A drone strike sparked a fire at UAE nuclear plant as fears grow over Iran tensions and risks to Gulf infrastructure.
A drone strike sparked a fire at the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah Nuclear Power Plant on Sunday, raising fresh fears over the fragility of the current U.S.-Iran truce and the risks posed to critical infrastructure across the Gulf.
Officials said there was no evidence of elevated radiation levels following the incident and confirmed the fire was contained without injuries. The fire broke out in an electrical generator outside of the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant's inner perimeter, according to local authorities and United Nations experts. The four-reactor site, which is the Arab world's first nuclear power plant, sits southwest of the city of Al Dhannah and west of the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.
It generates about a quarter of the country's entire electricity supply. No one was reported injured and emergency diesel generators kicked in to provide power to one of the reactor units, according to officials. All units are operating normally and the blaze did not impact safety or radiation levels at the site, Abi Dhabi's media office said in a statement.
But the incident hammered home how quickly the fragile truce between the U.S. and Iran, which has been in place since early April, could crumble as progress stalls toward a peace deal to end the war sparked by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28. Iran retaliated by attacking U.S. allies across the Gulf and Israel, although the UAE has borne the brunt of missile and drone attacks.
Abu Dhabi authorities did not directly blame Iran and Tehran's military did not publicly claim responsibility, but the Emirati Defense Ministry has repeatedly said its air defenses intercepted incoming attacks in recent weeks despite the brittle truce. Overall, the UAE has intercepted 572 missiles of different types, as well as 2,265 drones, since the start of the war, according to the Gulf state's government.
The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been informed of the incident and it was ready to provide assistance if needed. IAEA chief, Rafael Grossi, said any military activity near nuclear power plants could jeopardize the safety of the facilities and trigger a nuclear accident. Similar concerns have been raised in Ukraine, where Europe's largest nuclear power plant was captured bt Russia in March 2022 and remains under Moscow's control.
The plant, in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, has been repeatedly disconnected from external power over the course of the war. The six-reactor site is not currently operational, but needs access to off-site power to keep it safe.
In the north of the country, a drone struck and damaged the protective shelter around Ukraine's abandoned Chernobyl plant—the site of the world'sPresident Donald Trump said on Saturday he would accept a peace deal with Iran in which Tehran agreed to stop its nuclear development for 20 years, appearing to confirm the U.S. was moving away from demanding a complete end to all Iranian nuclear activity.
The U.S. has consistently said Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and that Tehran needs to reopen access to the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route, which it has beenon Iranian ports, but Tehran has refused to release its grip on the waterway, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas usually passes. The U.S. military said on Saturday it had stopped a total of 78 commercial ships and disabled another four vessels under its maritime blockade.
Months of chaos has roiled global markets, sent fuel prices yo-yoing, and left thousands of sailors stranded around the strait. Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the national security committee in the Iranian parliament, said on Saturday Iran had devised a new mechanism for controlling traffic through the state. Iranian officials say they have started collecting toll fees from ships in the strait, which the U.S. and international shipping groups have slammed as unacceptable.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched uranium far beyond what is needed for civilian nuclear reactors to levels nearing weapons-grade.
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