Six drones were launched at the United Arab Emirates from Iraq in 48 hours, the UAE said on Tuesday. One of them got through and started a fire at the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant on Sunday.
The UAE defense ministry said its forces stopped all the others. In total, three of the drones had been aimed at Barakah, the first commercial nuclear power station in the Arab world. The one that slipped past the defenses struck an electric generator outside the plant’s inner perimeter, the ministry said.
The UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation said the plant remained safe after the strike. No radioactive material had been released.
Emirati response
Emirati officials called the incident a “terrorist attack” and said the UAE has the full right to respond to such attacks.
Iraq is home to powerful Iranian-backed militias. They have claimed attacks on “enemy bases in Iraq and the region” during the US-Israeli war on Iran. Baghdad pushed back on the UAE’s account, saying its air defenses had detected no drones launched from Iraqi airspace.
Security Council session
The Security Council met in New York to discuss the attack. UAE ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the session it was not an isolated incident. He named no perpetrator. He did say it occurred “in a wider regional context, in which persistent cross-border attacks by one state and its proxies have pushed the region toward heightened escalation and dangerous confrontation.”
Russia and China, long supportive of Iran, both criticized the attack. China’s envoy voiced “great concern.” Russia’s UN ambassador said strikes on peaceful nuclear facilities in any country were “categorically unacceptable.”
Raphael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, told the meeting that the attack threatened the UAE’s nuclear safety and caused great concern across the Gulf. He spelled out the risk plainly. “In case of an attack on the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant, a direct hit could result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” he said.
Grossi added that a hit knocking out the lines that supply power to the plant “could increase the likelihood of its reactors’ cores melting, which could result in a high release of radioactivity.”
Drones across the Gulf
Fighting during the Iran conflict has eased since a ceasefire took effect in April. Even so, drones have kept coming from Iraq toward Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait among them. Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it had shot down three drones that crossed in from Iraqi airspace, and that it would take any measures needed to defend its sovereignty and security.
Sources
Sources
- News about Drone strike • Barakah nuclear plant • UAE – Overview
- Drone hit near Barakah Nuclear Power Plant came from Ira1, says…
