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| Satellite images provided by Maxar of the Natanz Enrichment Facility (left) and Fordow Enrichment Facility. (Photos: AP) |
PTI, TEL AVIV, JUNE 22, 2025 : The US military struck three sites in Iran early Sunday, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to decapitating Iran’s nuclear programme in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
The decision to directly involve the US comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran, eradicating the country’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities. But US and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogram) bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear programme buried deep underground.
President Donald Trump announced the strikes. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported that attacks targeted the country’s Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites. The agency did not elaborate. Iran’s foreign minister said Iran reserves the right to retaliate.
Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said Israel was still assessing damage from US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. At a press briefing, Defrin was asked whether enriched material had been removed from the Fordo site before the US strike, and he replied that it was too early to know. Defrin said the strikes were carried out in coordination with the Israeli military.
Satellite images taken Sunday analysed by The Associated Press show damage on the mountainside at Iran’s underground nuclear site at Fordo after US airstrikes targeted the facility. The images by Planet Labs PBC show the once-brown mountain had parts turned gray and its contours appeared slightly different than in previous images, suggesting a blast threw up debris around the site. That suggests the use of specialised American bunker buster bombs on the facility. Light gray smoke also hung in the air.
Iran has yet to offer a damage assessment of the site. Other satellite images suggest Iran, before the strike, sealed up its tunnel entrances at Fordo.
