DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Near the summit of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, personnel are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth it likely surpasses the diversity of a last-minute U. S. weapon designed to destroy those sites. , according to mavens and satellite images analyzed through The Associated Press.
Photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has dug tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has suffered repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.
With Iran now generating uranium near weapons-grade grades after the collapse of its nuclear deal with global powers, the facility complicates Western efforts to save Tehran from the possibility of dropping an atomic bomb while international relations over its nuclear program remain deadlocked.
The final touch of such a facility “would be a nightmare situation that threatens to trigger a new spiral of escalation,” warned Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given Iran’s proximity to a bomb, it has very little room to push its program without running into American and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the threat of conflict.
Construction at the Natanz site comes five years after then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear deal. Trump argued that the deal was not about Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nor its aid to militias in the Middle East.
But what it has done is strictly restrict Iran’s uranium enrichment to a purity of 3. 67%, strong enough to bind only civilian power plants, and keep its stockpile at just three hundred kilograms (660 pounds).
Since the end of the nuclear deal, Iran has said it enriches uranium by up to 60%, inspectors recently discovered that the country produced 83. 7% of natural uranium particles. There is only one step to take to succeed at the 90% weapons threshold: grade uranium.
In February, foreign inspectors estimated that Iran’s stockpile is more than 10 times higher than in the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said they will not allow Iran to build a nuclung weapon. removed any item from the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.
The Islamic Republic denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, officials in Tehran are now blatantly discussing its ability to seek one.
Iran’s project to the United Nations, in reaction to questions from the Palestinian Authority about the construction, said that “Iran’s nonviolent nuclear activities are transparent and under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. “However, Iran has limited itself to foreign inspectors for years.
Iran says the new structure will upgrade a surface centrifuge production center at Natanz that suffered an explosion and upgrade in July 2020. Tehran blamed the incident on Israel, which has long been suspected of carrying out sabotage campaigns against its program.
Tehran has not declared any other plans for the facility, it would have to claim the site from the IAEA if it planned to introduce uranium. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.
The new allocation is being built next to Natanz, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a source of fear for foreigners since their lifestyles became known two decades ago.
Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards, the facility stretches for 2. 7 kilometers (1 mile) on the country’s arid central plateau.
Satellite images taken in April via Planet Labs PBC and analyzed via AP show Iran digging into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or “Peak Mountain,” which lies just beyond the southern fence of Natanz. .
Another set of photographs analyzed through the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies that 4 entrances were carved into the mountainside, two to the east and two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) high.
The extent of the paintings can be measured in giant mounds of earth, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the length of the excavation piles and other satellite data, experts in the medium told the AP that Iran is most likely building a facility at an intensity of between 80 meters (260 feet) and one hundred meters (328 feet). The analysis of the medium, which he provided exclusively to the AP, is the first to estimate the intensity of the tunnel formula based on satellite imagery.
The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit that has long focused on Iran’s nuclear program, warned last year that the tunnels could go even further.
Experts say the length of the structure’s allocation indicates that Iran can also use the underground facility to enrich uranium, not just to build centrifuges. These tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in giant cascades of dozens of machines, temporarily rotate the gaseous uranium to enrich it. . Additional rotating cascades would allow Iran to enrich uranium under the protection of the mountains.
“So the intensity of the installation is a fear because it would be much more complicated for us. It would be much more complicated to destroy traditional weapons, like a typical bomb that burst into the tunnel,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the outlet who led studies of the tunnel work.
Most likely, the new Natanz facility will be even deeper than Iran’s Fordo facility, another enrichment site that was discovered in 2009 through the United States and other world leaders. program.
These underground services led to the U. S. The U. S. Army is set to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can pierce at least two hundred feet (60 meters) of soil before exploding, according to the U. S. military. U. S. Officials reportedly discussed the successive use of two such bombs to ensure that a site was destroyed. It’s not clear that such a hit would damage a facility as deep as Natanz’s.
With such irrelevant bombs, the U. S. The U. S. and its allies are left with fewer features to target the site. If international relations fail, sabotage attacks can resume.
Natanz has already been targeted via the Stuxnet virus, an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Israel also reportedly killed scientists involved in the program, hit facilities with bomb-carrying drones, and introduced other attacks. The Israeli government declined to comment.
Experts say such disruptive moves can push Tehran even closer to the bomb, and push its program even deeper into the mountain where airstrikes, additional sabotage and spies might not succeed.
“Sabotage could roll back Iran’s nuclear program in the short term, but it is not a viable long-term strategy to guard against a nuclear-armed Iran,” said Davenport, the nonproliferation expert. the threat of proliferation”.
Do you depend on The Times of Israel for accurate and insightful data on Israel and the Jewish world?If so, sign up for The Times of Israel community. For as little as $6 a month, you:
That’s why we introduced The Times of Israel 11 years ago, to provide discerning readers like you with the must-have politics of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other media, we have not established a paywall. But because the journalism we do is expensive, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become vital to help our paintings join The Times of Israel community.
For just $6 a month, you can help our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as access exclusive content only for members of The Times of Israel community.
Thank you, David Horovitz, founding editor of The Times of Israel.
&