Iran’s most critical and heavily fortified nuclear site is located at Fordow, a mountainous region roughly 60 miles southwest of the Iranian capital of Tehran.
That site, along with Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility and its Isfahan nuclear technology center, were hit in a series of U.S. airstrikes on Saturday evening intended to destroy, or otherwise significantly set back, Iran’s nuclear program.
The Iranian regime built the core of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant 260 feet deep inside a mountain to protect it from airstrikes. The site contains advanced uranium centrifuge cascades, which are necessary for producing the fuel needed to create nuclear warheads.
In 2009, Iran told the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog that it had begun construction at Fordow in 2007, stating that it “decided to establish contingency centers” after threats of military attacks against Iran. Construction took place sometime between 2007 and 2009.
Fordow is where many analysts have long suspected Iran would potentially conceal any covert attempts to develop nuclear bombs.
The site is not only constructed deep into a mountain to withstand airstrikes, but is also protected by anti-aircraft batteries, which had sustained strikes from Israeli forces the week prior to the U.S. strike. Due to its location so far underground, military experts believe only the American bunker buster bombs are capable of damaging it.
President Donald Trump ordered a team of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers carrying an arsenal that included the roughly 30,000-pound precision-guided massive ordnance penetrator (MOP), a bunker-buster bomb and the U.S. military’s largest non-nuclear bomb, to strike Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan on Saturday.
During a Sunday press briefing at the Pentagon, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers had dropped a total of 14 bunker-busters.
Saturday’s campaign, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, was the first-ever operational use of the bunker-busters.
Trump said the three Iranian nuclear facilities, including Fordow, had been “completely and totally obliterated.” Iran has confirmed the strikes but has not yet publicly commented on the damage.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), announced on Sunday that Iranian regulatory authorities said there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels after the U.S. strikes on the three nuclear facilities, including at Fordow.
“As of this time, we don’t expect that there will be any health consequences for people or the environment outside the targeted sites,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
The IAEA had said in early May that Iran had enriched uranium to 60 percent, which can be further enriched to bomb grade—at least 90 percent—fairly quickly.
In March 2023, the IAEA said it had taken samples from Fordow that included uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent. Iran suggested that “unintended fluctuations in enrichment levels” could have produced the higher readings after the IAEA asked for further clarification.
Iran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program is only for civilian energy production. Only uranium enriched to 3.67 percent is required for civilian electricity production. The IAEA has said that in the past, only nations building nuclear warheads possessed uranium enriched to 60 percent.
Andrew Thornebrooke contributed to this report.
By Jacob Burg
