The mountain fortress Israel must destroy to topple Iran's nuclear programme

The events of the past few days appear to have proved that Israel has near-total air superiority over Iran. Iranian armed forces have been powerless to counter the Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed critical buildings and wiped out swathes of the Islamic Republic's military leadership.
At least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists have also been killed by the unilateral operation, codenamed Rising Lion, which appears aimed at decapitating the country's nuclear programme.
One key site remains unscathed, however: the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Located 20 miles from the ancient, central city of Qom, and about 100 miles south of Tehran, Fordow is one of two nuclear enrichment sites in the country. The other, in Natanz, was reportedly partially destroyed in the attacks.
Hidden in the mountains, its key buildings buried deep underground, Fordow is an altogether more challenging target. Ringed by anti-air defences, it has become a symbol of Iranian defiance as well as its technological ingenuity. If Israel is truly to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities, it must disable Fordow.
That's because here, uranium is enriched in centrifuges at up to 60 per cent, a shade under the purity needed to build a nuclear weapon.
'The entire operation… really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow,' the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters on Friday. A day later, Iranian sources reported that Fordow had been attacked, but with limited damage.
'The be-all and end-all of Iran's nuclear operation'
Analysts have described the mountainous fortress, which sits within an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base, as 'the be-all and end-all of Iran's nuclear operation'.
'If you don't get Fordow,' said Brett McGurk, who has worked as Middle East coordinator for several American presidents, 'you haven't eliminated their ability to produce weapons-grade material.'
The problem for Israel is that it seems to lack the weapons to do the job. It is thought that Fordow's heavily fortified facilities could only be destroyed with so-called 'bunker busters', enormous bombs designed especially to penetrate buildings below ground. Israel is not believed to have such munitions, nor the heavy bombers needed to deliver them. The US, its key ally, has both positioned within striking distance of Iran.
But Washington has been clear about its intent not to get directly involved in the current conflict. The result is what Peter Wildeford, a respected commentator and forecaster, calls 'The Fordow Paradox'. In an article on Saturday he wrote: 'The US possesses the military capability to destroy Fordow but lacks the political will, while Israel has the will but not the capability.'
'This fundamental misalignment between America's power and Israel's urgency explains why we're watching not just another round of strikes, but potentially the first act in nuclear proliferation's next wave.'
Israel will keep looking for ways to destroy Fordow, in other words, while Iran will keep enriching uranium.
'Inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear programme'
The Islamic Republic, which has long denied seeking to develop nuclear weapons, began enriching uranium at Fordow in September 2011. The site's existence had been revealed two years earlier, when declassified British, French and US intelligence reports detailed a secret facility 'inconsistent with a peaceful [nuclear] programme.' The news was so shocking that it provoked censure from China and Russia, which usually support Iran, and meant Fordow became a central point of focus in attempts to curtail the country's nuclear programme.
At first, Iranian officials said the Islamic Republic would enrich uranium to 20 per cent purity for medical purposes. (The silvery-grey, radioactive metal is a critical component in the making of isotopes used in imaging and radiotherapy.)
Under the terms of the landmark JCPOA nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama in 2015, Fordow was to stop enriching uranium for 15 years and Tehran agreed to keep its level of uranium enrichment more widely at 3.67 per cent – a level considered suitable for civilian nuclear power and research purposes, but not nuclear weapons – in return for sanctions relief.
By 2018, however, and the US's withdrawal from the JCPOA at Donald Trump's direction, the facility was reported to be producing enriched uranium once again. In March 2023, the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed reports that 83.7 per cent, near weapons-grade U-235, had been found at Fordow.
Last week, in its latest quarterly report, the IAEA said that Iran had produced enough 60 per cent purity uranium – capable of being further enriched in a matter of days to 90 per cent weapons grade material – to potentially manufacture nine nuclear bombs. It was a 'matter of serious concern', it concluded.
The rise of the bunker buster
Evidently, Israeli leaders agreed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Operation Rising Lion is aimed at rolling back 'the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival', adding the operation will 'continue for as many days as it takes to remove the spread'.
Meanwhile, satellite images have shown extensive damage to the nuclear facilities at Natanz and another site, Isfahan. The IAEA confirmed that critical buildings at the latter facility had been damaged.
Experts believe Israel could have used bunker-busting munitions in these attacks, albeit smaller ones than those which would be needed for a meaningful strike on Fordow.
Justin Bronk, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told the BBC that the pattern of explosions 'would fit with penetrating bombs being used', such as 'GBU-31(V)3s or even possibly more specialised penetrating GBU-28s'.
Modern bunker busters were developed after the first Gulf War in 1990, when coalition forces came across Iraqi fortifications too strong and deeply buried for conventional munitions to damage them. The new weapons had a heavily hardened nose, initially made from an artillery barrel, and a delayed fuse, meaning they would not explode until after they had penetrated their target, rather than on initial impact.
While the bombs the Israelis already possess are effective through up to six metres of reinforced concrete, the American GBU-57A/B is thought to be the only munition that could deal a serious blow to Fordow.
Also known as MOP, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the GBU-57 is more than six metres long and weighs 14,000kg, with a 2,400kg warhead and a GPS guidance system. It can reportedly penetrate through up to 61 metres of concrete. The only plane capable of delivering it is the B-2 stealth bomber, which can carry two at a time.
Another plant even more deeply fortified is under construction
Still, Israel has other methods at its disposal.
Some have suggested that conventional munitions, if repeatedly dropped on the same target, might be able to damage Fordow. Or it could use special forces on the ground to try to destroy the facility from inside.
In April 2021, Israeli reports claimed Mossad was involved in an explosion that caused a blackout at the Natanz facility. In 2010, the Stuxnet cyber virus damaged several nuclear centrifuges. Such operations are risky, however, especially now that Iran will be on its highest alert.
And even were they to successfully target Fordow, it would not represent the end of Iranian nuclear ambition. Another facility is under construction a few miles south of Natanz, at Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, nicknamed Pickaxe mountain. It will be even more deeply fortified than Fordow.
Without a dramatic change in US policy, or more ingenuity, then, the Fordow Paradox is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Iran's nuclear mountain will continue to loom large in Israeli thinking.

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