one at that. As I wrote about in my e-book last fall, covert ops have played a major role in damaging Iran’s nuclear program in recent years. The success of these operations have, at time, reduced the need for a full-blown war to neutralize the Iranian program. What does 2013 hold? It’s too soon to say, but the plot is already beginning to thicken.

Read more about the intense covert war underway between Israel and Iran in my ebook, Israel At War: Inside The Nuclear Showdown With Iran
Just a little hint….the nuclear facility at Fordow is featured prominently in my upcoming novel, Damascus Countdown (releasing March 5).
Come with me and The Joshua Fund to Israel in 2013 for a “Prayer & Vision Tour” and Epicenter Conference — you’ve read about Israel, now come step into the story.
Learn more about The Joshua Fund, and consider financially supporting this important work to bless Israel and her neighbors.

Also: * A few thoughts on Intl Holocaust Remembrance Day.
* Analysis of the Israeli elections is now posted on blog.

First, here is a link to the short video report of the visit I made to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in November 2011 with two pastors and their wives. I hope it will give you a sense of what I was thinking when I stepped into one of the gas chambers, saw a crematorium and walked the grounds where the Nazis exterminated more than one million Jews, as well as many others. Also, here’s a link to a blog I wrote about our trip to the notorious camp in Poland.

Second, please be praying for the Holocaust survivors that are still living today, and their families. Pray that the Lord comforts and heals their hearts, and draws them close to His own heart. Pray that He provides for them and cares for them in every possible way — physically, emotionally, financially, and most importantly spiritually. Please pray that the Lord would use Christians around the world to be a true blessing to them with unconditional love and unwavering support. Here’s a link to a report on one of the projects The Joshua Fund did to care for and encourage Holocaust Survivors in Israel. It’s just a snapshot of one little project among many that we do. But I want to thank you so much for your prayers and investment in TJF. With your help and God’s grace, we have a chance to honor and assist these dear, precious people who suffered so enormously in their youth, and sadly are now impoverished in their old age.

Fourth, let us not forget that even as the government of Iran denies that the Holocaust ever happened in Europe, it is preparing to commit another Holocaust of the six million Jewish people in Israel today. Many leaders around the world do not truly believe this is the objective of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and their inner circle. But as I have documented along with many others, this is their objective and they must be stopped before it is too late.

Fifth, let us be sobered by the realization that a terrible genocide is underway in the United States today. Since 1973, some 55 million children have been murdered through abortion. In the next few years, if this isn’t peacefully, legally and completely ended, we will cross the 60 million threshold — that will be 10 times the number of souls that we have murdered compared to the number of Jewish souls the Nazis murdered during the Holocaust. As I note in Implosion, we know the judgment God brought on the Nazi regime and their allies. Do we expect less if we do not confess these terrible national sins, repent and plead for His forgiveness?

>> Also, here’s an excellent column in the Times of Israel written by my friend, Tomas Sandell — director of the European Coalition for Israel — about lessons for Europe (and the world) in the wake of the Holocaust. I commend it to your attention.