Scientists search, intelligence seeks: where has Iran's uranium gone?

«The atomic bomb hanging beneath the fuselage of the plane...came off the fighter-bomber that was disintegrating in mid-air and continued its flight eastward. It fell far from the place where the burning remains of the plane had crashed, fifty meters from the house of the Druze farmer... And now the Israelis were faced with a problem that was impossible to solve, even for those of them with a rich imagination. The bomb was somewhere in Syrian territory - but where exactly? Which of the four airplanes was carrying it? Where did it crash? The Israelis could not ask the Syrians to search for it. And what to say to the Americans, from whom they managed with considerable dexterity to acquire «special nuclear material», a fact that both sides categorically denied? Thus, the atomic bomb lay buried two meters into the ground near the house of a farmer who, unaware of its existence, continued to cultivate his field, which was strewn with stones here and there.

This is the plot of Tom Clancy's 1991 novel The Sum of All Fears. The book was the basis for the script of the movie of the same name, which was released in 2002. I won't reveal all the details, in case you haven't seen this movie yet, it's very good, by the way.

Middle East, war, missing atomic weapons being chased by the intelligence services of several countries. Something this plot reminds us of recent history... Ah yes, the June attack by Israel and the US on Iran's nuclear facilities and the missing of almost 409 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. This is no longer a movie, this is very serious.

Iran's nuclear program was launched in 1957 with U.S. support - at the time, the countries were friends. But the United States ended its support when the Shah of Iran was overthrown during the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and severe international sanctions were imposed on Iran.

Nevertheless, Iran has not stopped the program - it has always insisted that it is developing it solely for peaceful purposes. However, as relations between Western countries and Iran heated up, there were growing fears that the country was secretly developing nuclear weapons as well. In 2015, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany agreed with Iran on a «nuclear deal» that allowed it to continue a peaceful nuclear program under international supervision in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions.

In 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump dismantled the agreement, declaring it «one of the worst and most one-sided deals the United States has ever entered into.» In his view, Iran had used the sanctions relief to bolster its missile program, fund clandestine nuclear weapons efforts and support terrorist organizations in the Middle East.

Tehran has since restricted international inspectors' access to its nuclear facilities and has begun to increase uranium enrichment and stockpiles, as well as use advanced centrifuges, wrote CNN.

Several further rounds of negotiations with both the administrations of U.S. President Joe Biden and President Trump were unsuccessful.

Israel is particularly alarmed by Iran's nuclear program, which is not surprising given that Iranian leaders do not recognize the country and have repeatedly threatened Israel. For example, in 2020, speaking on national television, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stated: «The Zionist regime is a deadly cancer that is damaging this region. It will undoubtedly be eradicated and destroyed.»

The key issue of Iran's nuclear program is the degree of uranium enrichment. Natural uranium consists of 99.3% of the heavy isotope uranium-238 and only 0.7% of the lighter uranium-235, which is used for both peaceful nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons.

To obtain higher concentrations of uranium-235, an enrichment process is used. The uranium is converted to gaseous form and fed into high-speed centrifuges where the heavier uranium-238 is «squeezed» by centrifugal force against the walls and the lighter uranium-235 accumulates in the central part. From there, it is taken to the next centrifuge, where it is concentrated even more, from there to the next centrifuge, and so on, in this cascading process, the concentration of uranium-235 gradually increases.

The uranium used in nuclear power plants is typically enriched to about 3.67%; to make a weapon, it needs to be enriched up to 90%.

In early June 2025, a report by the IAEA international nuclear agency appeared, which claimed that Iran was rapidly increasing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, in particular, it had already accumulated 408.6 kilograms of uranium with an enrichment level of 60%. According to experts, this amount is enough to create 9-10 nuclear charges, if enriched to 90% - and there is a «short technical step» left to this point, AP wrote.

In a response statement, Iran rejected all accusations, called the IAEA report «politically motivated» and «based on unreliable and contradictory sources of information,» and recalled that Iran's defense strategy approved by Khamenei does not envision the development of nuclear weapons;

For my part, I would like to point out that Iran has not given an answer to the logical question of why the country needs highly enriched uranium reserves in this case.

U.S. nuclear negotiations with Iran were not progressing, and on the night of Friday, June 13, Israel began launching massive strikes against Iranian air defense systems, launch sites for ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel. The targets of the operation also included top leaders of the Iranian army, nuclear facilities and specialists involved in the nuclear program. According to the Israeli military, the IAF strikes destroyed 80 Iranian surface-to-air missile systems out of about 100 in areas where they were operating, about 200 of an estimated 400 Iranian ballistic missile launchers, 15 Iranian aircraft, 70 radars, six airports and airbases, more than 35 missile and air defense production facilities and dozens of command centers, writes The Times of Israel. In addition, Israel hit Iran's uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow, the inactive nuclear reactor at Arak and other nuclear targets. Iran responded with drone attacks and massive rocket attacks on Israeli cities. 

Analysts immediately noted that Iran's most protected nuclear facility -- the Fordow enrichment plant, sheltered under some 90 meters of rock and concrete, is virtually impossible to damage with conventional anti-bunker bombs.  

The only weapon capable of doing so, Scientific American called the American GBU-57/B superbomb weighing about 14 tons, probably the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the world. And the only aircraft capable of carrying such bombs is the American B-2 stealth bomber. Israel has neither of these weapons in service, and only the United States possesses them.

Israeli attacks on Iranian air defenses probably helped clear the skies for the ally, and on the night of June 22, the U.S. stepped in. Seven B-2 Spirit bombers penetrated Iranian airspace and struck 14 GBU-57/B bombs at enrichment plants in Fordow and Natanz, and a submarine fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran's nuclear facility in Isfahan.

«I can inform the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key uranium enrichment facilities have been completely and irrevocably destroyed,» Trump declared in an address to the nation following the conclusion of the operation dubbed «Night Hammer.» However, is it true?

Already on Wednesday, June 25, CNN, citing anonymous sources, published excerpts from a classified intelligence report, which claimed that the nuclear facilities were only damaged, centrifuges were preserved, enriched uranium had been taken elsewhere in advance and, thus, Iran's nuclear program was not destroyed at all, but only slightly delayed. The New York Times also published a similar report.

The heads of the CIA and U.S. National Intelligence Agency on the same day made official statements that Iran's program has been «set back years,» ABC reports.

Trump responded to critics with furious posts on the social network Truth Social, in which he demanded firing the journalists who worked on the publications for «lying» and «trying to slander our patriotic pilots who did a great job!»

More cautious experts noted that it is extremely difficult to assess the true extent of the destruction, especially at a site as deep as Fordow, without an on-site inspection, to which, I would add for myself, Iran is hardly located at this point, despite the truce with Israel.

The Institute for Science and International Security has done the most complete analysis of what happened that I've been able to find in the public domain;

Its detailed analysis of both contemporary and historical satellite imagery shows that the anti-bunker bombs appear to have hit the vulnerable points of the Natanz and Fordow complexes very accurately, with the result that the sites «are likely to be severely damaged or destroyed».

However, the same study indicates that just one day before the attack, a convoy of trucks was seen near the Fordow site, which may indicate that Iran was trying to remove enriched material and the most valuable equipment from there, the Institute's experts say. Although there is another version - on the contrary, something was brought there to hide at the most secure nuclear facility.

Bloomberg wrote that 409 kilograms of uranium can be stored in 16 shipping containers about 1 meter high and weighing about 25 kilograms each. In other words, it can be easily transported not only by truck, but also by several passenger cars.

«Where is Iran's uranium now?» wonder Bloomberg, Financial Times, The New York Times. The Iranians are unofficially hinting that it's been «taken care of,» but that's probably a bluff.

And how interesting it is for intelligence, especially Israeli intelligence!

«Israeli intelligence is expected to hunt in Iran, even under a cease-fire, for undestroyed remnants such as nuclear materials, centrifuges, and nuclear weapons production facilities,» writes the Institute for Science and International Security.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a June 22 press conference, declared that the country's authorities «have interesting intelligence information» about the location of this uranium, but did not go into further detail. It's possible this is a bluff, too. To scare Iran, for example, and encourage it to re-hide the hidden stuff, giving itself away in the process.

It's hard to say, the Middle East is indeed a very delicate matter.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor