What is Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, and could US weapons destroy it?

Israel’s deed connected Iran’s main uranium enrichment tract astatine Natanz connected Friday destroyed the above-ground portion of the installation and is believed to person damaged its underground uranium enrichment capabilities.

Although Israel besides fired missiles astatine Fordow, location to different installation wherever atomic substance tin beryllium purified, that basal is believed to inactive beryllium afloat functional.

This week, speculation has mounted implicit whether the US would supply Israel with the weapons indispensable to onslaught wrong the Fordow plant, which is heavy underground and overmuch harder to entree than Natanz.

[Al Jazeera]

So what is known astir the Fordow plant, and tin it beryllium destroyed?

What is the Fordow atomic facility?

Fordow was primitively built arsenic a subject installation for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is located 30km (18.5 miles) northeast of the metropolis of Qom successful northwestern Iran and is reportedly hundreds of metres wrong a mountain.

Iran disclosed its conversion to a atomic tract successful a missive to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the planetary atomic watchdog, connected September 21, 2009, aft learning that Western quality services already knew astir it.

Days later, the United States, Britain and France confirmed publically that they were so alert of a concealed substance enrichment works astatine Fordow. Conclusive quality that Iran was trying to instal 3,000 centrifuges astatine the tract was gathered successful aboriginal 2009. By September, Fordow’s conversion was nearing completion.

Fordow is the lone Iranian installation astatine which IAEA inspectors person recovered particles of uranium purified to adjacent weapons-grade purity. That happened during an unannounced inspection successful 2023.

The tract is designed to clasp up to 2,976 spinning centrifuges, the IAEA said, a fraction of the capableness for the astir 50,000 successful Natanz, Iran’s main atomic site, which Israel struck the time it began its aerial strikes connected Iran.

[Al Jazeera]

Has Fordow been damaged successful the caller Israeli strikes?

Iran did onslaught Fordow.

But connected Monday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said: “No harm has been seen astatine the tract of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant oregon astatine the Khondab dense h2o reactor, which is nether construction.”

What is known astir atomic improvement astatine Fordow?

After the beingness of the Fordow tract became nationalist successful 2009, the US and Iran began their archetypal nonstop talks successful 30 years.

“The extremity for these negotiations is to scope a mutually agreed semipermanent broad solution that would guarantee Iran’s atomic programme volition beryllium exclusively peaceful,” the IAEA said.

While Iran submitted plan accusation connected Fordow to the IAEA successful October 2009, it refused to taxable a timeline for its design, operation and archetypal purposes, saying that accusation laic extracurricular its reporting obligations nether the safeguards statement with the UN agency.

Two years aboriginal successful September 2011, then-IAEA Director General Yakiya Amano revealed that Iran had “installed centrifuges successful Fordow with the stated objective” of producing uranium enriched up to 20 percent.

By March 2012, Amano reported that monthly accumulation of 20 percent-enriched uranium astatine Fordow had tripled arsenic 4 cascades of centrifuges had started simultaneous cognition for the archetypal time.

Uranium enrichment is the process of expanding the attraction of the uranium-235 isotope successful earthy uranium, which usually contains lone astir 0.7 percent U-235. To physique a atomic weapon, uranium indispensable beryllium enriched to astir 90 percent U-235. Once enriched to those levels, uranium is considered “weapons-grade”.

In 2015, Iran, China, Russia, the US, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The woody enactment strict curbs connected Iran’s atomic programme successful speech for lifting sanctions.

In 2015, Iran was believed to person 2,700 centrifuges installed astatine Fordow.

What did Iran hold to nether the JCPOA?

As the JCPOA talks progressed, Iran stopped accumulation astatine Fordow by January 2014 and didn’t behaviour “any further advances” there, the IAEA reported for the remainder of the year. Iran besides diluted its enriched uranium stockpile to 5 percent purity.

The JCPOA banned enrichment astatine Fordow and allowed lone peaceful improvement of atomic exertion successful Iran for vigor accumulation successful instrumentality for a implicit lifting of sanctions.

Iran agreed to refrain from immoderate uranium enrichment and probe into uranium enrichment astatine Fordow for 15 years. It besides agreed not to support immoderate atomic worldly determination but alternatively to “convert the Fordow installation into a nuclear, physics and exertion centre”.

A small much than 1,000 of the facility’s centrifuges were allowed to stay determination with the remainder moving to Natanz – thing the IAEA said was done by January 2017.

[Al Jazeera]

Are determination concerns astir clandestine atomic improvement astatine Fordow?

Despite the JCPOA, concerns and speculation implicit the Fordow  installation continued.

In 2016, Iran placed a Russian S-300 aerial defence strategy supra the facility, indicating that it feared a nonstop aerial onslaught there.

After US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA successful 2018, Iran gradually slid escaped of its constraints too, adjacent though European partners tried to salvage the agreement.

During the unannounced inspection successful January 2023, the IAEA discovered that Iran had connected 2 sets of centrifuges astatine Fordow, allowing it to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity, successful contravention of Tehran’s safeguards statement with the UN agency.

“Iran implemented a important alteration to the declared plan accusation for the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) without informing the bureau successful advance. This was contrary to Iran’s obligations nether its safeguards agreement,” Grossi said.

The IAEA besides said it had found uranium particles astatine Fordow enriched to 83.7 percent purity – adjacent to the 90 percent enrichment needed for weapons-grade uranium.

“At the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, we recovered particles of precocious enriched uranium with enrichment levels good beyond the enrichment level declared by Iran,” Grossi said connected March 6, 2023.

Iran denied this. On June 3 this year, Iran told the IAEA it had “exhausted each its efforts to observe the root of specified particles successful those locations. According to the extended investigations and examinations, applicable Iranian information authorities person precocious discovered further clues confirming that sabotage and/or malicious enactment person been progressive successful the contamination of those locations.”

Can Israel destruct the Fordow facility?

It is wide believed that Israel lacks the means to penetrate the installation unless it deploys a commando portion to spell wrong it and physically works explosives – a risky operation.

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is considered a overmuch much hard people than Natanz due to the fact that it is located wrong a mountain.

The US, however, has a weaponry that could theoretically destruct Fordow. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator weighs 13,600kg (30,000lbs). If capable of these bombs are dropped from a B-2 bomber, they could perchance illness Fordow’s underground bunkers. Trump on Wednesday near open the anticipation that helium mightiness deploy these weapons.

“I’m not looking to fight,” Trump told reporters successful the Oval Office. “But if it’s a prime betwixt warring and having a atomic weapon, you person to bash what you person to do.”

In typically enigmatic fashion, helium said: “I whitethorn bash it. I whitethorn not bash it.”

[Al Jazeera]