Latest satellite images of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, which was targeted in a US strike last month, confirm the presence of heavy machinery at the site.
The images, which were collected by Maxar Technologies, show bulldozers and cranes positioned on a newly constructed link road leading to the facility.
Maxar said it “reveals ongoing activity at and near the ventilation shafts and holes caused by last week’s airstrikes on the Fordow fuel enrichment complex.”
The images show “an excavator and several personnel are positioned immediately next to the northern shaft on the ridge above the underground complex. The crane appears to be operating at the entrance to the shaft/hole.”
It said several additional vehicles are also seen below the ridge and are parked along the path that is used to access the nuclear site.
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Earlier this month, US military forces carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, with B-2 stealth bombers dropping over a dozen bunker-penetrating bombs on the Fordow and Natanz sites. Simultaneously, Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from a U.S. submarine, hitting the nuclear facility in Isfahan, located in central Iran.
According to General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the strikes on Fordow specifically aimed at its two main ventilation shafts. Speaking at a Pentagon briefing last week, he noted that the majority of the bombs were directed to penetrate the main shaft at extremely high speed—exceeding 1,000 feet per second—before detonating deep within the underground complex. The operation was designed to inflict maximum damage to the heart of Iran’s deeply buried nuclear infrastructure.
Following the US strike on Fordow nuclear site, President Trump had claimed that “Fordow has been destroyed.”
