Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 30/10/2024; Author: Amar Karađuz
The video footage, accompanied by claims about a fire breaking out at a nuclear power plant in the Iranian city of Karaj, actually shows smoke in the vicinity of a gas-fired power plant near the city.
Citing information from the social media platform X, the website Klix published an article on October 24, 2024, with the headline stating that a nuclear facility in Iran was “in flames”:
One of Iran’s major nuclear facilities is in flames, officials’ statement awaited.
The article claims that a nuclear power plant in the city of Karaj is on fire, emphasizing that these are initial reports and that no information is available on the cause of the incident. There is concern that the fire might be a result of sabotage.
A large fire broke out at Iran’s nuclear power plant in Karaj, located west of the capital, Tehran.
The source of this information is the X profile Israel War Room, which based its claims about the fire at the nuclear power plant on statements from an unnamed Iranian opposition group. Klix noted that Karaj is “an important part of Iran’s nuclear program, which has long been under the watchful eye of the international community due to its controversial uranium enrichment activities”.
Klix’s article was picked up by several media outlets the same day, including B92, Mondo, Face, Valter, Nezavisne, Tuzlanski, and others, stating that a “nuclear plant” was burning in Iran and supplementing their articles with video footage of the fire taken from other X profiles (1, 2, 3). The website Kurir also included a screenshot from Google Maps showing the alleged nuclear power plant near Karaj.
The N1 television website made revisions to its article, published on October 24, stating that “it was later determined that this news cannot be confirmed, nor have Iranian media reported it”. However, the original version of the text, which included the claim about the fire at the “nuclear plant” and a photo of the “incident”, remained on the website’s Facebook page.
About Iran’s nuclear program
Iran’s nuclear program has been the subject of international debate and diplomatic efforts for the past two decades, particularly due to suspicions of a secret program aimed at developing nuclear weapons.
According to Reuters, the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believe that Iran had a secret nuclear program until 2003, which was then halted. Iran denies this, claiming that it never intended to develop nuclear weapons. Under the 2015 nuclear agreement with the world powers, Iran limited its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. However, after the U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2018, Iran gradually abandoned those restrictions, ramping up uranium enrichment and reducing the time needed to produce nuclear weapons.
The claims of a fire at an Iranian nuclear facility and nuclear power plant were published just a day after a terrorist attack in Ankara, for which Kurdish insurgents (PKK party) claimed responsibility. Additionally, these reports come during a period of speculation about whether Iranian nuclear facilities will be targeted by Israeli retaliation following missile attacks from Iran.
The only active Iranian nuclear power plant is not in Karaj
Karaj is located west of Tehran and serves as the capital of the Alborz province. According to Reuters, which based its reporting on data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has five known locations where the country conducts activities related to its nuclear program. One of these locations is Bushehr, the only nuclear power plant in Iran. Therefore, the claims that a “nuclear plant” or “nuclear power plant” is on fire in Karaj are incorrect, as there is no such plant in that location.
However, Karaj is one of the cities that was previously suspected of hosting a facility linked to Iran’s nuclear program, specifically a plant for producing parts needed for centrifuges. A gas centrifuge is one of the methods used to produce enriched uranium, which is used as nuclear fuel. In 2021, The Intel Lab, a company providing intelligence services, shared on the social media platform X the geolocation suspected to be the site of the centrifuge production facility in Karaj.
The location in question is situated northwest of the center of Karaj and can be viewed at this link. The post by The Intel Lab was meant to show the damage to the facility caused by a drone attack at the time. A media outlet believed to be connected to the Iranian regime described the attack as an unsuccessful sabotage attempt that was thwarted.
According to a Reuters report from January 2022, citing UN observers, the machines for producing parts for centrifuges were relocated to the city of Isfahan after the sabotage, and the facility in Karaj was closed. This conclusion was included in an IAEA report, which Reuters had access to, and which was prepared after Iran agreed to allow the agency to install surveillance cameras at the new facility in Isfahan.
The IAEA issued a statement summarizing the contents of the report. It stated that the agency sealed the machines in Karaj and removed the cameras from the site, adding that production in Karaj had “ceased”.
Given this, as well as the previously presented information about the known locations of Iran’s nuclear program facilities, it can be concluded that Karaj does not currently house “one of Iran’s major nuclear facilities”, as the media had portrayed.
What does the video show?
The video that is claimed to show a fire at the nuclear plant depicts thick black smoke around three towers that resemble cooling towers commonly found at power plant sites. The profile OSINT (Uri Kikaski) analyzed the footage on October 24 and concluded, based on the analysis, that the fire shown in the video broke out in the diesel fuel storage area within the grounds of the Montazer Ghaem gas and diesel thermal power plant, located near Karaj.
Based on the position of the cooling towers and fuel storage tanks visible in the fire footage, there is a noticeable similarity to a satellite image of the power plant, which is available on Google Maps.
In addition, judging by the position of the power lines and voltage cables, it is possible to roughly estimate the location from which the fire at the power plant was filmed. According to a report by Deutsche Welle in Persian on October 24, the video showing thick smoke near the mentioned power plant did indeed spread on social media. However, the media outlet reports that the executive director of the regional system operator in Tehran (Tehran Regional Electric Company) denied claims of a fire, stating that the thick smoke was due to a change in the fuel being used at the plant. This information was also covered by other Iranian media outlets (1, 2, 3).
Furthermore, the location of the former centrifuge parts manufacturing facility and the power plant near Karaj are more than 23 kilometers apart in a straight line.
The location on the map published in Kurir’s article does not show a nuclear power plant near Karaj, but rather a building that, for an unknown reason, is labelled as a “nuclear power plant” on Google Maps.
Although there is no independent information confirming whether a fire occurred at the power plant or if the smoke was indeed the result of some other process at the facility, it is clear that the video on which the media based their reports about a fire at a nuclear power plant or nuclear facility in Karaj does not depict this.
Therefore, the earliest publication claiming that a fire broke out at a nuclear power plant in Karaj is rated as fake news, and all subsequent publications are rated as the distribution of fake news.
