Warplanes. Submarines. Cruise missiles. Bombs that weigh 30,000 pounds.
After initially favoring diplomacy, US President Donald Trump resorted to an extraordinary use of force against Iran on Saturday night, striking three of the regime’s key nuclear sites.
Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated,” but some Iranian officials downplayed the impact of the strikes – just as they did when Israel first struck Iran’s facilities on June 13.
With satellite imagery of the overnight strikes beginning to emerge, here’s what we know about the damage the US inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program.
Fordow
Fordow is Iran’s most important nuclear enrichment facility, buried deep inside a mountain to guard it from attacks.
The main halls are believed to be some 80 to 90 meters (262 to 295 feet) below ground. Analysts have long said that the US is the only military in the world with the kind of bomb required to burrow that deeply – the enormous, 30,000-pound GBU-57.
The US used six B-2 bombers to drop 12 of those “bunker-busting” bombs on the site, a US official told CNN.
A CNN analysis of satellite imagery showed that the US strikes left at least six large craters at the Fordow site, pointing to the use of bunker-busting bombs.
The images, captured by Maxar, showed six separate impact craters in two nearby locations at Fordow. The craters are visible along a ridge running over the underground complex.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, told CNN that there had been a “direct kinetic impact” on Fordow, but that it was too soon to judge whether it had caused internal damage to the underground site.
“Of course, one cannot exclude (the possibility) that there is significant damage there,” he said.
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), told CNN that the satellite imagery suggested “a considerable amount of damage could have been done to the enrichment hall and adjacent halls that provide support to enrichment.”
“Total destruction of the underground hall is quite possible,” Albright said, while stressing that a full assessment of the damage will take time.
N.R. Jenzen-Jones, a munitions specialist and director of the research company Armament Research Services (ARES), concurred that there are at least six entry points in Fordow following the US strikes.
“The larger, central entry holes in the two groupings have irregular shapes and suggest multiple munitions struck the same precise location,” Jenzen-Jones told CNN.
“This is consistent with the theory of an attack on such a deeply buried target as the Fordow site, which would require multiple precisely delivered, and carefully calibrated, penetrating munitions to essentially ‘smash’ and blast their way through to the deeper, more protected areas of the site,” he added.
Satellite imagery also showed significant changes to the color of the mountainside where the facility is housed, indicating a vast area was covered with a layer of grey ash in the aftermath of the strikes.
A CNN analysis of imagery collected before the US strikes suggested Iran had taken steps to reinforce the entrances to the tunnels believed to lead into the underground facility, likely in anticipation of a coming strike. That imagery showed dirt piled up in front of at least two of the six entrances.
Although Iran’s foreign minister said the US had crossed a “very big red line,” other Iranian leaders downplayed the strikes’ impact. Manan Raeisi, a lawmaker representing the city of Qom, near Fordow, said the damage from the attack was “quite superficial.”
But Albright, of the ISIS, told CNN that initial reports from Iran “should be dismissed.” He said that, during previous rounds of strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran has soft-pedaled their impact, only for satellite imagery to tell a very different story.
Natanz
Natanz is the site of Iran’s largest nuclear enrichment center and was targeted in Israel’s initial attack on Iran on June 13. The site has six above-ground buildings and three underground structures, which house centrifuges – a key technology in nuclear enrichment, turning uranium into nuclear fuel.
The above-ground facilities were damaged in Israel’s initial attack. The IAEA said the strikes damaged electrical infrastructure at the plant.
Although it is not clear if Israel’s strikes caused direct damage to the underground facilities, the IAEA said the loss of power to the underground cascade hall “may have damaged the centrifuges there.”
The US also targeted Natanz in its Saturday night operation. A US official said a B-2 bomber had dropped two bunker-busting bombs on the site.
US Navy submarines also fired 30 TLAM cruise missiles at Natanz and Isfahan, the third Iranian site targeted by the US.
Isfahan
Isfahan, in central Iran, is home to the country’s largest nuclear research complex.
The facility was built with support from China and opened in 1984, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). Some 3,000 scientists are employed at Isfahan, NTI says, and the site is “suspected of being the center” of Iran’s nuclear program.
Albright said initial reports suggested that the US also struck tunnel complexes near the Isfahan site, “where they typically store enriched uranium.”
If confirmed, Albright said this would show that the US was trying to take out Iran’s stocks of uranium that had been enriched to 20% and 60%. Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90%.
CNN could not independently verify reports that tunnel complexes near the Isfahan site were targeted.
At a Pentagon news conference Sunday, Gen. Dan Caine, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a US submarine had “launched more than a dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles against key surface infrastructure targets” at the Isfahan site.
CNN’s Isaac Ye, Avery Schmitz, Thomas Bordeaux, Haley Britzky and Kristen Holmes contributed reporting.
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