Experts: The Iran secret Trump is keeping from the world
Two days before American B-2 stealth bombers dropped the biggest payload of explosives since World War II on Iran , trucks were seen lining up outside the primary target at Fordow. Satellite images showed scores of cargo vehicles outside a tunnel entrance to Iran's key nuclear base inside a mountain. Donald Trump has insisted that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program was destroyed in the precision strikes, an assessment backed by the CIA and Israeli intelligence.
But there was also a frantic effort to move centrifuges and highly enriched uranium before US bombers attacked, the key question for the Pentagon now is: where did it go? One possibility, according to experts, is a secret facility buried even deeper under another mountain 90 miles south of Fordow: 'Mount Doom.' In Farsi, the potential new ground zero for Iran's nuclear program is Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, otherwise known in English as 'Pickaxe Mountain,' located in the Zagros Mountains in central Iran on the outskirts of one of the regime's other nuclear sites at Natanz.
'It is plausible that Iran moved centrifuges and highly enriched uranium (HEU) to secret or hardened locations prior to the recent strikes - including possibly to facilities near Pickaxe Mountain,' Christoph Bluth, professor of international relations and security at the University of Bradford, told the Daily Mail. Previous intelligence had showed 'large tunnels being bored into the mountain, with possible infrastructure for an advanced enrichment facility,' he claimed. 'The site may be buried 100 meters below the surface. So it is conceivable that advanced centrifuge cascades have been hidden there, but there is no specific evidence at this time to confirm where centrifuges and fissile material has been moved to.'
Previous satellite images have shown heavy construction at Pickaxe, and Iran reportedly dismissed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when asked what was occurring in the bowels of the mountain. Experts have suggested that, if there was a centrifuge hall being built there, it could be bigger than Fordow. The site has four tunnel entrances, each is 20 feet wide by 26 feet high, and experts who have analyzed satellite data suggest its tunnels could go well beyond 382 feet deep, further underground than Fordow.
'It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,' said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. According to Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, the Iranian regime may have moved about 880lbs of uranium that was being stored in casks the size of scuba tanks and was transportable by vehicles. If material from Fordow was hauled to Pickaxe Mountain, it would have likely been driven for two hours along Iran's Route 7 freeway.
The emergence of Pickaxe Mountain comes amid a furious row within the Trump administration over the impact of Saturday's strikes on Fordow and two other Iranian nuclear sites, Natanz and Isfahan. A preliminary US intelligence assessment determined with 'low confidence' that Iran's nuclear program was only set back by a matter of months. The initial report was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which is one of 18 US intelligence agencies.
However, the classified assessment is at odds with that of President Trump and high-ranking US officials who said the three sites had been 'obliterated.' Weapons expert David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, concluded the centrifuge halls at Fordow were destroyed by the numerous 30,000lb bombs the US dropped. After viewing satellite images, he said the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) were dropped at one end of the centrifuge hall, and on a ventilator shaft.
'Basically, what you have is a very big explosion that will blow one way and then perpendicular,' he concluded. 'It would have destroyed the inside of that centrifuge plant. 'We believe that the MOP went into the hall. We think those centrifuges have been mostly destroyed. I think these reports that somehow there weren't centrifuges taken out are just incorrect.' Albright added: 'It is pretty devastating. A lot of their above-ground facilities that are a critical part of the centrifuge program have been destroyed. A lot of what really is left is sort of what I call the residuals or the remnants of the program.'
Iran likely lost nearly 20,000 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, he estimated, creating a 'major bottleneck' for any attempt to restart its nuclear program. Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, concluded that, for Iran, 'weaponization may be impossible for the foreseeable future.' But, she added: 'Washington and Jerusalem must act swiftly to eliminate any of Tehran's remaining HEU stocks, advanced centrifuges, and weaponization capabilities. 'Iran may have relocated its highly enriched uranium - key stocks for fueling a nuclear weapon - to secret sites prior to US or Israeli airstrikes targeting its nuclear facilities. While recovering this HEU is imperative, Iran likely lacks the option to build nuclear weapons in the short term.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
42 minutes ago
- BBC News
At least 81 people killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas-run health ministry says
At least 81 Palestinians have been killed and more than 400 injured in Israeli strikes across Gaza in the 24 hours until midday on Saturday, the Hamas-run health ministry one incident, at least 11 people, including children, were killed after a strike near a stadium in Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital staff and witnesses told news agencies. The stadium was being used to house displaced people, living in verified by the BBC shows people digging through the sand with their bare hands and spades to find BBC has contacted the Israeli military for US President Donald Trump said he was hopeful a ceasefire could be agreed in the next week. Qatari mediators said they hoped US pressure could achieve a deal, following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day conflict between the March, a two-month ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza. The ceasefire deal - which started on 19 January - was set up to have three stages, but did not make it past the first two included establishing a permanent ceasefire, the return of remaining living hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled.A rally was organised on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv calling for a deal to free the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Organisers said "the time has come to end the fighting and bring everyone home in one phase".Meanwhile, Israeli attacks in Gaza continue. Friday evening's strike near the Palestine Stadium in Gaza City killed at least 11 people, hospital staff and witnesses witness said they were sitting when they "suddenly heard a huge explosion" after a road was hit."This area was packed with tents - now the tents are under the sand. We spent hours digging with our bare hands," Ahmed Qishawi told the Reuters news agency. He said there are "no wanted people here, nor any terrorists as they [Israelis] claim... [there are] only civilian residents, children, who were targeted with no mercy," he BBC has verified footage showing civilians and emergency services digging through the sandy ground with their hands and spades to find bodies. Fourteen more people were reported killed, some of them children, in strikes on an apartment block and a tent in the al-Mawasi strike in al-Mawasi killed three children and their parents, who died while they were asleep, relatives told the Associated Press."What did these children do to them? What is their fault?" the children's grandmother, Suad Abu Teima, told the news people were reported killed on Saturday afternoon after an air strike on the Tuffah neighbourhood near Jaffa School, where hundreds of displaced Gazans were sheltering. The strike killed at least eight people, including five children, the Palestinian health ministry witness Mohammed Haboub told Reuters that his nephews, father and the children of his neighbours were killed in the strike."We didn't do anything to them, why do they harm us? Did we harm them? We are civilians," he told the news health ministry said ambulance and civil defence crews were facing difficulties in reaching a number of victims trapped under the rubble and on the roads, due to the impossibility of movement in some of the affected areas. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not yet commented on these reported strikes. The IDF released a statement on Saturday evening saying it had killed Hakham Muhammad Issa al-Issa, a senior figure in Hamas's military wing, in the area of Sabra in Gaza City on Israeli military launched its bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken than 56,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
What's in the latest version of Trump's big bill now before the Senate
At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. Now it's up to Congress to decide whether President Donald Trump 's signature's domestic policy package will become law. Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July. Senators were working through the weekend to pass the bill and send it back to the House for a final vote. Democrats are united against it. Here's the latest on what's in the bill. There could be changes as lawmakers negotiate. Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump's first term expire. The legislation contains roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts. The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay or some automotive loans, along with a bigger $6,000 deduction in the Senate draft for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year. It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200 under the Senate proposal. Families at lower income levels would not see the full amount. A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It's a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years. There are scores of business-related tax cuts. The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House's version. Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of $500 to $1,500, the CBO said. Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump's border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year. The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions. The attorney general would have $3.5 billion for a similar fund, known as Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide, or BIDEN, referring to former Democratic President Joe Biden. To help pay for it all, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections. For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security. How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back some long-running government programs: Medicaid, food stamps, green energy incentives and others. It's essentially unraveling the accomplishments of the past two Democratic presidents, Biden and Barack Obama. Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse. The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program's work requirements. There's also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services. Some 80 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama's Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts. All told, the CBO estimates that under the House-passed bill, at least 10.9 million more people would go without health coverage and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps. The Senate proposes a $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Fund to help offset reduced Medicaid dollars. It's a new addition, intended to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that the proposed Medicaid provider tax cuts would hurt rural hospitals. Both the House and Senate bills propose a dramatic rollback of the Biden-era green energy tax breaks for electric vehicles. They also would phase out or terminate the various production and investment tax credits companies use to stand up wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. In total, cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs would be expected to produce at least $1.5 trillion in savings. Trump savings accounts and so, so much more A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities. The House and Senate both have a new children's savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury. The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump's long-sought 'National Garden of American Heroes.' There's a new excise tax on university endowments, restrictions on the development of artificial intelligence and blocks on transgender surgeries. A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated. One provision bars money to family planning providers, namely Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee. Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for exploration to Mars. The bill would deter states from regulating artificial intelligence by linking certain federal AI infrastructure money to maintaining a freeze. Seventeen Republican governors asked GOP leaders to drop the provision. Also, the interior secretary would be directed to sell certain Bureau of Land Management acreage to provide for housing. The sale of public lands would cover at least 600,000 acres and up to 1.2 million acres, according to a projection from the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group. What's the final cost? Altogether, keeping the existing tax breaks and adding the new ones is expected to cost $3.8 trillion over the decade, the CBO says in its analysis of the House bill. An analysis of the Senate draft is pending. The CBO estimates the House-passed package would add $2.4 trillion to the nation's deficits over the decade. Or not, depending on how one does the math. Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already 'current policy.' Senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach. Under the Senate GOP view, the tax provisions cost $441 billion, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Democrats and others say this is 'magic math' that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the Senate tally at $4.2 trillion over the decade.
South Wales Guardian
an hour ago
- South Wales Guardian
Two further terror arrests after vandalism of planes at RAF base
Counter Terrorism Policing South East said two men aged 22 and 24, both from London, were taken into police custody after the incident at RAF Brize Norton on June 20. They are accused of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. On Friday, a woman, aged 29, of no fixed address, and two men, aged 36 and 24, from London, were also arrested accused of the same offence. A 41-year-old woman, of no fixed address, was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, police said. Palestine Action previously posted footage online showing people inside the Oxfordshire base, with one person appearing to ride an electric scooter up to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker, before spray-painting into its jet engine. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made the decision to proscribe Palestine Action following the incident, with the arrests coming just days before the proscription is set to come into force. Support for the group will become a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison when the ban comes into effect as soon as next Friday. Palestine Action has staged demonstrations that have included spraying the London offices of Allianz Insurance with red paint and vandalising US President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire. As she announced plans for Palestine Action's proscription, Ms Cooper said the group's methods have become 'more aggressive', with its members showing 'willingness to use violence'. At the time of the incident, the group said it had 'directly intervened in the genocide and prevented crimes against the Palestinian people' by 'decommissioning two military planes'. Palestine Action said Thursday's arrests 'further demonstrates that proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it's about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine'.
