Assessing satellite images, experts suggest Fordow, Iran’s most important nuke site, may have been destroyed
Even as post-strike damage assessments by the US and Israeli military are underway, experts interpreting open source satellite images of the impact of US air strikes on Iran’s nuclear research site at Fordow suggest that the facility has been heavily damaged or even totally knocked out.
On June 22, B-2 stealth bombers flying out of the US had carried out precision strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, using the massive 13,600-kg GBU-57 ‘bunker buster’ and cruise missiles. US president Donald Trump had announced that these sites were destroyed.
“Mensurations indicate Fordow completely destroyed. Can’t be operationalised again,” Col Vinayak Bhat (retd), a satellite imagery expert commented on his X handle along with posting an overhead picture of the site. “Possibly struck with 13 x GBU-57 bunker buster bombs and probably destroyed from within totally,” he added.
Built up to 300 feet under a mountain approximately 95 km southwest of Tehran, Fordow, officially known as Shahid Ali Mohammadi Nuclear Facility, is a uranium enrichment plant and one of Iran’s most important and heavily fortified nuclear sites.
Because of its geographical location, it was said to be the most difficult and resilient target amongst the three and was a cause for concern as it had the capacity to house advanced centrifuges for producing weapons-grade uranium.
Natanz, located south of Fordow, is Iran’s main uranium enrichment site and a central element of its nuclear programme, while the site at Isfahan houses uranium conversion facilities, laboratories and Chinese-built research reactors. Both these have been targeted by Israel in the past.
Under operation Midnight Hammer, the B-2 flew nonstop across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to drop the largest conventional bombs, the GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator, that can penetrate over 200 feet below the Earth’s surface to destroy deeply buried targets.
After the mission, the US Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Dan Caine, had said that the initial assessment indicated that all three sites sustained “severe damage and destruction,” though it was too soon to say whether Iran retained some nuclear capability.
Satellite imagery by private space firms taken shortly after the strikes on the Fordow indicated impact points from the US bombs and damage and showed changes in the ground’s appearance and dust near the likely strike locations. Some experts have pointed out six bomb impact craters, with multiple munitions striking the same precise point.
Satellite imagery has also shown significant changes to the colour of the mountainside around Fordow, indicating that a vast area was covered with a layer of grey ash after the strike, possibly resulting from the chemical composition of explosives that were detonated and the damage they caused. One GBU-57 carries 2,300 kg of conventional explosives.
Another satellite image showed 16 cargo trucks parked near one of the entrances to the site around the time the strike were undertaken, which suggested that some material from the site may have been removed or reinforcement of the site may have been done in anticipation of an attack.
In their comments, various experts have maintained that total destruction of the underground facilities is quite possible, though a final assessment of the damage will take time as additional information over various sources flows in.
“No reason to doubt Secretary Hesgeth’s claim that Fordow is destroyed, given the attack with massive ordnance penetrators (MOPs) above the main centrifuge halls, whose location is well-known from Iranian Amad drawings in the Nuclear Archive,” David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, posted on X. “But still, is there credible post-attack information confirming that? Iranian government sources and media have provided disinformation,” he added.
Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, told the UN Security Council that while the level of radioactivity outside the Natanz and Isfahan remained unchanged and were at normal levels, within the Natanz facility, there was both radiological and chemical contamination.
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