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When the United States Bombed states Iran in the The early hours of Sunday local timeHe targeted three installations in the heart of the country’s nuclear ambitions: the Fordow uranium enrichment factory, Natanz’s nuclear installation and Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. The newly published satellite images show the impact of the attack – at least, which can be seen in the field.
The weight of the bombing focused on Fordow, where American forces dropped a dozen massive GBU-57 penetrators as part of its “midnight hammer” operation. These 30,000 pound “bunker-letters” bombs are designed to penetrate as deeply as 200 feet in the ground before exploding. The Fordow complex is about 260 feet underground.
This gap explains part of the uncertainty about the amount of damage to the Fordow site. President Donald Trump shared an article on his Truth social platform after the attack which said that “Fordow had left”, and later declared in a television address that “the main nuclear enrichment facilities of Iran were completely and completely erased”. His own soldiers, however, were slightly more circumspect on the result of a Sunday morning briefing. “It would be too early for me to comment on what may or may not be there,” said General Dan Caine, president of the joint staff chiefs.
Satellite imagery can only intrinsically tell you as much about a structure which is located so far below the surface of the earth. But before and after imaging is the best information accessible to the public on the impact of bombing.
“What we see are six craters, two clusters of three, where there were 12 massive ammunition penetrators,” explains Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-Proliferation Program at the James Martin Center for non-proliferation of the Middlebury Institute. “The idea is that you have struck the same place again and again to widen in a way.”
The specific locations of these craters also count, explains Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and colleague of the Center for Strategic and International Studies project on nuclear issues. Although the entrance tunnels of the Fordow complex do not seem to have been targeted, the American bombs have fallen on what is probably ventilation trees, based on satellite images of early construction on the site.
“The reason why you want to target a ventilation tree is that it is a more direct route to the main components of the underground installation,” explains Rodgers.
This direct route is particularly important given the depth of the underground Fordow. The American army is based on “essentially a computer model” of the installation, explains Lewis, who tells them “how much pressure it could take before he seriously damages everything inside and perhaps even collapse the installation”. By bombing specific targeted areas with several ammunition, the United States did not need bombs capable of penetrating the 260 full feet to cause substantial damage.
“They probably did not try to enter the establishment. They probably try to get closer and crush it with a shock wave, ”explains Lewis. “If you send a sufficiently large shock wave in this installation, it will kill people, break things, damage integrity.”
