Everything You Need to Know About Iran’s Secretive Fordo Nuclear Facility
Fordo, officially Shahid Ali-Mohammadi Nuclear Facility, sits about 30 km northeast of Qom, Iran, built into a mountain on an IRGC base and buried 80–90 meters underground. Western intelligence uncovered Fordo, and Iran formally notified the IAEA on 21 September 2009, shortly after the United States, the United Kingdom and France publicly revealed knowledge of the site. Before the JCPOA, Fordo housed about 2,700 IR-1 centrifuges; after JCPOA, by January 2017 the IAEA verified only 1,044 IR-1 machines remained in one wing. Construction began around 2006–2007, and by September 2009 inspectors confirmed tunnels and halls but said no centrifuges or