US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that American military strikes “completely and totally obliterated” three Iranian nuclear enrichment plants. However, satellite images have yet to confirm this claim.
While significant damage to the nuclear sites is visible, there are portions that seem undamaged, and uncertainty on how much the underground nuclear establishments were impacted.
The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is located south of Tehran, dug to side of a mountain. Satellite images of the plant, taken after the US strike, show craters, collapsed tunnel entrances and holes on top of the mountain ridge, Bloomberg reported.
However, a building likely used to control ventilation for the underground uranium enrichment work, seems undamaged.
Damage to the Natanz nuclear plant is also yet to be fully assessed, even though a new crater about 5.5 meters in diameter is visible in satellite images.
It is not yet clear if the underground site, buried 40 meters under ground, with an 8-meter thick concrete and steel shell, at the plant was hit.
The most “extensively damaged,” however, was the Esfahan Nuclear Technology and Research Center, according to satellite images. The nuclear plant is located around 450 kms from Tehran.
According to US Air Force General Dan Caine, an assessment of final battle damage will take some time. The International Atomic Energy Agency is also still trying to assess the complete damage.
‘Unusual activity’
Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium from the Fordow nuclear plant, satellite images of the site from days before the US strike have indicated.
A long line of vehicles was seen waiting outside an entrance of the facility in the images in an “unusual activity”.
Besides, two Iranian officials also told New York Times that Iran may have moved out 400 kgs uranium from the facility in anticipation of the US strikes.
Trump had been warning Iran ever since the Israel-Iran conflict began, and had also said he was deliberating on whether to send in troops.
Uranium enriched to 60 per cent weapons-grade levels, just short of the 90 per cent required needed for a nuclear bomb, was likely moved out of the Fordow plant before the strikes.
