CNN
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The new satellite image shows ongoing work at Iran’s Fordau nuclear enrichment plant, which was attacked by a US B-2 bomber over a week ago.
Images were collected by Maxar Technologies on Sunday. “We are revealing ongoing activity near the ventilation shaft and holes caused by air strikes at the Fordow Fuel Richment Complex last week.”
The photo shows “The excavator and multiple personnel are located right next to the northern shaft on the ridge above the underground complex. The crane appears to be operating at the shaft/hole entrance.”
According to Maxar, several additional vehicles are also seen below the ridge and parked along the pathway built to access the site.
Earlier this month, the American B-2 bomber dropped more than a dozen bunkerbuster bombs at Iranian Foudow and Natantz nuclear sites, and the Tomahawk missile was attacked by the Isfahansite in central Iran, where it was launched by a US submarine.
According to Din Kane’s co-chief chairman, the US massive weapons intruder (MOP) bombs target two Fordow ventilation shafts.
He told a Pentagon briefing last week that most of the bombs dropped at the Fordow were “responsible to enter the main shaft and move into a complex that exceeds 1,000 feet per second, and explode in mission space.”
David Albright, a former nuclear inspector who currently leads the Institute for Science and International Security, said that Saturday’s image of Fordor was “Iranians are actively working at two MOP shock sites that penetrate ventilation shafts.”
Albright rated the activity “may include crater reclamation and the assessment of engineering damage and perhaps conducting radiation sampling.” The crater above the main shaft remains open. ”
“Iranians have observed that they have quickly repaired bomb crater damage on the main entrance road for just a few days ago. However, there are no signs of an effort to reopen the tunnel entrance,” he wrote to X.
On Sunday, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said the US strike against Iran had not resulted in complete damage to its nuclear program, saying Tehran could resume its fulfilling uranium “in a few months,” and that President Donald Trump’s claims have gone back decades back to the US Tehran’s ambitions.
Comments by IAEA Director Rafael Grossi appears to support an early assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, first reported by CNN, suggesting that last week’s US strike against major Iranian nuclear sites did not destroy core elements of the nuclear program.
Although the final military and intelligence report assessments have yet to come, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has “completely and completely wiped out” Tehran’s nuclear program.
Laura Sharman and Sophie Tanno of CNN contributed to this report.
