A large nuclear complex in Esfahan has been targeted for a second time during Israel's attacks on Iran over the past nine days, with several more buildings struck, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.
The site in central Iran was first hit on 13 June when four buildings were damaged: the central chemical laboratory, a uranium conversion facility, a reactor fuel manufacturing plant, and an enriched uranium metal processing facility under construction. No increase of off-site radiation levels was reported.
Based on information available to the IAEA today, six other buildings at the same site have now also been attacked: a natural and depleted uranium metal production facility which had not yet begun operations, a fuel rod production facility, a building with low-enriched uranium pellet production as well as a laboratory and nuclear material storage, another laboratory building, a workshop handling contaminated equipment and an office building with no nuclear material.
The same Esfahan complex includes a centrifuge manufacturing workshop that the IAEA earlier today reported had also been hit by Israel.
The facilities targeted today either contained no nuclear material or small quantities of natural or low enriched uranium, meaning any radioactive contamination is limited to the buildings that were damaged or destroyed.
"This nuclear complex in Esfahan - one of the key sites of the Iranian nuclear programme - has repeatedly been attacked and extensively damaged. Based on our analysis of the nuclear material present, we don't see any risk of off-site contamination. Nevertheless, as I have repeatedly stated, nuclear facilities should never be attacked," Director General Grossi said.
