DUBAI | 
 
 DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran has denied media reports of a major explosion at one of its most sensitive uranium enrichment sites, describing them as Western propaganda designed to influence upcoming nuclear negotiations. 
 
 Reuters has been unable to verify reports since Friday of an explosion early last week at the underground Fordow bunker, near the religious city of Qom, that some Israeli and Western media have said caused significant damage. 
 
 "The false news of an explosion at Fordow is Western propaganda ahead of nuclear negotiations to influence their process and outcome," state news agency IRNA quoted the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Saeed Shamseddin Bar Broudi, as saying late on Sunday. 
 
 Iran's ISNA news agency quoted military commander Massoud Jazayeri as saying: "I deny an explosion at the Fordow site." 
 
 In late 2011 the plant at Fordow began producing uranium enriched to 20 percent fissile purity, compared with the 3.5 percent level needed for nuclear energy plants. Several U.N. Security Council resolutions have ordered Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment. 
 
 Speculation of an explosion at Fordow followed an Iranian news agency report that global powers and Tehran could resume talks on Iran's disputed nuclear program on Monday and Tuesday. The European Union, the lead negotiator on the nuclear talks, said there was no such agreement. 
 
 Diplomats in Vienna, where the United Nations' nuclear agency is based, said on Monday they had no knowledge of any incident at Fordow but were looking into the reports. One Western diplomat said he did not believe them to be correct. 
 
 The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which regularly inspects Iranian nuclear sites including Fordow, had no immediate comment. 
 
 Iran has accused Israel and the United States of trying to sabotage its nuclear program, which the West suspects hides an attempt to develop atom bomb capability. The Islamic republic says its atomic program is entirely peaceful. 
 
 "BEHAVING LIKE CHILDREN" 
 
 Tehran has accused Israel and the United States of being behind cyber attacks on its nuclear program and the assassination of its nuclear scientists. 
 
 Washington has denied any role in the killings, while Israel has declined to comment. No government has taken responsibility for the Stuxnet computer virus that destroyed centrifuges at Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility in 2010, but it has been widely reported to have been a U.S.-Israeli project. 
 
 Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, has hinted at possible military action against Iran if sanctions and diplomacy fail to resolve the decade-old dispute. 
 
 Israeli Civil Defence Minister Avi Dichter told Israel's Army Radio he could not say anything about the reported Fordow blast "beyond what I heard in the media." 
 
 He added: "Any explosion in Iran which does not harm people but, rather, harms assets, is a blessing." 
 
 Western governments say the higher-grade enrichment at Fordow is a significant step towards weapons-grade material, even though it is below the 90 percent level required for nuclear bombs. 
 
 The Islamic state says it is producing 20 percent uranium to make fuel for a research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes. 
 
 Wrangling over dates and location have delayed resumption of talks between global powers and Iran, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday both sides should "stop behaving like little children" and start work. 
 
 Three rounds of talks last year between Iran and the six powers - Russia, the United States, China, Britain, France and Germany - produced no breakthrough, increasing speculation Israel could attack Iranian nuclear installations. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl in Vienna and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Boyle) ||||| A report published on Right-wing news website WND on Friday, quoting a defected Iranian intelligence officer, claimed that a massive blast had ripped through the nuclear facility, buried deep within the guts of a large mountain. 
 
 The alleged blast was said to have erupted at 11.30am last Monday – on the eve of the Israeli election – partially destroyed the nuclear site and trapped 240 people underground. Tehran held Israel responsible, the report said. 
 
 More than a week later, the report is yet to be verified by a single independent source. If true, it would be the most significant attack on Iranian nuclear capabilities to date and could spark a fierce reaction from the Islamic State. 
 
 And yet on Sunday evening, Shamseddin Barbroudi, deputy head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, assured Iranian reporters there had been no explosion at the nuclear facility whatsoever. 
 
 Earlier the same day, Avi Dichter, Israel's home defence minister, had been unable to confirm the unsubstantiated reports but nonetheless, welcomed them. "Any explosion in Iran that doesn't hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome," he said. 
 
 Speaking privately, officials in Israel's foreign ministry – known to have an extensive surveillance network monitoring Iran's key nuclear sites – claimed they had no reliable intelligence of an explosion at Fordow. 
 
 One theory put forward by Shlomo Aronson, an expert in Israeli foreign security policy at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, is that Tehran had deliberately leaked false reports about a blast to prevent international inspectors from entering the site. 
 
 "They [Tehran] are more than capable of inventing such a story – although if it's true, a damaged Fordow would definitely benefit Israel," Mr Aronson conceded. 
 
 "Israel would do anything within its power to stop the Iranian nuclear programme. This includes tactics that fall just short of, or substitute, a direct attack, such as the cyber war that has been raging for the past few years or acts of sabotage on Iran's nuclear facilities." 
 
 Buried 300 feet underground, the nuclear fortress at Fordow is immune to air strikes or bunker bombs. It contains more than 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to more than 20 per cent. 
 
 Tehran has repeatedly blamed Israel for a string of explosive disasters that have hit Iranian nuclear targets, including the death of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, one of Natanz's top nuclear scientists, killed when his car exploded in January last year. 
 
 Whilst pleading ignorance of last Monday's alleged blast, a senior Israeli official conceded that penetrating a fortified facility such as Fordow would be neither impossible nor without precedent for Israeli's intelligence services. 
 
 "Anything man-made, we can penetrate," one Israeli official told The Daily Telegraph. ||||| Text smaller 
 
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 An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation and trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime. 
 
 The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say. 
 
 The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned about the 20-percent enriched stockpile. 
 
 The explosion occurred Monday, the day before Israeli elections weakened Netanyahu’s political control. 
 
 Iran, to avoid alarm, had converted part of the stockpile to fuel plates for use in the Tehran Research Reactor. However, days after the recent failed talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iranian officials announced the enrichment process will not stop even “for a moment.” 
 
 The regime’s uranium enrichment process takes place at two known sites: the Natanz facility with more than 10,000 centrifuges and Fordow with more than 2,700. The regime currently has enough low-grade (3.5 percent) uranium stockpiled for six nuclear bombs if further enriched. 
 
 Get the inside story in Reza Kahlili’s “A Time To Betray” and learn how the Islamic regime “bought the bomb” in “Atomic Iran.” 
 
 However, more time is needed for conversion of the low-grade uranium than what would be needed for a stockpile at 20 percent. It takes 225 kilograms of enriched uranium at the 20-percent level to further enrich to the 90-percent level for one nuclear bomb. 
 
 According to a source in the security forces protecting Fordow, an explosion on Monday at 11:30 a.m. Tehran time rocked the site, which is buried deep under a mountain and immune not only to airstrikes but to most bunker-buster bombs. The report of the blast came via Hamidreza Zakeri, formerly with the Islamic regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, 
 
 The blast shook facilities within a radius of three miles. Security forces have enforced a no-traffic radius of 15 miles, and the Tehran-Qom highway was shut down for several hours after the blast, the source said. As of Wednesday afternoon, rescue workers had failed to reach the trapped personnel. 
 
 The site, about 300 feet under a mountain, had two elevators which now are out of commission. One elevator descended about 240 feet and was used to reach centrifuge chambers. The other went to the bottom to carry heavy equipment and transfer uranium hexafluoride. One emergency staircase reaches the bottom of the site and another one was not complete. The source said the emergency exit southwest of the site is unreachable. 
 
 The regime believes the blast was sabotage and the explosives could have reached the area disguised as equipment or in the uranium hexafluoride stock transferred to the site, the source said. The explosion occurred at the third centrifuge chambers, with the high-grade enriched uranium reserves below them. 
 
 The information was passed on to U.S. officials but has not been verified or denied by the regime or other sources within the regime. 
 
 Though the news of the explosion has not been independently verified, other sources previously have provided WND with information on plans for covert operations against Iran’s nuclear facilities as an option before going to war. The hope is to avoid a larger-scale conflict. Israel, the U.S. and other allies already have concluded the Islamic regime has crossed its red line in its quest for nuclear weapons, other sources have said. 
 
 However, this information was not revealed for security reasons until several days ago when sources said the regime’s intelligence agency, through an alleged spy in the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, had learned of the decision to conduct sabotage on Iran’s nuclear sites on a much larger scale than before. 
 
 As reported, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an urgent meeting Tuesday with the intelligence minister, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and other officials to discuss the threat, and now it’s clear the meeting included the sabotage at Fordow. 
 
 Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated in recent years. Last year, saboteurs struck the power supply to the Fordow facility, temporarily disrupting production. And a computer worm called Stuxnet, believed to have originated in the U.S., set Iran’s plans for nuclear weapons back substantially. 
 
 The 5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) hope to resume talks with Iran over its illicit nuclear program. The talks ended last year after regime officials refused to negotiate. 
 
 Sources in the Islamic regime previously have revealed exclusively to WND the existence of:
– Iran today denied reports that an explosion had ripped through its Fordow nuclear site, which is buried 300 feet underground and considered safe from air strikes, the Telegraph and Reuters report. "The false news of an explosion at Fordow is Western propaganda ahead of nuclear negotiations to influence their process and outcome," state media quoted a nuclear official as saying. Seems the story started on a right-wing website called WND, which attributed it to an unnamed "former intelligence officer" in Iran—but that hasn't quelled speculation entirely. "Any explosion in Iran that doesn't hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome," said Israel's defense minister. And an Israeli foreign policy expert said Iran may have cooked up the story to keep inspectors from entering Fordow. After all, the story broke right after Iranian state media reported that talks could resume between Tehran and Western powers, although the EU quickly said no such agreement existed. Also note that Fordow started making uranium at 20% fissile purity in 2011, far higher than the 3.5% needed at nuclear energy plants.