Amidst already fragile circumstances, some analysts believe Iran might have been nearer to constructing at least a basic nuclear warhead than was earlier assumed. This is, to put it mildly, unsettling. Israel’s recent measures against Iran have primarily focused on dismantling Iran’s nuclear initiative and targeting their senior military officials, and if Israeli intelligence had such information, it could have spurred their decision to proceed with these strikes.

For years, Israeli authorities have cautioned that Iran’s uranium enrichment was progressing to a stage where they could be “weeks away” from creating a nuclear weapon. However, a development has occurred in recent days. Based on sources from Israeli intelligence, it appears Iran was close to putting together a rudimentary nuclear device.

Beni Sabti, an Iran specialist at the Institute of National Security Studies, shared with Fox News Digital that the risk was both immediate and tangible: Tehran was consolidating its materials “in a secret location near Tehran to construct a primitive warhead.”

Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, said that since the Trump administration reinitiated nuclear negotiations, Israel had been collecting fresh intelligence that raised alarm bells.

What kind of intelligence? That’s the interesting part; from what is named, it looks a little on the circumstantial side. 

“There were a few things that stood out,” Roman said, referencing activity at the Times Enrichment facility. “Iran reactivated an explosives manufacturing line, which could only be used to help that needed nuclear weapon… efforts to put the fissile material into a shape which could be used for a nuclear weapon – that was reactivated as well.”

Explosives have lots of uses, not all of them military. What would be interesting to know is what that shape is; if a nuclear weapons expert is concerned, we can assume that at least part of the work is being done by putting explosives into the distinctive lens shapes required for an implosion-type bomb.

Bear in mind that the United States built one of these in 1945, so it’s not exactly a brand-new technology.