By Laurence Norman and Omar Abdel-Baqui
DUBAI -- American forces hit the hardest of hard targets in Iran's nuclear program, using stealth bombers and massive bunker-busting munitions to strike the heavily fortified Fordow uranium-enrichment complex. It could take weeks to know how much damage they inflicted.
Satellite images collected by Maxar Technologies after the weekend attack show several large holes punched in a ridge over the underground installation. Maxar also said entrances to it were blocked with dirt and debris after the U.S. dropped 12 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing 30,000 pounds, for the first time in warfare. The surface was coated with a layer of gray-blue ash.
Divining what happened to the vast arrays of centrifuges and other sensitive equipment that once operated within will likely only be known if international inspectors can access the sites. They are currently unable to visit nuclear facilities because of the attacks and it could be weeks before they are able to -- or allowed to.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, "All of our precision missiles struck where we wanted them to strike," adding: "We believe we achieved destruction of capabilities" at Fordow.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said it was "way too early" to know the extent of damage.
United Nations atomic agency chief Rafael Grossi urged caution however on any real assessment of how much damage was done inside Fordow.
"There are clear indications of impacts but as for the assessment of the degree of damage underground on this we cannot pronounce ourselves," he said. "It can be important. It can be significant. But no one, no one, neither us, nobody else, could be able to tell you how much it has been damaged."
Iran had more than 2,000 centrifuges in underground halls at Fordow, roughly half of which were the more advanced IR-6 machines for enriching uranium. It was producing roughly enough near weapons grade fissile material to fuel one nuclear weapon per month.
The Fordow enrichment halls were built hundreds of feet into a mountainside, which was protected with concrete and other materials. It was considered impenetrable by most conventional missiles. There was no damage to the facility before the U.S. strikes and it was unclear how deeply Israel could hit the site.
David Albright, an expert on Iran's nuclear program, who heads the Institute of Science and International Security, said the impact points of the bombs appear to be very near the location of the ventilation shafts into the underground halls. Destroying the ventilation shafts could be a way to do major damage underground. Each of the dozen GBU-57 bunker busters that hit the Fordow carried four tons of TNT, according to Mick Mulroy, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East.
Soon after the strikes, President Trump said they had "obliterated" Fordow and Iran's other core nuclear sites.
"I would place very low confidence in assessments made from open source imagery," said Neil Quilliam, associate fellow at the international affairs think tank Chatham House.
Israel and the U.S. have already severely damaged Iran's other enrichment site of Natanz. But without making Fordow inoperable, Iran can continue its enrichment program to make the fuel for a nuclear weapon. Natanz was also hit with two American bunker-busting bombs overnight.
Since Israel's attacks on Iran started on Friday June 13, international inspectors have been unable to visit Iran's enrichment sites and it is possible they will be unable to go there for some time. That means there is no way of detecting whether Iran has started producing weapons-grade fissile material at Fordow or if it has been able to divert any of the enriched uranium it produced at Fordow in recent days away from the facility.
Fordow produced the vast majority of the 60% highly enriched uranium stockpile that Iran has -- enough to fuel around 10 nuclear weapons, according to U.N. atomic agency data. Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
Satellite images of Fordow on June 19 and June 20, according to Maxar, show 16 cargo trucks on the access road that leads to the tunnel entrance. A day later, the trucks had moved approximately one kilometer away.
Iranian media cited officials overnight Saturday saying that Iran had removed important equipment from Fordow. It isn't clear if that includes the centrifuges installed there. Iran has thousands of spare centrifuges it could use if the facility hasn't been destroyed.
"It is very hard to tell whether the strike was successful or not," said Michael Horowitz, a Middle East-based geopolitical analyst. "What I can say is that the U.S. appears to have specifically targeted weak spots within Fordow, namely ventilation shafts that were covered with rocks to protect them. I would expect that this was done in an effort to maximize the chance of success."
Many Iranian officials played down the damage to Fordow overnight. However, in its statement on the strikes, the Iranian atomic agency made no assessment of the hits, saying only that Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan were "subjected to a savage assault."
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Omar Abdel-Baqui at omar.abdel-baqui@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 22, 2025 12:58 ET (16:58 GMT)
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