The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For the Prophecy sees without the element of time. For the Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be. 11:11 LLC
New York, NY – In a Quake, Brooklyn Would Shake More Than Manhattan By Brooklyn Eagle New York, NY – The last big earthquake in the New York City area, centered in New York Harbor just south of Rockaway, took place in 1884 and registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale.Another earthquake of this size can be expected and could be quite damaging, says Dr. Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. And Brooklyn, resting on sediment, would shake more than Manhattan, built on solid rock. “There would be more shaking and more damage,” Dr. Kim told the Brooklyn Eagle on Wednesday. If an earthquake of a similar magnitude were to happen today near Brooklyn, “Many chimneys would topple. Poorly maintained buildings would fall down – some buildings are falling down now even without any shaking. People would not be hit by collapsing buildings, but they would be hit by falling debris. We need to get some of these buildings fixed,” he said. But a 5.2 is “not comparable to Haiti,” he said. “That was huge.” Haiti’s devastating earthquake measured 7.0. Brooklyn has a different environment than Haiti, and that makes all the difference, he said. Haiti is situated near tectonic plate. “The Caribbean plate is moving to the east, while the North American plate is moving towards the west. They move about 20 mm – slightly less than an inch – every year.” The plates are sliding past each other, and the movement is not smooth, leading to jolts, he said. While we don’t have the opportunity for a large jolt in Brooklyn, we do have small, frequent quakes of a magnitude of 2 or 3 on the Richter Scale. In 2001 alone the city experienced two quakes: one in January, measuring 2.4, and one in October, measuring 2.6. The October quake, occurring soon after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “caused a lot of panic,” Dr. Kim said. “People ask me, ‘Should I get earthquake insurance?’ I tell them no, earthquake insurance is expensive. Instead, use that money to fix chimneys and other things. Rather than panicky preparations, use common sense to make things better.” Secure bookcases to the wall and make sure hanging furniture does not fall down, Dr. Kim said. “If you have antique porcelains or dishes, make sure they’re safely stored. In California, everything is anchored to the ground.” While a small earthquake in Brooklyn may cause panic, “In California, a quake of magnitude 2 is called a micro-quake,” he added.
Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was briefly cut off from the power grid Monday, its Russian administrators and the Ukrainian atomic agency said.
The incident marked the seventh time that the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, had been cut off from the power grid since invading Russian forces took control of the plant in March 2022.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom accused Russia of carrying out an attack on Monday morning that caused the power cut, saying it was the seventh instance of the plant entering “blackout mode” since Moscow’s troops took control in March 2022.
The Russian administration wrote on Telegram that “due to a high-tension line being cut, the plant lost its external electricity supply,” adding that the causes of the outage were being investigated and that backup diesel generators were keeping it working.
The plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s electricity grid a few hours later, Ukraine said.
Is it dangerous?
Fighting around the nuclear power plant prompted fears of a nuclear disaster like the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Soviet Ukraine, which directly caused hundreds of deaths and injuries.
According to Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, “after the loss of external power, which is vitally necessary to ensure the operation of the nuclear fuel cooling pumps in the fuel pools and nuclear reactors of the power units” and the plant’s diesel generators started operating automatically.
Energoatom said the generators had enough fuel reserves to last 10 days.
“If it is impossible to restore external power to the plant during this time, an accident with radiation consequences for the whole world may occur,” it warned.
After the power connection was restored, the company said in a Telegram statement that “the risk of a nuclear and radiation accident has been minimized.”
According to Andrei Ozharovsky, an engineer-physicist and radioactive waste safety specialist, any emergency situations like cutting off the power grid “are extremely dangerous.”
Yet Ozharovsky noted that since the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant doesn’t operate at its full capacity, its need for electricity has been reduced.
Zaporizhzhia halted power production in September and none of the nuclear power plant’s six Soviet-era reactors has since generated electricity, but the facility remains connected to the Ukrainian power grid for its own needs, notably to cool the reactors.
“The situation is not as catastrophic as for working reactors and the chances of a nuclear disaster are small,” Ozharovsky told The Moscow Times, adding that in the worst case, the tightness of the plant’s reactors might be broken.
The UN’s nuclear chief Rafael Grossi, who has tried to negotiate with both sides to reach a deal on the safety of the plant, said that the “nuclear safety situation at the plant extremely vulnerable.”
“We must agree to protect the plant now; this situation cannot continue,” Grossi, who visited the Moscow-occupied plant in March 2023, said Monday on Twitter.
Why is the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant important?
Located on the Dnipro River, the plant used to supply around 20% of Ukraine’s electricity and continued to function in the early months of Russia’s offensive despite frequent shelling.
FILE – International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and Iranian technicians prepare to cut the connections between the twin cascades for 20% uranium enrichment at the Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, Jan. 20, 2014. A new und…Show moreThe Associated Press
Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch U.S. weapon designed specifically for such sites
ByJON GAMBRELL Associated Press
May 22, 2023, 4:12 AM
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch U.S. weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press.
The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.
With Iran now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb as diplomacy over its nuclear program remains stalled.
Completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its program without tripping U.S. and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict.”
The construction at the Natanz site comes five years after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord. Trump argued the deal did not address Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nor its support of militias across the wider Middle East.
But what it did do was strictly limit Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 3.67% purity, powerful enough only to power civilian power stations, and keep its stockpile to just some 300 kilograms (660 pounds).
Since the demise of the nuclear accord, Iran has said it is enriching uranium up to 60%, though inspectors recently discovered the country had produced uranium particles that were 83.7% pure. That is just a short step from reaching the 90% threshold of weapons-grade uranium.
As of February, international inspectors estimated Iran’s stockpile was over 10 times what it was under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
President Joe Biden and Israel’s prime minister have said they won’t allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. “We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.
The Islamic Republic denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, though officials in Tehran now openly discuss their ability to pursue one.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to questions from the AP regarding the construction, said that “Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” However, Iran has been limiting access for international inspectors for years.
Iran says the new construction will replace an above-ground centrifuge manufacturing center at Natanz struck by an explosion and fire in July 2020. Tehran blamed the incident on Israel, long suspected of running sabotage campaigns against its program.
Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, though it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if they planned to introduce uranium into it. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.
The new project is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.
Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the facility sprawls across 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) in the country’s arid Central Plateau.
Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or “Pickaxe Mountain,” which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing.
A different set of images analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) tall.
The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the center told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet). The center’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.
The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit long focused on Iran’s nuclear program, suggested last year the tunnels could go even deeper.
Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional cascades spinning would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.
“So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the center who led the analysis of the tunnel work.
The new Natanz facility is likely to be even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordo facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by U.S. and other world leaders. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was hardening its program from airstrikes.
Such underground facilities led the U.S. to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating, according to the American military. U.S. officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.
With such bombs potentially off the table, the U.S. and its allies are left with fewer options to target the site. If diplomacy fails, sabotage attacks may resume.
Already, Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Israel also is believed to have killed scientists involved in the program, struck facilities with bomb-carrying drones and launched other attacks. Israel’s government declined to comment.
Experts say such disruptive actions may push Tehran even closer to the bomb — and put its program even deeper into the mountain where airstrikes, further sabotage and spies may not be able to reach it.
“Sabotage may roll back Iran’s nuclear program in the short-term, but it is not a viable, long-term strategy for guarding against a nuclear-armed Iran,” said Davenport, the nonproliferation expert. “Driving Iran’s nuclear program further underground increases the proliferation risk.”
Moqtada Sadr has been a powerful figure in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Although the situation has changed in the country since the radical Shia cleric went into self-imposed exile in Iran in 2007, he appears to have has lost none of his influence and has maintained his wide support among many of Iraq’s impoverished Shia Muslims.
At times he has called for a national rebellion against foreign troops and sent out his Mehdi Army militiamen to confront the “invaders” and Iraqi security forces.
At others he has appeared more compromising, seeking for himself a political role within the new Iraq and helping form the national unity government in December 2010.
He returned to Iraq on 5 January 2011. Weeks before the withdrawal of US troops from the country, as negotiations were ongoing between Baghdad and Washington over a possible extension of their mission, he threatened to reactivate the Mehdi Army in case an extension is agreed. Prayer leader The youngest son of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq Sadr – who was assassinated in 1999, reportedly by Iraqi agents – Moqtada Sadr was virtually unknown outside Iraq before the March 2003 invasion.
But the collapse of Baathist rule revealed his power base – a network of Shia charitable institutions founded by his father.
Moqtada Sadr was virtually unknown outside Iraq before the invasion, but quickly gained a following In the first weeks following the US-led invasion, Moqtada Sadr’s followers patrolled the streets of Baghdad’s Shia suburbs, distributing food, providing healthcare and taking on many of the functions of local government.
They also changed the name of the Saddam City area to Sadr City. Moqtada Sadr also continued his father’s practice of holding Friday prayers to project his voice to a wider audience.
The practice undermined the traditional system of seniority in Iraqi Shia politics and contributed to the development of rivalries with two of Iraq’s Grand Ayatollahs, Kazim al-Hairi and Ali Sistani. Moqtada Sadr drew attention to their links with Iran, whose influence on Iraq’s political and religious life his followers resented. Moqtada Sadr has become a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation He also called on Shia spiritual leaders to play an active role in shaping Iraq’s political future, something most avoided.
Armed force
Moqtada Sadr also used his Friday sermons to express vocal opposition to the US-led occupation and the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC).
In June 2003, he established a militia group, the Mehdi Army, pledging to protect the Shia religious authorities in the holy city of Najaf.
He also set up a weekly newspaper, al-Hawzah, which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) banned in March 2004 for inciting anti-US violence. The move caused fighting to break out between the Mehdi Army and US-led coalition forces in Najaf, Sadr City and Basra.
The following month, the US said an Iraqi judge had issued an arrest warrant for Moqtada Sadr in connection with the murder of the moderate Shia leader, Abdul Majid al-Khoei, in April 2003. Moqtada Sadr strongly denied any role.
The Mehdi Army was involved in fierce fighting with US forces in August 2004 in Najaf. Hostilities between the Mehdi Army and US forces resumed in August 2004 in Najaf and did not stop until Ayatollah Sistani brokered a ceasefire. The fighting left hundreds dead and wounded.
During the negotiations for a truce, the Americans also reportedly agreed to lay aside the warrant for Moqtada Sadr.
The fierce clashes continued in Sadr City, however, and only ended in October after the Mehdi Army had sustained heavy losses. Political power
Though costly, the violence cemented Moqtada Sadr’s standing as a force to be reckoned with in Iraq. Supporters of Moqtada Sadr have performed strongly in all elections since the 2003 invasion
He became a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation – a counterpoint to established Shia groups such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Daawa Party.
Despite this, Moqtada Sadr chose to join his rivals’ coalition for the December 2005 elections – the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).
The alliance had easily won Iraq’s first post-invasion election the previous January, and with the Sadr Bloc on board again came out on top.
In the months of government negotiations that followed, Moqtada Sadr used his influence to push for the appointment of Nouri Maliki, then Daawa’s deputy leader, as prime minister. In return, his supporters got powerful positions in the cabinet.
At the same time, extremist Sunni Islamist militant groups – increasingly supported by Iraq’s marginalised Sunni Arab minority – had begun to target the Shia community, not just foreign troops. Insurgents attacked Shia Islam’s most important shrines and killed many Shia politicians, clerics, soldiers, police and civilians. In 2006 and 2007, thousands of people were killed as the sectarian conflict raged in Iraq.
As the sectarian violence worsened, the Mehdi Army was increasingly accused of carrying out reprisal attacks against Sunni Arabs.
In 2006 and 2007, thousands of people were killed as the sectarian conflict raged. The Iraqi security forces seemed unable to stop the violence, though many blamed this on the infiltration of the interior and defence ministries by the Mehdi Army and other Shia militias.
One Pentagon report described the Mehdi Army as the greatest threat to Iraq’s security – even more so than al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iran was accused of arming it with sophisticated bombs used in attacks on coalition forces.
Showdown
Then in early 2007, after US President George W Bush ordered a troop “surge” in Iraq, it was reported that Moqtada Sadr had left for Iran and told his supporters
In August 2007, heavy fighting broke out between the Mehdi Army and Sciri’s Badr Brigade in Karbala, leaving many dead. In March 2008, the Iraqi government ordered a major offensive against the Mehdi Army in Basra
The internecine fighting was condemned by many Shia, and Moqtada Sadr was forced to declare a ceasefire.
In March 2008, Mr Maliki ordered a major offensive against the militia in the southern city. At first, the Mehdi Army seemed to have fended off the government’s attempts to gain control of Basra. But within weeks, it had accepted a truce negotiated by Iran, and the Iraqi army consolidated its hold.
US and Iraqi forces also moved into Sadr City, sparking fierce clashes but also eventually emerging victorious.
In August 2008, Moqtada Sadr ordered a halt to armed operations. He declared that the Mehdi Army would be transformed into a cultural and social organisation, although it would retain a special unit of fighters who would continue armed resistance against occupying forces.
Kingmaker
He meanwhile devoted his time to theological studies in the Iranian holy city of Qom, in the hope of eventually becoming an ayatollah.
Analysts say the title would grant him religious legitimacy and allow him to mount a more serious challenge to the conservative clerical establishment in Iraq.
At the same time, he built on the gains of the Sadr Bloc in the 2005 elections to increase his political influence. His supporters performed strongly in the 2009 local elections and made gains in the March 2010 parliamentary polls as the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), ending up with 40 seats.
The result made Moqtada Sadr the kingmaker in the new parliament. He toyed initially with backing Mr Maliki’s rival for the premiership, but in June agreed to a merger between the INA and the prime minister’s State of Law coalition.
Then in October, he was finally persuaded by Iran to drop his objection to Mr Maliki’s reappointment in return for eight posts in the cabinet.
Secure in his standing, Moqtada Sadr returned from Iran in January to scenes of jubilation.
Russia moved to clear out a nuclear weapons storage facility in Belgorod as fighting in the region continued into a second day Tuesday, with Russian forces cracking down on armed revolutionary groups that attempted to seize control of local towns.
Russian troops have taken back control of the towns of Kozinka and Grayvoron, according to media accounts, but Moscow’s forces are still searching for armed militants across the region.
Russian military bloggers said most of the “Ukrainian terrorists” were driven back to Ukraine or were destroyed by air strikes, artillery fire and Russian forces.
Several people were injured, and at least one person died during the ground fighting across Belgorod, according to a Telegram post from Vyacheslav Gladkov, the region’s governor.
Gladkov said Russian officials are still evacuating civilians from the towns of Glotovo and Kozinka, with at least 100 people successfully evacuated so far.
On Monday, defecting Russians opposed to the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin claimed responsibility for the march into Belgorod, a territory that borders Ukraine. They swiftly announced the liberation of Kozinka and Gora-Podol before moving into Grayvoron.
On social media, the militants decried what they called widespread corruption in Moscow and urged Russians in Belgorod not to oppose them, arguing resistance troops were moving to free them from Putin’s control.
Ukrainian officials said the soldiers were part of resistance groups and not the Ukrainian army, but they welcomed the movement from the Free Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps, which have been fighting for Kyiv since last year.
Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the office for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukraine was “watching the events in the Belgorod region of Russia with interest and studying the situation, but it has nothing to do with it.”
The counterterrorism operation launched by Moscow to stamp out the invading forces includes Russia’s armed forces, the Federal Security Service and the nation’s border patrol.
India must engage with the West, especially the US and find ways of getting it to secure the nukes of Pakistan. It can’t leave 165 nukes of a completely rogue and destabilised regime unsecured. If Pakistan could build its nuke arsenal covertly, it can very well sell a limited stockpile the same way
Pakistan is going through an unprecedented internal political turmoil which has gone beyond all past incidents. On 9 May 2023, former Pakistani Prime Minister and politician Imran Khan was arrested from inside the High Court in Islamabad by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the charges of corruption in connection with the Al-Qadir Trust, which he owns alongside his wife, Bushra Bibi.
During Khan’s court appearance in Islamabad High Court, while he was in the process of submitting his biometric data, paramilitary forces of Pakistan Rangers forcibly entered by breaking a window to apprehend him.
Video footage depicted numerous security officers of Pakistan Rangers grabbing Khan out of the courtroom and subsequently placing him inside a black Toyota Hilux Vigo Following Khan’s arrest, his party called for demonstrations.
This led to dissenters going berserk, to the extent of attacking and torching army Corps Commander’s house in an army cantonment! Armed men wearing army uniforms attacked the Pakistani army’s headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi close to the capital, Islamabad.
In a nation where the army is believed to be supreme, seemed totally clueless of what was happening in the country. It is believed that the army has been divided in pro and anti-Imran Khan. It is a very dangerous situation for any country if there is any reality in this information. Pakistan’s economy is also in a huge mess right now.
In all this chaos, what has missed the attention is the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Nuclear bombs in a nation heading towards a civil war, is a recipe for disaster. In Pakistan, the Army chief has the nuclear button.
Pakistan is a unique nuclear weapons state. It’s been the recipient of proliferation technology transfers, by theft (from the Netherlands) and from others (China), and it’s been a supplier as well (North Korea, Iran, Libya). Pakistan has been a state sponsor of proliferation and tolerated private-sector proliferation as well. As a weapons state it has engaged in highly provocative behaviour against India.
Pakistan’s nuclear use policy is unlike its nuclear armed neighbours India and China. Pakistan has not committed to a “No-First Use” policy, unlike India. US President Joe Biden has gone on record to say that Pakistan is “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” as it has “nuclear weapons without cohesion”.
The West has expressed concern over the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Many in the West are worried that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists or jihadi elements.
Ever since May 1998, when Pakistan first began testing nuclear weapons, claiming its national security demanded it, American presidents have been haunted by the fear that Pakistan’s stockpile of nukes would fall into the wrong hands.
“There are three threats,” says Graham Allison, an expert on nuclear weapons who directs the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The first is “a terrorist theft of a nuclear weapon, which they take to Mumbai or New York for a nuclear 9/11. The second is a transfer of a nuclear weapon to a state like Iran. The third is a takeover of nuclear weapons by a militant group during a period of instability or splintering of the state.”
The militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which is wreaking havoc on Pakistan army on the latter’s western front, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border formed in 2007 with an aim is to overthrow the government of Pakistan by waging a terrorist campaign against the Pakistan armed forces and the state and to establish an emirate based on its interpretation of Islamic law.
A socially, politically, economically and militarily destabilised nuclear weapons State, which happens to be India’s most hostile neighbour, should be a matter of concern for the authorities here. Pakistan is a rogue nation, to say the least.
Pakistan is crushed under a mountain of debt. Pakistan’s debt jumped from Rs 42.39 trillion in January 2022 to reach close to PKR 55 trillion in January 2023, as per State Bank of Pakistan data. One won’t be surprised if Pakistan decides to covertly sell its nuclear weapons to its friendly nations like China, North Korea or Turkey in a desperate bid to raise funds to repay its debt and avoid bankruptcy. Indian and world media outlets have been speculating about such a possibility.
In these circumstances, India must engage with the West, especially the US and find ways of securing the nukes of Pakistan because if the nukes fall in the hands of rogue elements, then even the US won’t be safe. It can’t leave 165 nukes of a completely rogue and destabilised regime unsecured.
If Pakistan could build its nuke arsenal covertly, it can very well sell a limited stockpile the same way. Desperation can compel individuals and regimes to take disastrous steps. Thus, it is in US’ interests also that it secures Pakistan’s nuclear assets sooner than later.
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran’s Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran on April 14 [Planet Labs PBC via AP]
New Iranian atomic facility near Natanz may be too deep underground to be destroyed by air raids, AP analysis says.
Published On 22 May 202322 May 2023
Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch United States weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analysed by The Associated Press news agency.
The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic programme.
With the country now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb, which Iran denies seeking.
Completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association.
“Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its programme without tripping US and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict,” Davenport told AP.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has continued to impose and enforce a strict sanctions regime against Iran and its oil and petrochemicals industries. Meanwhile, Tehran has been advancing its nuclear programme.
Since the demise of the nuclear accord, Iran has said it is enriching uranium up to 60 percent – up from the 3.67 percent limit it observed under the deal. Inspectors also recently discovered the country had produced uranium particles that were 83.7 percent pure, just a short step from reaching the 90 percent threshold of weapons-grade uranium.
As of February, international inspectors estimated Iran’s stockpile was more than 10 times what it was under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The US and Israel – which is widely believed to have its own covert nuclear arsenal – have said they won’t allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. “We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.
Video Duration 02 minutes 40 seconds02:40Iran nuclear deal: Five years on from US withdrawal
Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to questions from the AP regarding the construction, said that “Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.”
Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, though it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if authorities planned to introduce uranium into it. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.
The new project is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225km (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.
Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analysed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain”, which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing.
A different set of images analysed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6m (20 ft) wide and 8m (26 ft) tall.
Video Duration 02 minutes 56 seconds02:56Five years since US pull-out, Iran nuclear deal far from revival
The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the centre told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80m (260 ft) and 100m (328 ft). The centre’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.
“So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as… a typical bunker buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the centre who led the analysis of the tunnel work.
The new Natanz facility is likely to be even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordow facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by the US and others. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was hardening its programme from air attacks
Such underground facilities led the US to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60m (200 ft) of earth before detonating, according to the US military.
US officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed, according to AP. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.
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