Article originally in the Financial Times. Other articles .
For Israeli military planners, this is something like a mountain of fate: a strictly guarded enrichment plant hidden half a kilometer below the mountain, surrounded by air defense and symbolically located near the ancient religious city of com.
For Tehran, the Fordo device is a symbol of its desire to protect his nuclear program, which is designed to survive the frontal attack and remain enough intact centrifug and highly enriched uranium for the potential production of nuclear weapon or “breakthrough” (condition that would allow him to produce a nuclear weapon in a short time, note).
Iran still has nuclear capacities
The nuclear power plant hidden under the hard rock and surrounded by reinforced concrete, which makes all the devastating reach of all publicly known Israeli weapons, symbolizing the strategic concerns of Iran. “Fordu is the basic and final point of the Iranian nuclear operation,” said Bennam Ben Talebl, manager of the American Think-Tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Iran said on Saturday that Fordu was challenged, the semi -official news agency of Isna reported, referring to the Iranian atomic energy organization, although the damage was limited. On the contrary, Israel managed to destroy a larger Iranian above -ground pilot plant for enriching uranium in Nanza, the head of the UN Security Council said the head of the nuclear supervisory authority Rafael Grossi on Friday.
According to an analysis of satellite images from open sources performed by the Think-Tank Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), extensive damage to the supply of electricity in Nananza could have been destroyed by the underground centrifuga.
“Fordu will be a big challenge without the United States. It is heavily fortified and deep below the mountain. I’m not sure what great damage we can cause there,” said Iran from the Institute for National Security Institute in Tel Aviv Danny Citrinowicz.
“Iran is not yet near the zero point [zničenia svojho jadrového programu] . . . He still has considerable capacities, ”added Kitrinowicz, who said that Fordu will be the hardest and perhaps the last goal of the Israeli air campaign.
Israel went to an extraordinary risk
From a global point of view, Fordo is not a unique protected device. Any major military power with a nuclear program has similar underground military bunkers that have inspired countless spy thrillers and conspiracy theories. Raven Rock in the United States, the so -called “underground pentagon”, is built into a mountain in Pennsylvania.
It is believed that there is a large nuclear weapon production facility on the secret Russian Mount Jamantau. The same is true of North Korean underground missile bases built in the mountains. On the Chinese naval base of Longpo there is a underground device for nuclear submarines, to which tunnels are arrived.
Ford, however, is the only large underground military base against which a direct attack has ever been directed, a precedent that points to an extraordinary risk taken by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he allowed attacks this week.
Iranian officials have long denied that they would like to have an atomic bomb, and the latest rating of the threats released this year by the US intelligence community concluded that Iran did not renew the nuclear weapons program that suspended under international pressure in 2003.
However, if Tehran would have taken this way, the ISIS estimates would be able to transform all Iranian stocks of highly enriched uranium – according to May estimates of the International Atomic Energy Agency 408 kilograms – and produce enough uranium for the production of nine nuclear weapons in three weeks.
“Iran could produce the first amount of 25 kilograms [uránu vhodného na výrobu zbraní] In Fordú in two to three days, ”warned ISIS. The differences between Fordú and Nananz are a summary of a large part of the history of the Tehran nuclear program, as well as a versatile effort that was made to limit his efforts to enrich uranium, and thus to prevent such an attack as Israel.
After the public discovery of the secret facility, Iran finally announced in 2003 the UN that Natanz belongs to him. Although a large industrial complex contains up to 16,000 centrifug, it is intended for mass enrichment of uranium at lower levels. For this reason, also because of regular UN inspections, it has become more suitable for civilian nuclear use. In addition, an underground uranium enrichment plant in Nananza is located only about 20 meters below the surface.
On the other hand, Fordú excels in geological resistance, thanks to which the conventional bombs transported from the air will practically not penetrate into its centrifugal halls. This can even be true of the American gigantic bomb to destroy Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunkers that can break through 60 meters of concrete.
Fordú was built in secret and its existence was publicly unveiled in September 2009 under dramatic circumstances when American, British and French leaders declassified news information that Iran secretly built a secret power plant deep in the mountains that “does not match the Peace Program”.
The finding that consolidated what the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called “serial lie” Iran was so dramatic that it led to the rare reprimand of Iran by Russia and warning from China.
At that time, Iran stood up. “What we did was completely legal,” said the then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and added, “What is you to say to us what to do?” Nevertheless, Fordú became the centerpiece of the subsequent international attempts to limit the Iranian nuclear program.
They led to an increase in UN sanctions and were the core of the multilateral agreement of 2015, known as a common comprehensive action plan, between Iran and the world powers, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany.
In exchange for alleviation of sanctions, Iran agreed, among other things, that the device would turn into a research center, limit the number of centrifugs there, to stop uranium enrichment for 15 years and allow increased monitoring by international inspectors. The United States withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement in 2018 during the first presidential period of Donald Trump and since then Iran has begun to enrich more uranium.
After the explosion in Nananza in 2021, of which Iran accused Israel, and who damaged its capacity to enrich uranium, Tehran instead introduced the Centrifuge in Ford. They began to transform Iranian supplies of low-mounted uranium into 60 % purity, from which it is possible to produce uranium suitable for the production of weapons within a few days.
Analysts believe that if Ford is not destroyed by Israeli attacks, it could form the center of Iranian efforts of a “breakthrough”. Iran could withdraw from the non -extension contract, stop cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and quickly produce a nuclear bomb.
Iran had previously threatened with such a reaction if its nuclear facilities ever became the target of the attack, although such a step could also draw the US army into Israeli campaign.
The risk also contributes that Fordú is not the only extremely safe device that Iran can rely on. Tehran has recently built even deeper and better protected equipment in the Cover Kolang Gaz Lā, also known as the Krompáčová Hora, a few kilometers south of Nananza.
While Fordu is expected to have two entrances to the tunnel, this mountain has at least four, making it difficult to close the entrances by bombing. Its underground halls also have a larger area. Some fear that a device that Iran has so far banned the international atomic energy agency could be used to build a nuclear weapon during an attack on Iran.
“The key question is whether Iran will hide or may have hidden fission material in Krompáč’s mountain or some other unknown facility,” said Ben Talebla from FDD.
Graphics: Ian lived
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