Iranian officials said on Sunday the Stuxnet virus had hit staff computers at the Bushehr plant, a symbol of Iran's growing geopolitical sway and rejection of international efforts to curb its nuclear activity, but not affected major systems there.
When Iran began loading fuel into Bushehr in August, officials said it would take two to three months for the plant to start producing electricity and that it would generate 1,000 megawatts, about 2.5 percent of the country's power usage.
“We hope that the fuel will be transferred to the core of the Bushehr nuclear power plant next week and before the second half of the Iranian month of Mehr (Oct. 7),” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted on Wednesday as saying by the semi-official news agency ISNA.
“The ground is being prepared in this regard and, God willing, the fuel will be loaded to the core of the reactor completely by early November and the heart of Bushehr power plant will start beating by then.”
Salehi added: “Two to three months after that electricity will be added to the networks.”This would mean Bushehr generating electricity from January or February.
Security experts say the Stuxnet computer worm may have been a state-sponsored attack on Iran's nuclear program and have originated in the United States or Israel, the Islamic Republic's arch-adversaries.
Diplomats and security sources say Western governments and Israel view sabotage as one way of slowing Iran's nuclear work.
Little information is available on how much damage, if any, Iran's nuclear and wider infrastructure has suffered from Stuxnet and Tehran will probably never disclose full details.
Some analysts believe Iran may be suffering wider sabotage aimed at slowing its nuclear advances, pointing to a series of unexplained technical glitches that have cut the number of working centrifuge machines at the Natanz enrichment plant.
Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday named eight senior Iranian officials — including the commander of the Revolutionary Guards and several cabinet ministers — whom it said had participated in serious human rights abuses including killings and beatings after disputed presidential elections in Iran in June 2009.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the Iranian officials and banning Americans from any transactions with them, the Treasury Department said.
The fact sheet listed the eight Iranians as Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp; Sadeq Mahsouli, Minister of Welfare and Security and former Minister of the Interior; Qolam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Prosecutor General and former Minister of Intelligence; Saeed Mortazavi, former Prosecutor-General of Tehran; Heydar Moslehi, Minister of Intelligence; Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, Minister of the Interior and former Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces for Law Enforcement; Ahmad-Reza Radan, deputy chief of Iran's National Police; and Hossein Taeb, deputy IRGC Commander for Intelligence and former Commander of IRGC's Basij Forces.
