Near a peak in the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facilities so deep in the ground that it is likely beyond the range of a last-minute US weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press news agency.
Photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show that Iran has been digging tunnels into the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.
With the country now producing uranium near weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the facility complicates the West’s efforts to prevent Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb, which Iran denies seeking.
Monday’s report comes amid a rise in Iran-United States tensions and diplomacy between the two countries stalled.
The completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks starting a new escalation spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy for the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
“Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ramp up its program without running into US and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict,” Davenport told AP.
This month marked five years since the former president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew of a multilateral nuclear deal that saw Iran reduce its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions against its economy.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued to impose and enforce a strict sanctions regime against Iran and its petroleum and petrochemical industries Meanwhile, Tehran has been advancing its nuclear program.
Biden, who was vice president under Barack Obama when the 2015 deal was signed, had promised to revive the pact, but numerous rounds of proxy talks over the past two years it has failed to restore it.
Since the demise of the nuclear deal, Iran has said it is enriching uranium by as much as 60 percent, above the 3.67 percent limit it observed in the deal. Inspectors also recently found that the country had produced uranium particles with a purity of 83.7 percent, one step away from reaching the threshold of 90 percent weapons-grade uranium.
In February, international inspectors estimated that Iran’s stockpiles were more than 10 times what they had under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA).
United States and Israel, which is widely believed to have its own secret nuclear arsenal – have said they will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. “We believe that diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also made it clear that we have not taken any options off the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to AP questions about the construction, said that “Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency.”
Iran says new construction will replace above ground centrifuge manufacturing center in Natanz hit by an explosion and fire in July 2020. Tehran called the attack at the time “nuclear terrorism” and blamed Israel.
Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, although it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if authorities plan to feed uranium into it. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.
The new project is being built next to Natanz, some 225 km (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.
Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fences and Iranian paramilitaries Revolutionary Guardthe facility stretches over 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) in the country’s arid central plateau.
Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by AP show Iran digging into the Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Peak Mountain,” which is just beyond the southern Natanz fence.
A different set of images analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four inlets have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and two to the west. Each measures 6 m (20 ft) wide and 8 m (26 ft) tall.
The scale of the work can be measured in large mounds of earth, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the debris piles and other satellite data, experts at the center told the AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 and 100 meters (328 feet). The center’s analysis, which he provided exclusively to the AP, is the first to estimate the depth of the tunnel system based on satellite imagery.
“So the depth of the installation is a concern because it would be much more difficult for us. It would be much more difficult to destroy using conventional weapons, like…a typical bunker-buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the center who led the analysis of the tunnel work.
The new Natanz installation it is likely even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordow facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by the US and others. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was tightening its airstrike program.
These underground facilities led the US to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can pass through at least 200 feet (60 m) of ground before detonating, according to the US military.
US officials have reportedly discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure the destruction of a site, according to AP. It is not clear that such a double hit would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.
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