The US struck Iran's unfinished Darkhovin nuclear plant — and Tehran says the deal is dead
US strikes hit the Darkhovin nuclear plant under construction in Khuzestan on day nine of attacks on Iran. Tehran says it will no longer honour the May agreement, and the IAEA is assessing the reports.
The conflict between the United States and Iran crossed a line on Sunday that nine days of strikes had left untouched: a nuclear plant. At around 3:39am local time, multiple American projectiles hit the construction site at Darkhovin, in Iran’s southwest, and Tehran answered in the most predictable way available — announcing it will no longer comply with the agreement reached in May. Asked about that announcement, Donald Trump waved it off, saying he could not care less.
What is the Darkhovin nuclear plant?
Darkhovin is a nuclear power plant under construction in Khuzestan province, near the Iraqi border, designed for a 300-megawatt pressurised water reactor — a project years behind schedule, from which China at one point withdrew its reactor designs. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization condemned the strike on what it calls peaceful infrastructure, and there were no confirmed reports of casualties at the site. The IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, confirmed it is reviewing the reports — its statements are published on the agency’s site.
Washington frames this wave of strikes as the response to the killing of two of its soldiers in Jordan, the attack that pushed the conflict up another step on Saturday, and says the goal is to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
How many casualties has the US-Iran conflict caused?
Iran’s health ministry puts the toll at more than 50 dead and 517 injured since late June, including women and minors — Tehran’s figures, which cannot be independently verified. Out in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz remains all but closed to shipping, tankers trickling through, pressure that is already showing up at Portuguese petrol pumps.
Nine days after the ceasefire collapsed, the news is no longer that there was another night of bombing — it is the target. Striking a nuclear plant, even an unfinished one, pulls the IAEA, international law and every Gulf neighbour into the conversation. This week will tell whether Darkhovin was a warning or a precedent.
Image: TUBS / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
