New satellite images taken on Sunday reveal that Iran has significantly accelerated engineering work around the craters created by last week's US strike on the Fordow nuclear facility.
The photographs show an excavator operating near one of the craters, as well as a sand conveyor removing soil from the site. The crater is near ventilation shafts that were targeted during the strike, and Iranian officials appear to have made substantial progress clearing the area.
Images from two days earlier had indicated that initial engineering activity had begun, but the latest set suggests that Iran is now working to reopen access to the underground site.
Nonetheless, the paved access tunnels leading deeper into the mountain seemingly remain blocked by sand piles, apparently placed there by the Islamic Republic before the attack.
In the days that followed the US attacks, Israel launched its own airstrikes on access routes to the site in an attempt to prevent further entry.
In a press conference, General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that 12 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bombs, better known as “bunker busters” and each weighing more than 13 tons, were used in the Fordow attack.
He said the bombs breached the underground complex through ventilation shafts at two different points. Kane explained that the munitions had been in development for 15 years specifically for this mission, and satellite imagery had long shown the ventilation infrastructure.
The first two bombs reportedly shattered the concrete layers Iran had laid over the shafts, followed by additional ordinance fired at speeds exceeding 600mph, which struck the intended targets.
Kane quoted one of the US pilots as saying: "It was the brightest explosion I've ever seen, the night turned into day."
However, uncertainty remains over the extent of the damage at the site, with multiple reports seemingly contradicting President Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “obliterated”.
Rafael Grossi, director of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, suggested this week that the damage appeared to be “severe” but “not total”, while the Washington Post reported that an intercepted call between Iranian officials saw them remark that the strikes were less devastating than expected.
The White House rejected this report, saying: “It’s shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks.
"The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over.”
It is also understood that around 400kg of enriched uranium remains unaccounted for after it was reportedly smuggled out of Fordow ahead of the strikes.
