Ehsan Jahanian, deputy governor of Bushehr province, told IRNA, Iran's state news agency, that a US projectile hit the perimeter of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant at noon on 9 July, along with the Choghaddak military base and a fishing pier at Asaluyeh. 1 Iranian officials reported no damage to the reactor and no casualties from that strike. 2
The claim sits against the 8 July strike wave that Iran was answering , but its attribution does not hold up cleanly. CENTCOM, US Central Command, said its strikes had ended hours before the claimed noon hit and did not comment on this specific incident. 3 The projectile may not be American at all: Israeli fire, unexploded ordnance, or an accident all remain open.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said nothing specific to the 9 July claim as of 10 July. 4 It had sounded a same-day alarm every prior time Bushehr was struck this spring, calling an attack on an operating reactor nuclear safety's reddest line. Its silence now is either a claim it cannot verify, given Iran restricted agency site access in June, or an alarm threshold that has quietly risen after repeated incidents.
