“DOUBLE TAP”
Reuters spoke to four experts who reviewed Maxar Technologies satellite imagery of Fordow showing six neatly spaced holes in two groups in the mountain ridge beneath which the hall containing the centrifuges is believed to be located.
General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 GBU-57/B MOPs, 30,000-pound precision-guided bombs designed to drive up to 200 feet into hardened underground facilities like Fordow, according to a 2012 congressional report.
Caine said initial assessments indicated that the sites suffered extremely severe damage, but declined to speculate about whether any nuclear facilities remained intact.
Eveleth said the Maxar imagery of Fordow and Caine’s comments indicated that the B-2s dropped an initial load of six MOPs on Fordow, followed by a “double tap” of six more in the exact same spots.
Operation Midnight Hammer also targeted Tehran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, he said, and struck in Isfahan, the location of the country’s largest nuclear research centre. There are other nuclear-related sites near the city.
Israel had already struck Natanz and the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center in its 10-day war with Iran.
Albright said in a post on X that Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery showed that US Tomahawk cruise missiles severely damaged a uranium facility at Isfahan and left an impact hole above the underground enrichment halls at Natanz, reportedly caused by a Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bomb that “likely destroyed the facility.”
Albright questioned the US use of cruise missiles in Isfahan, saying that those weapons could not penetrate a tunnel complex near the main nuclear research centre believed to be even deeper than Fordow. The IAEA said the tunnel entrances “were impacted”.
He noted that Iran recently informed the IAEA that it planned to install a new uranium enrichment plant in Isfahan.
“There may be 2,000 to 3,000 more centrifuges that were slated to go into this new enrichment plant,” he said. “Where are they?”
