Israel unsure of Iran's enriched uranium location
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Israel's defence minister has admitted he does not know where Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium is located after the arch foes traded 12 days of intense strikes, according to Israeli media. Israel Katz said that the military was unsure of the location of the 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, claims Tehran has produced.
He also admitted that Israel's Air Force sought to eliminate the Islamic Republic's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during its 12-day assault this month, but that the opportunity 'did not present itself' after the Supreme Leader disappeared underground. 'Khamenei understood this, went very deep underground, broke off contact with the commanders… so in the end it wasn't realistic,' he told public broadcaster Kan.
Katz's (pictured) admissions came as Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shut down 'speculation' that Tehran would return to negotiations with the United States over its nuclear programme. 'I would like to state clearly that no agreement, arrangement or conversation has been made to start new negotiations,' he said on state television. 'No plan has been set yet to start negotiations.'
Araghchi's (pictured) denial followed a decision by Iranian lawmakers to pass a bill suspending cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog, meaning Tehran will no longer allow inspectors to visit its nuclear sites. The state of Iran's nuclear programme, the location of its enriched uranium and the efficacy of the US' strikes on three nuclear facilities are all the topic of intense scrutiny. American and Iranian officials have offered sharply diverging assessments of the consequences of US involvement in the conflict.
US President Donald Trump insists that bunker-busting bombs and tomahawk missiles 'totally obliterated' Iran's nuclear facilities and erased the Islamic Republic's chances of building a bomb. But preliminary intelligence reports found the nuclear programme had likely only been set back by a few months, according to several officials who had seen the documents and spoke to CNN and the New York Times. Their assessment directly contradicted statements by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump's Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth (pictured) went ballistic on reporters at a Pentagon press conference Thursday, lashing out at reports that the airstrikes may have been less effective than claimed, declaring that the leakers should be in prison and the reporters fired. Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accused Trump of ' exaggerating events in unusual ways' and insisted the attacks had done 'nothing significant' to Iran's nuclear sites.
But his foreign minister acknowledged the damage was 'serious' but gave no further details. Israel's harsh reporting restrictions also mean that the true extent of the damage caused by Iranian missile impacts is unlikely to be revealed. Israel acknowledged being hit by more than 50 missiles during the 12-day war with Iran, but under the Jewish state's laws, any written or visual publication deemed potentially harmful to the loosely defined concept of 'national security' can be banned by law.
Any broadcast from a 'combat zone or missile impact site' requires written authorisation from the military censor, according to the Israeli Government Press Office, which is responsible for government communications and for accrediting journalists. In May, the IAEA, reported that Iran had accumulated more than 400 kilograms (900 lbs) of uranium enriched to 60%. This is already enough to create an atomic weapon like those that laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Such bombs are too heavy and cumbersome for Iran to deploy effectively. But achieving the 90% enrichment required to produce modern nuclear devices small and light enough to mount to any one of Tehran's vast array of missiles could take mere weeks. As far as anyone knows, that HEU is still safely squirrelled away, safe from American and Israeli bombs - not to mention tonnes more uranium enriched to levels below 60%, but still far in advance of the 3-5% required for civilian energy use. Trump has said he believes the enriched uranium is now buried beneath mounds of rock and rubble.
Asked Wednesday whether he thought the enriched uranium had been smuggled out from the nuclear facilities before US bombs hit, the President said: 'We think we hit them so hard and so fast they didn't get to move.' Iran's lawmakers last week voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, which would be a violation of Iran's responsibilities as part of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But there are fears Tehran may seek to pull out of the agreement altogether in light of the US and Israeli strikes.
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