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NBC News
28-06-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Can Iran secretly build a nuclear bomb without being caught by Israel?
Iran's top nuclear scientist was driving to his country house with his wife on an autumn day four years ago. As he slowed down for a speed bump, a remote-controlled machine gun mounted on a nearby pick-up truck fired a volley of bullets, killing him instantly, Iranian authorities said. The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of a dormant nuclear weapons project known as Project Amad, illustrated in brutal fashion how deeply Israel had penetrated Iran. That vulnerability has only been exposed further in recent weeks, with Israeli air strikes killing several other scientists believed to be involved in Iran's nuclear work. Iran's political leaders now face a dilemma. After the heavy U.S. bombing of their nuclear sites and air defenses, they can strike a painful compromise with Washington and abandon their uranium enrichment program, or revive the secret weapons project masterminded by Fakhrizadeh. Unlike other countries that were able to develop nuclear weapons in secret, Iran cannot assume it will be able to keep its work hidden. Israel has demonstrated repeatedly it can evade Iran's security, uncover its clandestine nuclear activities and hunt down senior figures in the military, former intelligence officials and experts said. 'Iran's principal challenge in pursuing a covert pathway is going to be keeping it hidden from U.S. and Israeli detection,' said Eric Brewer, a former intelligence official now with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit focusing on global security. 'That's the key challenge, because both countries, particularly Israel, have demonstrated an ability to penetrate Iran's nuclear program,' he added. 'And Israel has demonstrated an ability to use kinetic force to take it out.' The Israeli air force has effectively wiped out Iran's air defenses. For the moment, Iran cannot protect any target on its territory -- especially suspected nuclear sites -- from a U.S. or Israeli bombing raid, former intelligence officials said. 'The Israelis have complete intelligence dominance over Iran,' said Marc Polymeropoulos, a former career CIA officer and now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. 'If they see something emanating as a threat, they will take it out. . .That could mean military strikes. It could be covert action.' Iran has already tried once to build an atomic bomb under the veil of secrecy. It had a covert nuclear weapons project more than two decades ago, according to Western intelligence agencies. But its cover was blown in December 2002, when satellite photos emerged showing an enrichment site in the city of Natanz and a heavy water plant about 200 miles away in Arak. Iran has denied it ever had a weapons program. Archival documents stolen in 2018 by Israel's Mossad spy agency, which the U.S. says are authentic, showed detailed plans to build five nuclear weapons. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons project in 2003. At that point, the secrecy around the project had been breached and Iran had reason to be anxious in the wake of a U.S. invasion in neighboring Iraq. Since then, Iran maintained what it said was a civilian nuclear program. Iran's uranium enrichment and other nuclear work gave Tehran the potential option to pursue an eventual weapon if it chose to go that route – what arms control experts call a 'threshold' nuclear capability. Stolen blueprints If the regime chooses to race towards a bomb, it will be calculating that nuclear weapons will discourage any adversary from trying to stage an attack or topple its leadership. And it would be following a familiar path taken by other countries that successfully pursued secret bomb projects, including North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel. The Israeli government kept the Americans in the dark about their nuclear weapons project for years. In the 1950s, French engineers helped Israel build a nuclear reactor and a secret reprocessing plant to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel. Israel's government to this day does not officially confirm or deny its nuclear arsenal, saying it will not be the first to "introduce" nuclear weapons in the Middle East. India's nuclear program also began in the 1950s, with the United States and Canada providing nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel for purely peaceful purposes. India agreed to safeguards designed to prevent the reactors and fuel from being used for weapons. But India secretly reprocessed spent fuel into plutonium in the 1960s, building up fissile material for a nuclear weapon. By 1974, India carried out its first nuclear test, code-named Smiling Buddha. Pakistan built its bomb with the help of nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, a metallurgist who stole blueprints and other information on advanced centrifuges while working at a nuclear engineering firm in Amsterdam. Khan later was linked with distributing nuclear weapons technology to Iran and North Korea among others. Khan's assistance in the 1990s proved crucial for North Korea's program. The Pyongyang regime also bought technology and hardware abroad through front companies or on the black market, according to U.N. monitors. It was America that helped Iran launch its nuclear program, before the 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy. During the Shah's rule, through the U.S. 'Atoms for Peace Program,' the United States provided nuclear technology, fuel, training and equipment to Iran in the 1960s, including a research reactor. Now Iran likely has no need to turn to outside partners for technical know-how, experts say. Still, the regime will have a daunting task reconstituting whatever is left of its nuclear program. Every known nuclear site in Iran was targeted in Israel's air campaign earlier this month. And then last week the U.S. launched an attack on three enrichment sites using 14 'bunker buster' 30,000-pound bombs and more than a dozen Tomahawk missiles. The CIA says key facilities were destroyed and the nuclear program was 'severely damaged' in the strikes. Despite the unprecedented damage, which is still being assessed, it's possible Iran may have the technical means to relaunch a weapons program – including enriched uranium, centrifuges and access to tunnels or other underground sites, some arms control experts say. Iran's entire stockpile of highly enriched uranium has yet to be accounted for, and it has an unknown number of centrifuges in storage that were not located at the sites bombed by Israel, NBC News has reported. Iran's most significant technical obstacle, however, could be producing uranium metal. Iran only had one known site where it could convert uranium into a solid metal state, and Israeli air strikes destroyed it in Isfahan. Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon without such a facility, and it's unclear if the regime has a secret uranium metal product plant elsewhere. Technical hurdles aside, the decision whether to build a nuclear bomb ultimately will be shaped by political considerations rather than technology or logistics, according to Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. 'It really is a political decision not a technical one," Lewis said. "They still have a lot of capability left." After coming under a withering aerial assault that demonstrated Israel's air superiority, Iran may view nuclear weapons as the only way to defend itself and preserve the regime's survival, according to Marvin Weinbaum, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank and a professor at the University of Illinois. 'Iran has every reason now, based on what's just happened, to say we've got to have a bomb, [and] we'll be treated differently if we do,' Weinbaum said. Officials in Iran's regime have long debated whether to develop nuclear weapons, and its policy over the past two decades appeared to strike a compromise, giving Tehran the option to go nuclear if circumstances required. The question for Iranian officials is whether nuclear weapons will help ensure the regime's survival or endanger its grip on power, regional analysts said. Looming over Iran's decision is the threat of Israeli espionage and air power, potentially catching Tehran in the act of rushing to produce a bomb. 'It will be interesting to see whether the regime buckles down and gets serious about it, or whether their operational security remains as terrible as ever,' Lewis said. 'They have been so careless.' President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to hold talks on a possible agreement with Iran in coming days to try to halt its uranium enrichment in return for sanctions relief.
New York Times
22-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Satellite Images Show U.S. May Have Targeted Ventilation Shafts at Fordo
A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery shows that the United States targeted Fordo, Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facility, at the precise locations of two structures that experts said might be ventilation shafts. The structures were visible only during the early stages of the plant's operation, and could be seen in satellite images in 2009. By 2011, both were no longer visible. Experts said they might be ventilation shafts used during the plant's construction, and then buried. 'Hitting a ventilation shaft would make sense, because the hole for air already penetrates the thick rock, interrupting its integrity,' said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A U.S. official said that six B-2 bombers had dropped a dozen 30,000-pound 'bunker buster' bombs on Fordo overnight. Ventilation shafts 'are probably the most vulnerable points of the facility,' said Scott Roecker, a vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the spread of nuclear weapons. Whether or not the attack on those areas was enough to completely destroy Fordo is unclear. While President Trump said on Saturday that Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities were 'completely and totally obliterated,' his early public pronouncements were in contrast with more cautious initial assessments by the U.S. and Israeli militaries, which indicated the facility was severely damaged. Those damage assessments are ongoing, and the United States and Israel have not made any final conclusions. Given that the U.S. attack appears to have targeted the area around the two structures, 'I would assume the U.S. has active intelligence that seems to indicate that those shafts were structural weaknesses,' said Joseph Rodgers, a nuclear expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research institute in Washington. Satellite imagery taken by Maxar Technologies on Sunday showed debris scattered around the large complex, but the site's support buildings appeared intact. That indicates, Mr. Rodgers said, that 'the key target was really how to destroy the structure underground,' and that the attack was most likely not trying to take the facility offline by targeting other support infrastructure. After strikes June 22 Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Security perimeter Fordo nuclear site Entrance tunnels filled with dirt Likely bomb entry holes Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Gray dust Main enrichment hall thought to be below peak Gray dust Support building appears intact Likely bomb entry holes After strikes June 22 Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Fordo nuclear site Entrance tunnels filled with dirt Likely bomb entry holes Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Gray dust Main enrichment hall thought to be below peak Gray dust Support building appears intact Likely bomb entry holes Security perimeter After strikes June 22 Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Fordo nuclear site Entrance tunnels filled with dirt Likely bomb entry holes Gray dust Entrance tunnel filled with dirt Main enrichment hall thought to be below peak Gray dust Support building appears intact Likely bomb entry holes Security perimeter Source: Satellite image from Maxar Technologies By Josh Holder In satellite images after the strike, the facility's entrance tunnels appeared filled in with dirt. Experts said that was probably a measure taken as part of Iran's preparation for an attack, possibly in an attempt to shield the facility inside. Satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies showed a flurry of abnormal activity near the entrance tunnel in the three days preceding the U.S. strikes. 16 cargo trucks near a tunnel entrance on June 19 Fordo nuclear site Tunnel entrance 16 cargo trucks near a tunnel entrance on June 19 Fordo nuclear site Tunnel entrance Source: Satellite image by Maxar Technologies By Josh Holder On June 19, there were 16 cargo trucks near an entrance tunnel. The following day, the trucks had moved northwest away from the site, but other trucks and bulldozers were near the entrance. New dirt could be seen in the tunnel entrances on June 20, and far more is visible in satellite images taken after the strikes.
News18
22-06-2025
- Politics
- News18
Inside Iran's Nuclear Network: All About Natanz, Fordow And Isfahan Facilities Hit By US Strikes
Last Updated: These sites represent the core of Iran's nuclear program, each playing a distinct role in advancing capabilities that the international community views with increasing concern. Following the recent US airstrikes that targeted Iran's nuclear infrastructure, attention has turned to the three key facilities at the heart of Iran's uranium enrichment and nuclear research efforts — Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. These sites represent the core of Iran's nuclear program, each playing a distinct role in advancing capabilities that the international community views with increasing concern. Tucked beneath the mountains near the holy city of Qom, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is one of the most fortified and secretive nuclear facilities in Iran. Much of its infrastructure lies deep underground, offering a high degree of protection from conventional airstrikes. CNN, citing Israeli intelligence documents, reports that the plant's main halls are estimated to be 80 to 90 meters (262 to 295 feet) underground. Due to its depth and fortification, only the US military is believed to possess the capability to strike the site effectively, likely with its Massive Ordnance Penetrators delivered by B-2 bombers. Recent IAEA reports indicate that Iran has ramped up uranium enrichment at Fordow to 60%, and the facility now houses approximately 2,700 centrifuges, intensifying global concerns about the site's purpose and activity. Located approximately 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Tehran, Natanz is considered Iran's most significant uranium enrichment site. Analysts quoted by CNN say the facility is primarily used to develop and assemble centrifuges, which are essential for enriching uranium—a process that can be used for both civilian nuclear energy and, at higher purities, weapons development. The Natanz complex comprises multiple overground and underground structures, including six surface buildings and three underground halls. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), two of these underground structures are capable of housing up to 50,000 centrifuges. This vast capacity makes it a central hub in Iran's enrichment operations. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that Iran has enriched uranium up to 60% purity at the site's above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant—just shy of the 90% required for weapons-grade material. Isfahan: The Heart of Iran's Nuclear Research Operations Located in central Iran, the Isfahan nuclear facility is widely considered the largest and most advanced research center within the country's nuclear program. Established in 1984 with assistance from China, the complex is reported to employ around 3,000 scientists and plays a central role in supporting both the technical and scientific foundation of Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) describes Isfahan as a multifunctional hub that houses three Chinese-supplied research reactors, a uranium conversion facility, a fuel production plant, a zirconium cladding plant, and a wide array of laboratories and auxiliary infrastructure. Its comprehensive capabilities make it not only a vital component of Iran's nuclear development but also a site of strategic concern for the international community, given its potential for both civilian and military nuclear applications.
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First Post
22-06-2025
- Politics
- First Post
Three nuclear sites bombed by US in Iran: Here's what we know about them
Trump announced the strikes on three Iranian enrichment facilities — Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan — and said that a 'full payload of BOMBS was dropped' on Fordo read more US President Donald Trump addresses the nation regarding the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites as seen on a television screen in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC. Source: AFP The US bombed three Iranian nuclear sites early Sunday (June 22), in a major blow to the Shi'ite nation's nuclear programme. Trump announced the strikes on three Iranian enrichment facilities — Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan — and said that a 'full payload of BOMBS was dropped' on Fordo. 'All planes are safely on their way home,' Trump added in his post. 'Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Here's what we know about the three targeted nuclear sites. Natanz This nuclear complex is located 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of the capital Tehran and is considered Iran's largest uranium enrichment facility. Experts state that the Natanz facility is used for developing and assembling centrifuges for uranium enrichment, a critical process for producing nuclear fuel. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Natanz comprises six above-ground buildings and three underground structures, two of which can accommodate 50,000 centrifuges. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that Iran was enriching uranium to 60 per cent purity at its above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. Weapons-grade uranium requires 90 per cent enrichment. Fordow The site still remains mysterious as much information is not available in public domain. It's known to be located close to the holy city of Qom and buried deep in a group of mountains. The main halls at Fordow are estimated to be 80 to 90 meters (approximately 262 to 295 feet) underground. Israeli officials and independent reports have previously stated that only the US possesses bombs capable of penetrating such depths. Recent IAEA reports indicate that Iran has increased production of 60 per cent-enriched uranium at Fordow. Experts and the IAEA confirm the facility now houses 2,700 centrifuges. Isfahan This is Iran's largest nuclear research complex. The Isfahan facility, constructed with Chinese assistance and operational since 1984, employs 3,000 scientists, per the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). NTI notes it is 'suspected of being the center' of Iran's nuclear program. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It 'operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors,' as well as a 'conversion facility, a fuel production plant, a zirconium cladding plant, and other facilities and laboratories,' the NTI says.
CNN
22-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
What we know about the three Iranian nuclear sites struck by the US
The US has struck three key nuclear sites in Iran, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social Saturday evening as the Iran-Israel conflict enters a second week. The Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz sites lie at the heart of Iran's nuclear ambitions, and had previously been targeted by Israeli strikes. Here's what we know about them. The nuclear complex, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital Tehran, is considered Iran's largest uranium enrichment facility. Analysts say it is used to develop and assemble centrifuges for uranium enrichment, a key technology that turns uranium into nuclear fuel. Natanz has six above-ground buildings and three underground structures, two of which can hold 50,000 centrifuges, according to the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The site was targeted in Israel's initial attack on Iran, with satellite photos and analysis showing the strikes destroyed the above-ground part of Natanz's Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. That's a sprawling site that has been operating since 2003, and where Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90%. The earlier strikes also knocked out electricity on the lower levels where the centrifuges are stored, two US officials told CNN at the time. Since so much of the facility is underground, wiping out power to those parts is the most effective way to impact underground equipment and machinery. Much is still unknown about the full size and nature of this secretive, heavily-guarded facility, located close to the holy city of Qom and buried deep in a group of mountains. A good chunk of what we do know comes from a trove of Iranian documents stolen years ago by Israeli intelligence. The main halls are an estimated 80 to 90 meters (around 262 to 295 feet) beneath the ground, making it very difficult to destroy the facility from air. The US is the only country with the kind of bomb required to strike that deep, Israeli officials and independent reports have previously said. However analysts have warned even those bombs might not be enough. 'Iran can convert its current stock of 60 percent enriched uranium into 233 kg of weapon-grade uranium in three weeks at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant,' enough for nine nuclear weapons, according to the nonpartisan Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Recent IAEA reports suggested Iran had ramped up production of enriched uranium to a level of 60% at Fordow. The facility now contains 2,700 centrifuges, according to experts and the IAEA. Isfahan is in central Iran, and is home to the country's largest nuclear research complex. The facility was built with support from China and opened in 1984, according to the NTI. According to NTI, 3,000 scientists are employed at Isfahan, and the site is 'suspected of being the center' of Iran's nuclear program. It 'operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors,' as well as a 'conversion facility, a fuel production plant, a zirconium cladding plant, and other facilities and laboratories,' the NTI says.
