TRUMP may have “obliterated” Iran’s notorious Fordow facility, but there are fears the nuke programme lives on in another top-secret mountain fortress.
Iranian officials have claimed the key enriched uranium was carted out of Fordow before the bombs fell – and Pickaxe Mountain could be its new home.
ReutersSatellite pics show lorries lining up outside Fordow in the days before the US strikes[/caption]
TwitterOne of the last missiles fired by Iran into Israel lodged in the ground[/caption]
AlamyA B-2 Spirit bomber escorted by two F 15E Strike Eagles[/caption]
Pickaxe is a peak in the mountains surrounding Natanz, another of Iran’s nuclear plants hammered by the US and Israel, and around 90 miles south of Fordow.
The site is still under construction, but has been secretly expanded and reinforced over the past four years.
The peak is over 5,000ft high – taller than any mountain in the UK – and the site is thought to be buried 328ft down.
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said last year: “It is obvious it is in a place where numerous and important activities related to the programme are taking place.”
When asked what was going on beneath Pickaxe, Iran responded: “It’s none of your business.”
Satellite images show tunnels feeding into the mountain and leading to a deep-buried operation.
Experts say it could be more secure than any of the facilities struck by the US and Israel.
America’s bunker-buster bombs were the only weapons capable of reaching Fordow – but even those might prove ineffective against Pickaxe.
In the days before Trump’s stealth bombing raid over the weekend, a train of lorries was pictured lining up outside Fordow.
And in the aftermath, Iran has claimed that it moved the key nuclear material.
It’s believed there was 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent at the plant which, if still intact, could sustain Iran’s ambitions to build nuclear weapons.
Sima Shine, with decades of experience in the military establishment, said Tehran had “hundreds if not thousands” of advanced centrifuges capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.
And Pickaxe could be the perfect new hiding spot.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said it cannot be ruled out that there is further, undeclared material hidden beneath the towers of rock.
EPATrump claimed Iran’s nuclear programme had been ‘obliterated’[/caption]
AFPA B-2 bomber refuelling mid-air[/caption]
EPACraters on a ridge at the Fordow plant after US strikes[/caption]
Grossi renewed his demands that Iran let inspectors in to “account for” the stockpiles of uranium.
Trump claimed that other Iranian sites had been “obliterated” by the US airstrikes over the weekend.
An Iranian official insisted that “contrary to the claims of the lying US president, the Fordow nuclear facility has not been seriously damaged, and most of what was damaged was only on the ground, which can be restored”.
And the extent of the damage is debated after an intelligence report was leaked on Tuesday night.
The assessment claims that Iran’s nuclear programme was set back by just a few months by the US bombs.
Sources told CBS that the stash of uranium had not been eliminated.
The White House was furious and slammed the “flat-out wrong” assessment leaked by “a low-level loser in the intelligence community”.
America deployed its heaviest weapons against Fordow – 14-ton GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators.
The monster explosives burrow 60 metres into the ground before detonating.
Inside covert US raid on Iran’s nuclear sites
By Patrick Harrington
DECOY and deception were at the heart of Donald Trump’s tactical Operation Midnight Hammer strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites.
Through meticulous planning and artful bluff, the B-2 stealth bomber squadron glided in and out of Iran without ever being detected or fired upon by a single Iranian missile.
The US began spinning a web of deception at the start of the conflict which culminated in the “obliteration” of three of Iran’s nuclear plants, including the mountain fortress Fordow.
The President maintained the smoke-and-mirrors act, telling reporters at a flagpole opening ceremony: “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m gonna do.”
Then a day later, Trump played a masterstroke which saw the White House put out a “two-week” deadline for the US to make a decision about attacking Fordow.
A decoy fleet of B-2s flew west over over the Pacific and towards Guam to throw Iranian intelligence off the scent.
Read more about the operation here.