A member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security Committee, Javad Karimi Qoddousi, said on Wednesday that the mysterious explosion at Iran's main nuclear facility at Natanz on July 2 was caused by a "security breach," US government-sponsored Persian-language Radio Farda reported.
Qoddousi strictly ruled out "a strike on the complex by an external object," adding that "if it was from the outside, we should have seen shrapnel, but absolutely no such debris were found at the site."
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He did not elaborate further on the "security breach" or "infiltration."
On July 2, Iran reported an "incident" at the Natanz complex, but said it caused no casualties and failed to stop enrichment work at the facility.
Qoddousi's account coincides with a New York Times report from early July, in which an unnamed Middle Eastern intelligence official said the damage to the uranium enrichment facility was far more extensive than the Iranian's had originally claimed.
The official also said it would take Iran at least two years to fix the damage caused to the site and completely rehabilitate its nuclear program. According to the paper, the intelligence official said Israel was behind the attack, which allegedly involved a powerful explosive device planted at the facility.
Several days after the Natanz blast, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi warned that any country deemed responsible for the explosion should expect a strong Iranian retaliation.
The explosion at Natanz came six days after a massive explosion near the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, which shook windows in the Iranian capital.
Authorities blamed that blast on "leaking gas tanks."
The military site at Parchin has been used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to test ballistic missiles. Western analysts believe the site consists of a vast underground tunnel complex for testing and producing missiles. The site has also been linked to Iran's nuclear project.
The Natanz and Parchin blasts are part of a series of mysterious explosions and fires at sensitive military and civilian sites across Iran in recent weeks.
In the most recent such incident, on July 19, an explosion rocked a power station in Isfahan Province in the country's center.
On Saturday, an oil pipeline reportedly went up in flames in western Iran. According to local accounts and reports on social media, the blast rocked the restive and oil-rich region of Khuzestan in the country's southwest.
Last Wednesday, July 15, at least seven ships caught fire at the Iranian port of Bushehr, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported. Pictures from the incident showed a large pillar of smoke billowing from the area.
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A day earlier, on July 14, Iran executed a former employee of the defense ministry who was convicted of spying on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was the second such execution in the past month.
Earlier this week, an Iranian accused of spying for the CIA and Mossad was executed, according to Iran's official IRIB news agency.
