Fordow: What we know about Iran’s secretive ‘nuclear mountain’ – and how Israel might try to destroy it
Deep beneath a mountain, hundreds of centrifuges spin, enriching Iran’s uranium that Israel suspects is destined for a nuclear weapon.
The Fordow plant is protected by tonnes upon tonnes of dirt and rock, far away from prying eyes – and foreign missiles.
But as Israeli warplanes fly unchecked above Tehran, with much of the Islamic Republic’s air defences turned to smoking ruins on the ground, attention has moved to the secretive facility.
Some say only the American B-2 stealth bomber and its massive payload could breach the so-called “nuclear mountain”, while others argue troops on the ground might be able to infiltrate its corridors. Or maybe it is simply impossible, short of a nuclear strike.
Iran has repeatedly denied that it is seeking a nuclear weapon and the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said in June that it has no proof of a “systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon”.
A satellite image shows the Fordow nuclear facility. Pic: Maxar Technologies/Reuters
What is the Fordow facility?
The Fordow enrichment plant is one of three key pieces of nuclear infrastructure in Iran – the others being the Natanz enrichment plant and research facilities in Isfahan.
It is thought to be buried around 80m deep into the side of the mountain. It was previously protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems, but these may have wholly or partially knocked out during Israel’s recent attacks.
Construction is believed to have started in around 2006 and it first became operational in 2009 – the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.
Key sites at Fordow including tunnel entrances
In November 2020, it was believed there were 1,057 centrifuges at Fordow. These are used to separate isotopes and increase the concentration of uranium-235, needed for nuclear fuel and weapons.
In 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the nuclear watchdog – found uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity – near the 90% needed for a bomb – at Fordow, the only Iranian facility where this has been found.
In June 2024, the Washington Post reported on a major expansion at Fordow, with nearly 1,400 new centrifuges earmarked for the subterranean facility.
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Will Israel try to destroy Fordow?
Israel has made no secret of its desire to cripple or remove Iran’s nuclear programme, describing it as an existential threat.
There is much that remains elsewhere in Iran that is capable of producing and using nuclear material.
“But of course the real big piece remains at Fordow still and this has been in the headlines quite a bit,” says Dr Alexander Bollfrass, an expert on nuclear weapons from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) thinktank.
There is also the chance that an increased focus on diplomacy brings the war to an end before the IDF can make a run at Fordow.
Centrifuge machines at Natanz – similar to ones held at Fordow. Pic: AP
Could bunker buster bombs be used?
There has been a lot of talk about bunker buster bombs. These are munitions that explode twice – once to breach the ground surface and again once the bomb has burrowed down to a certain depth.
The Israelis used 60 to 80 of them in the strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September last year, according to Martin “Sammy” Sampson, a former air marshal and executive director at the IISS.
But Nasrallah was only 10-15m underground, Mr Sampson said, while Fordow is believed to be 80m beneath the surface.
“An awful lot of planes would be in the same place for an awful long time” to drop enough bombs to have a chance of getting to the buried facility, he added.
A GBU-57 bunker buster bomb seen in 2023. File pic: US Air Force/AP
There is also the possibility that the US, which operates the much more powerful GBU-57 bomb, could assist with any operation at Fordow.
“My sense is that it would still take multiple strikes,” Mr Sampson said, putting it in “more and more unknown territory”.
“It would be pretty disastrous… if you put 400 planes over the top of Fordow, or you put the might of the US over Fordow, and it survived.”
Israel’s ‘contingencies’ for dealing with Fordow
Israel has suggested that it could destroy or cripple Fordow without using bombs dropped from the air.
Speaking to Sky’s Yalda Hakim earlier this week, former Mossad director of intelligence Zohar Palti said it was “much easier for the Americans to do it”, possibly referring to the GBU-57.
“But as you see, we know how to run things alone,” he added. “And if we need to do some other stuff alone, we will do it.”
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Sky’s Yalda Hakim speaks to Zohar Palti
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Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said last weekend that Israel has “a number of contingencies… which will enable us to deal with Fordow”.
“Not everything is a matter of, you know, taking to the skies and bombing from afar,” he told ABC News.
There has been talk of using special forces to raid the facility on the ground, but that has its downsides as well.
“This would be an incredibly high risk mission if you were to do something on the ground,” said Mr Sampson.
There is also the possibility Israel could replicate what happened at the Natanz enrichment plant, where the IAEA said 15,000 centrifuges were likely destroyed in the IDF bombardment of Iran.
This was possibly due to an Israeli airstrike disrupting the power supply to the centrifuges, rather than actual physical damage to the centrifuge hall, according to the nuclear watchdog.
The brutality of Russia’s drone assaults on Ukraine’s towns and cities shows no let up.
“Savage strikes, a deliberate targeted terror” is how the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the latest overnight bombardment.
Some 595 attack drones and 48 missiles were involved and even if only a small fraction made it through Ukrainian air defences, the destruction – in Sumy and Odessa, Zaporizhia and Kyiv – is significant.
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Russia strikes Kyiv in major attack
Also overnight, Denmark reported yet more drone sightings.
It has not named Russia directly but after a week in which unidentified drones have resulted in the temporary shutdown of military and civilian airports, it is banning all civil drone flights and describing the threat as a hybrid attack.
Germany is also raising the alarm over unexplained drone activity along its border with Denmark.
Germany’s interior minister said on Saturday: “We are witnessing an arms race, an arms race between drone threats and drone defences. It is a race we cannot afford to lose.”
NATO is having to deploy extra assets to beef up its Baltic Sea defences and its Eastern flank.
European nations are working to establish a drone wall along their borders with Russia and Ukraine.
Germany is setting up a drone defence centre to make sure it has what it needs to protect itself.
The Kremlin is forcing NATO to divert assets to protect its airspace and sub-sea infrastructure at a time when Europe is trying to work out how best to support and finance Ukraine.
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With drones an inexpensive element of its hybrid warfare arsenal, Russia is sending a clear warning that it can relatively easily chip away at Europe’s defences and that Europe had better focus on protecting itself.
“If NATO begins to look too rattled, that actually is encouragement for Putin precisely to step up the pressure,” says Mark Galeotti, a specialist in Russian security. “So really we need to be holding our nerve.
“Yes, reserving the right to shoot things down that look like direct threats, but otherwise actually talking down, not talking up, the nature of the threat while of course we arm so that we are even more prepared.”
Last week, Estonia said its fighter jets had escorted three Russian MIG fighter jets out of their airspace after a 12-minute incursion, which Russia denies ever took place.
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On Saturday, Estonia pledged €10m (£8.7m) to NATO’s “Prioritised Ukraine Requirement List” or PURL programme, which sees US-produced weapons, paid for by NATO’s European partners, fast-tracked to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy posted on Sunday after speaking with the NATO secretary general that PURL is moving forward well. And that is just what Russia is trying to prevent.
Hamas’s armed group has claimed it has lost contact with two hostages as a result of Israel’s operations in Gaza – after it called on air deployments to be stopped for 24 hours.
In a statement, Hamas’s armed al-Qassam Brigades said it had demanded that Israel halt air sorties for 24 hours, starting at 6pm, in part of Gaza City, to remove the hostages from danger.
It comes a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet US President Donald Trump and as the number of those killed in Gaza surpasses the 66,000 mark, according to the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Its figure does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.
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Volunteer nurse’s video diary of Gaza horrors
A total of 48 hostages are still being held captive by Hamas, the militant group which rules Gaza, with about 20 believed by Israel to still be alive. A total of 251 hostages were taken on 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel which killed 1,200 people.
Situation on the ground
In Gaza, a war-torn enclave where famine has been declared in some areas and where Israel has been accused of committing acts of genocide – which it has repeatedly denied – the almost two-year war raged on.
On Sunday, the number of those killed rose to at least 21 as five people were killed in an airstrike in the Al Naser area, local health authorities said, while medics reported 16 more deaths in strikes on houses in central Gaza.
The Civil Emergency Service in Gaza said late on Saturday that Israel had denied 73 requests, sent via international
organisations, to rescue injured Palestinians in Gaza City.
Israeli authorities had no immediate comment. The military earlier said forces were expanding operations in the city and
that five militants firing an anti-tank missile towards Israeli troops had been killed by the Israeli air force.
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‘We will get it done’
In Monday’s White House meeting, President Trump is expected to share a new 21-point proposal for an immediate ceasefire.
His proposal would include the release of all hostages within 48 hours and a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave, according to three Arab officials briefed on the plan, the PA news agency reports.
A Hamas official said the group was briefed on the plan but has yet to receive an official offer from Egyptian and Qatari mediators. Hamas has said it is ready to “study any proposals positively and responsibly”.
Mr Trump, who has been one of Israel’s greatest allies, said on Sunday there is “a real chance for greatness in the Middle East”.
It is unclear, however, what Mr Trump was specifically referring to.
He said in a Truth Social post: “We have a real chance for Greatness in the Middle East. All are on board for something special, first time ever. We will get it done.”
On Friday – the same day a video of diplomats walking out on Mr Netanyahu during his address to the United Nations went viral – Mr Trump said he believed the US had reached a deal on easing fighting in Gaza, saying it “will get the hostages back” and “end the war”.
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“I think we maybe have a deal on Gaza, very close to a deal on Gaza,” the US president told reporters on the White House lawn as he was leaving to attend the Ryder Cup.
Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed an agreement to end the war was imminent, only for nothing to materialise.
Weeks ago, he said: “I think we’re going to have a deal on Gaza very soon.”
It was one sentence among the many words Donald Trump spoke this week that caught my attention.
Midway through a jaw-dropping news conference where he sensationally claimed to have “found an answer on autism”, he said: “Bobby (Kennedy) wants to be very careful with what he says, but I’m not so careful with what I say.”
The US president has gone from pushing the envelope to completely unfiltered.
Last Sunday, moments after Charlie Kirk‘s widow Erika had publicly forgiven her husband’s killer, Mr Trump told the congregation at his memorial service that he “hates his opponents”.
President Donald Trump embraces Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika. Pic: AP
Twenty-four hours later, he drew fierce rebuke from medical experts by linking the use of Tylenol (paracetamol) during pregnancy to increased risk of autism.
The president treats professional disapproval not as a liability but as evidence of authenticity, fuelling the aura that he is a challenger of conventions.
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On Tuesday, he went to the United Nations, where his frustrations over a stalled escalator and teleprompter failure were the prelude to the most combative address.
“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” he told his audience, deriding Europe’s approach to immigration as a “failed experiment of open borders”.
Mr Trump addresses the UN General Assembly in New York. Pic: Reuters
Then came a U-turn on Ukraine, suggesting the country could win back all the land it has lost to Russia.
Most politicians would be punished for inconsistency, but Mr Trump recasts this as strategic genius – framing himself as dictating the terms.
It is hard to keep track when his expressed hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza are peppered with social media posts condemning the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television.
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Perhaps most striking of all is his reaction to the indictment of James Comey, the FBI director he fired during his first term.
In theory, this should raise questions about the president’s past conflicts with law enforcement, but he frames it as vindication, proof that his enemies fall while he survives.
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Mr Trump has spent much of his political career cultivating an image of a man above the normal consequences of politics, law or diplomacy, but he appears to feel more invincible than ever.
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From funerals to world summits, world peace to public health, he projects the same image: rules are for others.
It is the politics of the untouchable.
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