Fordow sits 80–100 m inside a mountain 30 km north of Qom and houses about 3,000 centrifuges, later upgraded with IR-6 machines capable of 60% enrichment. In 2023, IAEA inspectors detected particles enriched to 83.7% at Fordow, signaling near-weapons-grade material. On a June weekend, the United States used a dozen 30,000-pound MOPs in Operation Midnight…
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On 22 June at 10:22 UTC, Maxar released 0.5-meter imagery showing three circular Fordow blast scars about 25 meters across at the portal area. Planet Labs’ SkySat captured higher-cadence shots showing eastward dust clouds and bulldozers arriving by noon local time. Five classic penetrator indicators are visible in Fordow imagery: entry craters, radial debris ejection,…
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Fordow lies beneath roughly 90 metres of limestone outside Qom and houses Iran’s most advanced uranium-enrichment cascades, with enrichment reaching 60% by June 2025 per the IAEA. Fordow was exposed by Western intelligence in 2009, had activity frozen under the JCPOA from 2013 to 2015, and restarted enrichment from 2019 to 2024, reaching 60% in…
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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…
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1957 – The Atoms for Peace agreement between the United States and Iran launches Iran’s civil nuclear program. 1967 – Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) is a 5 MW reactor supplied by the United States, using weapons-grade uranium fuel (93% enriched). 1968–1970 – Iran signs and ratifies the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); IAEA safeguards enter force…
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