The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) said one of Sunday's strikes hit the Darkhovin nuclear power plant in Khuzestan province and called it a violation of international law1. Darkhovin is an unfinished reactor project, under construction since 2022, on the Karun river in the same province as Ahvaz.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN body that inspects and reports on nuclear facilities, has published nothing on Darkhovin. The site has been under construction since 2022 and no radiological material is known to be present2, which means a strike there would have hit bare ground. The AEOI has not released imagery, damage assessment or a strike time.
Darkhovin is not Bushehr, and the distinction carries the whole weight of the claim. Bushehr is a working reactor with fuel in it and continuing IAEA engagement: Iran alleged a perimeter strike there on 9 July, Rafael Grossi declined in Kaliningrad to confirm it, and Sentinel-2 imagery later showed scars inside the complex. Conflating a construction site with an operating reactor converts a claim about disturbed soil into a claim about live nuclear material, which is a different story with different legal and radiological consequences. Iran has made nuclear-site allegations twice in ten days now, and on neither occasion has an outside authority signed off on them.
