Alireza Zakani, the hard-line head of the Iranian parliament’s research center, referred to “several thousand centrifuges damaged and destroyed” in a state TV interview. However, no other official has offered that figure and no images of the aftermath have been released.
His comments came as Iran said it was stepping up uranium enrichment to an unprecedented 60% — bringing Iran closer to the 90% purity threshold for military use, and shortening its potential “breakout time” to the bomb — and installing new centrifuges in response to the Sunday attack.
The remarks appear to confirm Israeli reports indicating the damage was widespread and Iran will have significant difficulty restoring its enrichment to previous levels in the coming months.
An Israeli TV report on Tuesday night said that Iran will only be able to enrich very small quantities of uranium to 60% since Natanz is still out of commission following the Sunday attack.
Channel 13 analyst Alon Ben David said that despite Iranian officials’ vow to start preparing Wednesday to begin the higher enrichment process, they cannot do it at Natanz, since the 6,000 centrifuges there remain “out of action.”
There are 1,000 centrifuges at Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility that can enrich to 60% in very small quantities, the Israeli analyst said, describing the Iranian threat of higher enrichment, therefore, as unlikely to be significant. READ MORE
