Analysis of the pictures suggested at least some of the trucks had come to dump aggregate in an ultimately forlorn attempt to reinforce what is regarded a key hub for the Islamic Republic’s programme of enriching uranium. Other vehicles, however, had arrived unladen and appeared to be tasked with removing material from the site.
Prior to Israel’s decision to unleash Operation Rising Lion, its ongoing air campaign against Iran, it was known that Tehran had amassed a stock of more than 400kg of uranium enriched to levels slightly below that required to make a nuclear weapon.
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On the one hand, Tehran may decide to use what remains of its stockpile as a fissile bargaining chip in any attempt to reach a diplomatic solution over its nuclear ambitions.
The appropriation of uranium for nuclear use is an activity which has long obsessed Iran’s rulers and their Iranian programme has amassed a cache of some 8,400kg of uranium.
However, since 2019 Iran has steadily accelerated the processing of uranium to increase the material’s proportion of a fissile or more energy-dense isotope, uranium-235 – to a level of 60 per cent.
Satellite imagery reveals 16 cargo trucks lined along the main road approaching the underground tunnel entrance of the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Facility. (Photo: Maxar/DigitalGlobe/Getty Images)
This is only marginally below the 90 per cent level required to form the core of a nuclear weapon.
In a briefing issued just days before the launch of Operation Rising Lion, ISIS said: “Even if one believed the production of 60 percent [uranium] is to create bargaining leverage in a nuclear negotiation, Iran has gone way beyond what would be needed. One has to conclude that Iran’s real intent is to be prepared to produce large quantities of weapons grade uranium as quickly as possible.”
Has Iran’s uranium stockpile survived the bombing and where might it be?
Vice President JD Vance told the American broadcaster ABC on Sunday: “We are going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel and that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranian’s about.”
Prior to the Israeli and American strikes, it was known that nearly all of Iran’s HEU was being held at Natanz, Fordo and a separate nuclear site at Isfahan, Iran’s second city.
Professor Robert Pape, a specialist in security affairs and the use of air power at the University of Chicago, said: “If we are to assume that the Iranians are smart enough to understand that they need this material to meet their goals, then it is also the case they will understand the need to move that material elsewhere if it is at risk. The Iranians have watched the West for 20 years to understand that when you have a nuclear weapon, such as North Korea, your regime stays in place. And when you give them up, such as Ukraine did, you end up with 20 per cent of your territory being occupied.”
The uranium would not be difficult to hide. Put together, the entire Iranian stock would fit into no more than a couple of lorries and could be dispersed in a number of smaller vehicles. Similarly, it would be unlikely to require a vast new storage facility – an existing warehouse or small bunker could serve as a temporary location.
A close-up view of several large craters puncturing the ridge directly above the Fordow underground complex following American B2 air strikes on Sunday. (Photo: Satellite image (c) 2025 Maxar Technologies).Crucially, the Iranian government has barred the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), from inspecting the Kolang Gaz La site on the basis that it has not yet been commissioned. It is also unclear whether this facility has been targeted in the Israeli or American raids.
What might Iran now do with its enriched uranium?
There seems to be little doubt that between them Tel Aviv and Washington have wreaked enough damage on Iran’s nuclear programme to set back its ability to enrich uranium at its previous pace by a number of years.
If Tehran had managed to protect only a tenth of its HEU stocks, it would still have enough to produce two nuclear weapons at a clandestine site.
Daray Dolzikova, a nuclear policy expert at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, said: “Besides the actual physical capabilities, Iran retains extensive expertise that will allow it to eventually reconstitute what aspects of the programme have been damaged or destroyed. The physical elimination of the programme’s infrastructure – and even the assassination of Iranian scientists – will not be sufficient to destroy the latent knowledge that exists in the country.”
Some analysts have suggested that instead of developing a fully-fledged atom bomb, Iran could instead fashion a so-called “dirty bomb” designed to contaminate a wide area with radioactive material.
Others point out, however, that such a calculus currently looks less likely to tempt Tehran, not least because Israel, America and the West will almost certainly demand that Iran surrender its entire HEU stock and its ability to enrich uranium along with it.
As Professor Pape put it: “Unfortunately, we are far too late for air power to be the answer to this problem. My concern is that we will now be locked into a process of realising that we did not get all of Iran’s uranium, that we are not able to track its whereabouts and an ever-deepening sense of paranoia about just what they are doing with it.”
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