Several 13-ton penetrating bombs were used in the attack on the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, and initial assessments of the bombing's effects indicate the facility was destroyed, the New York Times reported, citing a US official.
According to the quoted official, intelligence information indicates that the Fordo facility has been “taken off the table.”
President Donald Trump also spoke earlier about the success of the operation, repeating this assessment in a conversation with Israeli Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
“We had a great success tonight. Your Israel is much safer now,” Trump reportedly said.
The Fordo was destroyed, but it is unclear what happened to the other objects.
It is not clear whether an attack using Tomahawk cruise missiles on an underground nuclear facility in Isfahan in central Iran was capable of destroying it, Fox News reported, citing experts and a “well-placed source.”
“Experts have told me that the underground tunnel in Isfahan is a MUCH more difficult target than Fordo, and it is unclear whether the Tomahawks were able to destroy it ,” wrote X reporter Jennifer Griffin. She added that she had been told by a well-informed source that “there is no way they could get into that tunnel” because it is deeper and under harder rock than the Fordo facility near the city of Qom.
Isfahan was to be the storage site for uranium fluoride (UF-6), used in the process of enriching uranium to the level required to construct nuclear weapons. It was also to house facilities producing centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
US President Donald Trump reportedly told the station's columnist Sean Hannity that in Saturday's attack, six MOP-penetrating bombs – the largest in the US arsenal – were dropped on Fordo. In the attacks on other facilities, in Natanz and Isfahan, US forces were to use 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines.
The New York Times reported slightly different data. According to an American official cited by the daily, six B-2 bombers dropped 12 bombs on Fordo and two on Natanz, while 30 Tomahawks fell on Natanz and Isfahan. Trump announced on Saturday that all installations had been “completely and totally razed to the ground.”
All three facilities had been previously targeted by Israel. Although the International Atomic Energy Agency said the Israelis had probably succeeded in destroying the underground centrifuges at Natanz, there was no information that bombings of other facilities had similar effects.
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