New Iranian Nuclear Site Impervious to US Weapons: Report

Iran is building a nuclear facility so deep underground that US weapons would be incapable of destroying it, The Associated Press reported on Monday.

Satellite images collected by Planet Labs BBC show workers digging tunnels in the Zagros Mountains near the Natanz nuclear site in central Iran. AP analysis suggests that the new facility is being built between 260 feet and 328 feet underground. The GBU-57 bomb, which was invented in response to another underground Iranian nuclear facility discovered in 2009, is designed to destroy sites no deeper than 200 feet underground.

The report comes five years after the US’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to limit its uranium stockpile and to enrich uranium only to 3.67%, the purity needed to run nuclear power plants. In return, Iran received relief from sanctions imposed by the US, the EU, and the UN Security Council.

Since the US unilaterally left the deal in 2018, Iran has said that it is enriching uranium up to 60% purity. The UN reported last month that Iran had enriched uranium up to 83.7%, worryingly close to the 90% needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Iran’s uranium stockpile has also grown tenfold since the fall of the nuclear deal.

Iran has denied that it is attempting to build nuclear weapons.