IRAN has again threatened to ramp up enrichment of its near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile just days after being bombed by the US.
It comes after Israel said some of Iran’s nuclear fuel survived US bombings during the 12-Day War last month.
Tehran has acknowledged that Operation Midnight Hammer – during which American B-2 Spirit bombers dropped over twelve GBU-57 Massive OrdnancePenetrator bunker buster bombs – resulted in “excessive and serious” damage.
But it said the bombings will not deter the regime from enriching uranium, which they claim is for peaceful civilian use.
The uranium in question is enriched to 60 per cent – way above levels for civilian use but slightly below weapons-grade.
That material, if further refined to 90 per cent, would theoretically be sufficient to produce more than nine nuclear bombs.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told Mehr News Agency: “We will never relinquish our legitimate right to enrich uranium.”
“Enrichment is a sovereign right that we will continue to pursue based on our national needs.
“Bombing cannot erase this knowledge — it will only come back stronger.”
This development comes as the UK, France, and Germany have agreed to reinstate stringent UN sanctions on Iran by the end of August if no substantial progress is made on a nuclear agreement.
Ali Velayati, an adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA: “If the negotiations [with the US] must be conditioned on stopping enrichment, such negotiations will not take place.”
Boroujerdi added: “We will in no way succumb to the West’s demands for zero enrichment.”
The UN’s top nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned Iran could start enriching uranium again within just months.
Doubts remained whether Iran quietly removed 408.6 kgs of uranium from its most sensitive sites before the US strikes – potentially hiding nuclear material elsewhere in the country.
An Israeli official told The New York Times some of the uranium stockpile survived the US and Israeli bombings last month – and may be accessible to Iranian nuclear engineers.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not express concern about the remaining stockpile and said any attempt to recover it would be detected by the Israeli intelligence.
They also said that Israel would have enough time to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities again if the regime tries to recover it.
But it was not clear immediately if the strikes – which hit Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment plant, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities – were able to wipe out the entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi admitted Iran could still have stockpiles of enriched uranium, saying: “We don’t know where this material could be.
“So some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. So there has to be at some point a clarification,” he said in an interview with CBS.
“We need to be in a position to ascertain, to confirm what is there, and where it is and what happened,” Grossi said.
Satellite imagery showed trucks moving out of Fordow in the days leading up to the attack – leading to speculations that Iran moved some of its underground uranium stockpile.
US and Israel, as well as independent experts, agree that all of Iran’s working centrifuges at Natanz and Fordo — some 18,000 – were either destroyed or damaged beyond repair.
DOOM & BOOM
Satellite imagery appeared to show construction work at the Fordow Nuclear Enrichment facility in Qom, near Tehran.
Heavy earthmoving equipment can be seen working near the impact craters caused by US GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs.
Excavators and cranes can also be seen working, while more construction trucks are visible on roads leading to the impact points at the site.
A new access road between the site’s northern tunnel entrance and one of the impact craters can be seen after Israel said its air force struck Fordow to “disrupt” access to the site.
David Albright, a US weapons expert, said in his assessment that Iran may be filling the craters and conducting engineering damage assessments and radiological sampling.
The 12-Day War began on June 13 when Israel launched Operation Rising Lion – a sophisticated campaign of bombing which targeted Iran’s military nuclear sites.
The Israelis also brilliantly orchestrated Operation Red Wedding – 30 top Iranian military chiefs killed in near-simultaneous blitz as Israel sought to root out the country’s military strength entirely.
Iran retaliated by launching daily salvos of ballistic missiles across Israel, but failed to hit any strategic targets.
Less than a fortnight later, Trump joined the Israeli bombing campaign against Iran.
The US military‘s flagship B-2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped more than a dozen 30,000lb GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP).
The bunker-buster bombs were used to hit Iran’s Fordow Nuclear Enrichment Plant.
Iran, which vowed to hit US military bases across the Middle East, sought its revenge by launching missiles at Al-Udeid Air Base – America’s biggest military station in the region.
