Following massive US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities (Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan) on 22 June, the real extent of the damage remains unclear. These were preceded by several days of Israeli attacks on the same and other Iranian nuclear facilities (Tehran and Arak). While Israeli officials claimed the sites were “annihilated” and US President Donald Trump said they were “totally obliterated”, experts agree that it is impossible to know, given that most of the key sites are underground. The US is still preparing a final assessment, while much commentary is based on a series of satellite images produced by Maxar Technologies and reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which was very familiar with all the facilities following frequent inspections.
In an address to the IAEA Board of Governors on 23 June, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, said: “We are meeting today in the midst of a serious conflict, involving three IAEA Member States, during which Iran’s nuclear sites are coming under attack. The weight of this conflict risks collapsing the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.” He called for an end to hostilities and a return to diplomacy, detailing the damage at the three sites targeted by the US.
“Craters are now visible at the Fordow site, Iran’s main location for enriching uranium at 60%, indicating that the use of ground-penetrating munitions. This is consistent with statements from the US. At this time, no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to have fully assessed the underground damage at Fordow. Given the explosive payload utilized, and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature of centrifuges, very significant damage is expected to have occurred.”
At the Esfahan nuclear site, already attacked by Israel, “additional buildings were hit, with the US confirming their use of cruise missiles. Affected buildings include some related to the uranium conversion process. Also at this site, entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit.”
At the Natanz enrichment site, also targeted several times by Israel, “the Fuel Enrichment Plant was hit, with the US confirming that it used ground-penetrating munitions.
Grossi said Iran had informed the IAEA that “there was no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites”.
The Washington Post provided a detailed assessment of the sites based on Maxar satellite data with before and after pictures of all three facilities. “Experts cautioned against drawing conclusions too quickly, as underground impacts depend on a variety of factors, including depth of detonation, surrounding geology and any secondary explosions due to any combustible material in the structure. But satellite images provide important early indications about what was hit, they said.”
B-2 stealth bomber dropped bunker-busting Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) on Fordow, according to General. Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 30,000-pound precision-guided bombs are designed to destroy subterranean targets. Seven B-2s dropped a total of 14 bombs there and at Natanz, officials said. A U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at “key surface infrastructure targets” at a facility in Isfahan, Caine said. Caine was one of a dozen experts in satellite imagery or munitions interviewed by The Post.
Fordow uranium enrichment facility
“Satellite images show at least six apparent bomb entry points – two clusters of three such points – along the ridge above the Fordow facility,” the paper said citing “experts”. Built into a mountain about 60 miles south of Tehran, the site was considered largely impenetrable to any bomb but the MOP. The experts said the strikes appear to have targeted a 250-metre-long part of the facility containing centrifuges used to enrich uranium. However, the images shed little light on the status of that equipment, which is hundreds of feet below ground.
Isfahan nuclear technology centre
Satellite images after the US strikes show damage and destruction in the complex, with much of the area covered in debris and ash. The complex’s main uranium conversion facility was “severely damaged,” according to Spencer Faragasso, senior research fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security. The entrances to an underground tunnel complex also appears to have been hit, according to the IAEA.
Natanz enrichment facility
The Natanz enrichment facility, roughly 140 miles south of Tehran, is Iran’s primary enrichment site with two enrichment plants, one above and another below ground. An additional facility nearby, a newer addition, is buried deep underground and is used to manufacture centrifuges. Earlier Israeli airstrikes hit the Natanz facilities, destroying electricity infrastructure as well as the aboveground part of one facility where centrifuges were installed, and seriously damaging the enrichment area underground. Satellite imagery taken after the US strike shows at least one penetration hole from an MOP above the buried enrichment facility, according to experts. They said they saw little evidence of new damage to the aboveground facilities.
The underground facility was likely destroyed given the power of the munition and shallow depth of the site. Experts said most of the explosive energy of the MOP expanded into the underground spaces efficiently, and would have destroyed all equipment at least to some distance away. The strike did not destroy the structural columns holding the halls up, or there would have been a collapse visible on the surface. The underground facility used to manufacture centrifuges appears not to have been hit.
Iranian precautions
However, a key question is how prepared Iran was for these attacks. A body of evidence suggests that all of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and probably a significant amount of equipment had been removed from these facilities well before the strikes. The lack of any detected radiation is an important indicator.
In his address to the IAEA Board Grossi said the Board “should be aware of a letter sent to me by Foreign Minister Dr Abbas Araghchi on 13 June in which he mentions that Iran will ‘adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials’”. He said IAEA inspectors “must be allowed to go back to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for the stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%”…. Any special measures by Iran to protect its nuclear materials and equipment then can be done in accordance with Iran’s safeguards obligations and the Agency.
The Washington Post said “satellite images from the days before the US strike showed “unusual truck and vehicular activity” at the Fordow facility, according to a senior analyst from Maxar Technologies. There were 16 cargo trucks along the access road leading to the underground complex. Images taken the next day show that most of the trucks had moved a little more than a half-mile northwest, farther from the facility. Other trucks and bulldozers were positioned near the site’s entrance, including one truck directly next to it.
Spencer Faragasso, senior research fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, said the vehicles appear to be dump trucks and workers may have backfilled the tunnels in and out of the facility as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of hazardous material.
“If they evacuated any equipment, it had to happen prior to the filling of the tunnels,” Faragasso said, adding: “It would be a large and complicated undertaking.” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, noted: “They probably shut things down and removed what they could, then sealed it up.”
Similar to what was seen in Fordow, trucks and heavy equipment were spotted in satellite imagery near the entrances to tunnels at Isfahan, which were later seen buried with soil, according to Lewis and Faragasso. The preparation around the tunnel entrances indicates that the Iranians had time to prepare for the Isfahan strikes, Lewis said. The preparation around the tunnel entrances indicates that the Iranians had time to prepare for the Isfahan strikes.
Such preparations were also confirmed by various Iranian officials. Advisor to the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Mahdi Mohammadi, posted on X that the Iranian government was anticipating an attack on the Fordow site. “From Iran’s perspective, nothing exceptional had happened. Iran had been anticipating an attack on the Fordow site for several nights, and the site had been evacuated some time ago.”
This is also the opinion of geopolitical experts such as Professor Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University, Swiss Intelligence Officer Colonel Jacques Baud, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Chas W Freeman Jr, and former British diplomat and Director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum Alastair Crooke.
The growing consensus among such experts is that, while the facilities have clearly been damaged, the damage is not as extensive as initially though, especially to the underground facilities. Moreover all of the sensitive material and some key equipment has been removed to other unknown sites.
The real damage has been done to the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Iran has signed but Israel has not and which was expressly intended protect against attacks on civil nuclear facilities. The NPT has now been rendered meaningless and the IAEA has lost its credibility.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced on 23 June that the legislature is considering a bill to suspend Tehran’s cooperation with the IAEA. The move, he said, is in response to what Iran views as the Agency’s “unprofessional” and politicised conduct.
“Iran has no plans for non-peaceful activities,” Qalibaf told lawmakers, citing a religious decree banning nuclear weapons. “But the world clearly saw that the IAEA has failed to uphold its commitments and has turned into a political instrument.” He emphasised that cooperation with the IAEA would remain suspended unless Tehran receives “tangible guarantees” of its neutrality.
