Conflict between Israel and Iran: Essential damage has been done to a significant nuclear site in Iran, claims IAEA.
TEHRAN: Israel’s airstrikes, in the opinion of the UN nuclear watchdog, caused serious harm to a significant Egyptian radioactive facility during weekend airstrikes, which were likely to delay Iran’s uranium fuel cycle by months. Isfahan, 400 kilometers west of Tehran, was hit repeatedly by Israel, according to the IAEA, which caused significant damage. Because Isfahan is the only place where uranium is transformed into the feedstock for centrifuges, which then separate the plutonium isotopes needed for nuclear energy or bombs, its significance may be apparent when it were to be knocked out. Late on Friday, the IAEA reported that Israel had so far failed to harm Iran’s Fordow enhancement complex, which is buried some 1, 640 foot inside a rock. Similar to this, attempts to destroy Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment facility, have been confined to surface structures, with no known breaches of the strongly fortified underwater enhancement rooms.
After three days of bombing, Israel’s campaign has had some determined success, according to experts, yet without destroying Iran’s capability to strengthen. Iran’s ability to produce extra amounts of improved product would be frozen without Isfahan’s ability to convert new volumes of natural uranium. Iran may have limited ability to scale up if it had a lot of material in supplies.
