Iran's Fordow nuclear facility, located near the city of Qom and about 95km from the capital Tehran, has become one of the key targets in the latest US attack on the country's nuclear program.
A representative of the Qom Provincial crisis Management Agency said that part of the Fordow was attacked after the air defense system in the area was activated.
Built in 2006 underground and exposed in 2009, Fordow is Iran's second largest underground nuclear facility after Natanz. This used to be a base of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and was protected by anti-aircraft missile systems deployed by Iran and Russia. However, recent Israeli airstrikes are believed to have disabled much of the defense system.
The Fordow is specially designed to withstand airstrikes, located about 80m below ground with layers of protective soil and rock.
According to experts, only the US possesses a type of yielding bomb strong enough to completely destroy this facility - that is the 13-ton GBU-57 bomb. Meanwhile, Israel currently has GBU-28 in hand, capable of penetrating through a layer of soil about 6m deep.
Some analysts believe that cyber warfare could also be an effective attack, similar to the Stuxnet attack in 2010 that sabotaged thousands of Iranian centrifuge devices.
Fordow has stopped enriching uranium under the 2015 nuclear deal with Western powers. However, in 2019, the Iranian government announced that it would restart operations at the facility, and began pumping uranium gas into the centrifuge.
In January 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discovered that Iran had installed a uranium enrichment system in Fordow at a refinement of 60%, close to the level that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
In the context of rising tensions, Fordow is seen as a symbol of Iran's nuclear ambition, and is the focus of the prevention strategy of Western countries, especially the US.
