Satellite images capture activity at Iran’s Fordow nuclear site after US strikes

The images show Iran has built a new access road at Fordow and moved in equipment that could be used to assess the damage done by US strikes.

Satellite images show Iran has built a new access road at its Fordow uranium enrichment site and moved in construction equipment that could be used to assess the damage done to the key underground nuclear facility by last month’s US air strike.

The imagery captured in recent days by Maxar Technologies, a commercial satellite company, shows a new road up the mountain where the Fordow nuclear facility is located along with a number of vehicles, including what analysts have identified as an excavator and a mobile crane.

An analysis of the images by the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank studying the Iranian nuclear program, said the excavator was likely preparing a staging area to send cameras or personnel down the holes made by American bombs to inspect the damage done to the underground facility.

American long-range bombers dropped 12 huge ” bunker buster” bombs on the facility on June 22. The 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator weapons were designed to pierce deep into the mountain before exploding underground, leaving behind holes that can be seen in satellite photos.

The Institute for Science in its analysis said it observed no visible activity at Fordow’s tunnel entrances, which were filled in. Several of the trucks visible in the satellite images appear to be dump trucks used to haul away debris.

This handout satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows activity near the perimeter building and southern holes caused by the June 22 US air strike on the Fordow plant. Picture: AP.

The images have been released during a debate over the extent of the damage from the US air strikes, which followed days of Israeli strikes on the country.

President Trump and his administration say the strikes by bunker busters and cruise missiles on the key Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan sites “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

An initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that surfaced last week said the strikes likely only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a few months. The White House has pushed back on the report.

Nuclear experts including former US officials say that a seemingly small setback could significantly shift the diplomatic and military calculus around Iran’s nuclear program.

One question surrounding the future of Iran’s nuclear program is the fate of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and the centrifuges used to enrich the fuel. Some of the equipment and material may have been moved from Iran’s nuclear sites before the US attack, nuclear experts say.

Analysts closely following the Iranian program say that what Iran finds underground at Fordow could determine how much material and equipment it has to reconstitute its nuclear efforts.

“It’s absolutely evidence that the Iranians want to understand what they have, and that if they’re able to find something, it confirms that this whole ‘obliteration’ nonsense was wrong,” said Richard Nephew, a nuclear-weapons expert and former official with the White House, State Department and Energy Department.

“The theory that we have from the Secretary of Defense is you have to get a shovel to go dig all the stuff out. Okay, well, they found their shovels,” he said.

Satellite imagery shows a close view of activity at the ventilation shaft at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Picture: Maxar Technologies via AP.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last month, “If you want to know what’s going on at Fordow, you better go there and get a big shovel because no one’s under there right now.” Farzan Sabet, a managing researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute and former researcher with the United Nations, said Iran is looking to recover what it can from nuclear and military sites.

“They probably will go to those sites to assess the state of those facilities, what can be accessed, what can be salvaged, and what can’t be,” he said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors lost the ability to track Iran’s manufacturing of centrifuges because of restrictions imposed by Iran. The restrictions were in response to Trump’s withdrawal in 2018 from the 2015 international agreement designed to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA’s director general, said on Sunday that Iran could have enough centrifuges spinning in a matter of months, if it decides, to resume enriching uranium.

“It is clear that there has been severe damage, but it’s not total damage,” he said.

“The industrial capacity is there. Iran is a very sophisticated country in terms of nuclear technology, as is obvious. So you cannot disinvent this,” he said in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

The Wall St Journal