What nuclear sites does Iran have and where are they?
Israeli forces launched attacks on Iranian nuclear and military facilities on Friday, escalating tensions amid concerns over Tehran 's nuclear ambitions.
Israeli officials justified the strikes as a necessary measure to counter what they described as an impending threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons.
Iran has consistently maintained that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, while an assessment from US intelligence agencies has indicated that Tehran is not actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
The attacks occurred a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency 's Board of Governors criticised Iran for the first time in two decades for its lack of cooperation with inspectors.
In response, Iran announced plans to establish a third enrichment site and replace existing centrifuges with more advanced models.
These developments follow discussions between the US and Iran, which aimed to ease economic sanctions on Iran in return for significant restrictions on its uranium enrichment activities.
Here is a look at some major Iranian nuclear sites and their importance in Tehran's programme.
Natanz enrichment facility
Iran's nuclear facility at Natanz, located some 135 miles southeast of Tehran, is the country's main enrichment site.
Part of the facility on Iran's Central Plateau is underground to defend against potential airstrikes. It operates multiple cascades, or groups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uranium.
Iran also is burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or Pickax Mountain, which is just beyond Natanz's southern fencing. Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Two separate sabotage attacks, attributed to Israel, also have struck the facility.
Fordo enrichment facility
Iran's nuclear facility at Fordo is located some 60 miles southwest of Tehran. It also hosts centrifuge cascades, but is not as big a facility as Natanz.
Buried under a mountain and protected by anti-aircraft batteries, Fordo appears designed to withstand airstrikes.
Its construction began at least in 2007, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Iran only informed the UN nuclear watchdog about the facility in 2009 after the US and allied Western intelligence agencies became aware of its existence.
Bushehr nuclear power plant
Iran's only commercial nuclear power plant is in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, some 465 miles south of Tehran. Construction on the plant began under Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war. Russia later completed construction of the facility.
Iran is building two other reactors like it at the site. Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency.
Arak heavy water reactor
The Arak heavy water reactor is 155 miles southwest of Tehran.
Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon.
Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.
Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre
The facility in Isfahan, some 215 miles southeast of Tehran, employs thousands of nuclear scientists. It also is home to three Chinese research reactors and laboratories associated with the country's atomic programme.
Tehran Research Reactor
The Tehran Research Reactor is at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, the civilian body overseeing the country's atomic programme.
The US actually provided Iran the reactor in 1967 as part of America's 'Atoms for Peace' programme during the Cold War. It initially required highly enriched uranium but was later retrofitted to use low-enriched uranium over proliferation concerns.
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When another reporter followed up on the question, he said he was "not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be … moved or otherwise," suggesting it would have been destroyed in the strikes. But that was not the assessment delivered by Vice President JD Vance in the days after the strike, when he acknowledged an estimated 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — which could eventually be enriched to weapons-grade levels — was still in Iran's hands. Nor is that the assessment of European intelligence agencies, who, according to a report in the Financial Times, have delivered preliminary reports to their governments that suggest Iran moved its stockpile away from its nuclear facilities before the strikes, leaving it largely intact. Much like Wile E. Coyote, Trump appears to believe the bombs dropped on the Fordow facility were so large that they couldn't possibly have failed. But a relentless focus on the Fordow nuclear site that was struck by bunker busters has blinded the administration to other lingering questions — other sites, other equipment that would aid Iran in building a bomb, that is potentially still out there. Furthermore, the strikes will only have increased the political will to build a weapon, if it wasn't there before. After watching the presser from California, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, became even more convinced that the mission was a failure. 'I think it's very telling that they don't have answers to what are very simple questions," he told The Independent. "They can't tell you what happened to the highly enriched uranium, and they have tried a million excuses. They can't, or won't, engage with any of the questions about the facilities or what happened to the equipment,' he said. Trump has now made it abundantly clear to his intelligence agencies and the U.S. military that he believes the strikes were a resounding success and that anyone who questions that narrative is insubordinate. That may help Trump battle negative headlines in the short term, but it likely won't help figure out just what capability Iran retained after the strikes.
