Head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard University has confirmed that the explosion at Iran’s Parchin military complex that killed a Defense Ministry engineer was an act of sabotage. 

Imam Hossein University’s Chancellor Mohammad-Reza Hassani Ahangar, who is an IRGC commander, said in a speech published on Monday that the “industrial sabotage” targeted one of the production lines of the base. 

"We have witnessed industrial sabotage at the level of the Armed Forces laboratories, and efforts have been made to destroy our advanced laboratory equipment," he said, noting that the officer who was killed not the target. "We must prevent threats with artificial intelligence methods," he added. 

Following the blast late in May, the Defense Ministry had said that “in an accident that took place in one of the research units of the Defense Ministry in the Parchin area, engineer Ehsan Ghadbeigi was martyred and one of his colleagues injured.”

Iran’s missile and space programs have suffered a series of mysterious explosions in recent years. In 2020, a giant explosion occurred in the area of Parchin at a gas storage facility, rattling the capital and sending a massive fireball into the sky near Tehran.

Iran has accused Israel of carrying out several attacks on facilities linked to its nuclear program and of killing its nuclear scientists since mid-2020. 

A series of killings and deaths among IRGC ranks in Iran in recent weeks has led to suspicion that they might have been targets of a secret series of operations, purportedly by Mossad.