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A massive explosion and fire shook a port on Saturday in southern Iran supposedly linked to a sending of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propeller, kill four people and hurt more than 500.
The explosion at the Rajaei Shahid port occurred as Iran and the United States gathered on Saturday in Oman For the third round of negotiations on the nuclear program that progresses rapidly from Tehran.
While no one in Iran suggested directly that the explosion came from an attack, including Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who leads the conversations, on Wednesday acknowledged that “our security services are on maximum alert given past cases of sabotage attempt and murder operations designed to cause a legitimate response.”
According to the reports, the port received chemicals for missile fuel
For hours, the authorities in Iran did not offer a clear explanation of what caused the explosion in the port, which is on the outskirts of Bandar Abbas, although they denied that the explosion had something to do with the country’s oil industry.
However, the port received a “fuel of sodium perchlorate rockets” in March, said Private Security firm Ambrey. The fuel is part of a shipment from China by two ships to Iran reported for the first time in January for the Financial Times. The fuel would be used to replenish Iran’s missile actions, which had been exhausted by their direct attacks against Israel during The war with Hamas in Gaza’s strip.
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“According to the reports, the fire was the result of the inappropriate management of a solid fuel shipment for its use in Iranian ballistic missiles,” said Ambrey.
The ship tracking data analyzed by Associated Press put one of the vessels that is believed to carry the chemist in the vicinity in March, as Ambrey said. Iran has not recognized the shipment. The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Saturday.
It is not clear why Iran would not have moved the chemicals of the port, particularly after The explosion of the port of Beirut in 2020. That explosion, caused by the lighting of hundreds of tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 6,000. However, Israel went to Iranian missile sites where Tehran uses Industrial mixers to create solid fuel.
The images of the explosion of social networks on Saturday in Shahid Rajaei saw a reddish smoke coming out of the fire just before the detonation. That suggests that a chemical compound is involved in the explosion.
“Return back! Return! Tell the gas (truck) go!” A man in a video shouted just before the explosion. “Tell him to go, he will explode! Oh God, this is exploiting! Everyone evacuates! Return! Return!
On Saturday night, the IRNA news agency said that the Iran Customs Administration blamed a “reserve of dangerous goods and chemical materials stored in the port area” by the explosion, without elaborating.
PORTES AN IMPORTANT DESTINATION FOR IRANÍ LOAD
Shahid Rajaei has been a goal before. A 2020 cyber attack attributed to Israel went to the port. It occurred after Israel said it frustrated a cyber attack aimed at its water infrastructure, which it attributed to Iran.
The social networks videos showed black and undulating smoke after the explosion. Others showed blown glass of the kilometers, or miles, far from the epicenter of the explosion. The images of the state media showed the overcrowding in at least one hospital, with ambulances arriving as the doctors ran to a person on a stretcher.
Mehrad Hasanzadeh, a provincial disaster management official, told Iranian state television that the first to respond were trying to reach the area while others tried to evacuate the site.
Hasanzadeh said the explosion came from containers in the port of Shahid Rajaei in the city, without elaborating. State Television also reported that there had been a collapse of the building caused by the explosion, although no more details were offered.
The Interior Ministry said he launched an investigation into the explosion. Iranian President Masoud Peeshkian also offered his condolences to those affected in the explosion.
The port of Shahid Rajaei in the province of Hormozgan is approximately 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) southeast of the capital of Iran, Tehran, in the hormuz narrow, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil negotiated.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
