Iran's uranium stocks moved before US air strikes, UK media says
Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed to be largely intact following US strikes on the country's main nuclear sites, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing European officials.
The newspaper, citing two people briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments, said European capitals believe Iran's stockpile of 408 kilograms of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels was not being held in Fordow and may have been moved prior to US strikes on Sunday.
Claims that uranium was moved from any of Iran's nuclear sites were dismissed by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday.
"We were watching closely and there was no indication to the United States that any of that enriched uranium was moved," she said.
The initial European intelligence assessment is unlikely to go down well with US President Donald Trump who is currently engaged with a fight with his own spy agencies about the impact of the US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.
On Thursday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the strikes had caused "severe damage" to Iran's nuclear facilities after a leaked report downplayed the extent of the operation.
According to Ratcliffe, key sites had been destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the "course of years."
But he stopped short of supporting Trump's claims that the operation on Iran's nuclear programme had been a "spectacular military success" that had "obliterated" the facilities.
Trump's claims were supported by Israel's Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) which said on Wednesday that US and Israeli strikes had rendered the Fordow underground enrichment site "inoperable."
In a handout, the IAEC claimed the "devastating" strikes "destroyed the site's critical infrastructure."
The new US intelligence assessment comes a day after a leaked early report from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) played down the extent of the destruction and concluded that key components of Iran's nuclear programme could be restarted in months.
Speaking at the NATO Summit in The Hague on Wednesday, Trump rejected that assessment, insisting that his country's spies did not have the full picture and defended his own conclusion that American bombs and missiles delivered a crushing blow.
"This was a devastating attack and it knocked them for a loop," Trump said as his administration scrambled to support claims he made only hours after the attack.
The impact of the US strikes was also downplayed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In his first public remarks since Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire which brought an end to the 12-day conflict, Khamenei said Trump's assessment had been "exaggerated."
"They could not achieve anything significant," Khamenei said in a video message broadcast on state television.
US military operation
The US launched strikes on Sunday on three of Iran's nuclear facilities; Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
At Fordow, which is buried deep under a mountain north of the city of Qom, US stealth bombers dropped several 14,000-kilogram bunker-buster bombs, collapsing the entrance and damaging infrastructure.
But the facility itself was not destroyed, US intelligence found.
Iran's ongoing nuclear programme was at the heart of the recent conflict with Israel, which Israeli officials see as an existential threat to their country.
Iran was previously subject to an international nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which saw the country receive sanctions relief in exchange for strict limits on its nuclear activities.
During his first term in office, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the pact in 2018, slamming it as "the worst deal ever negotiated" and slapping new sanctions on Iran.
Since then, the other signatories to the deal have scrambled to keep Iran in compliance, but Tehran considers the deal void and has continued with uranium enrichment, which at current levels sits at 60%.
That's still technically below the weapons-grade levels of 90%, but still far above the 3.67% permitted under the JCPOA.
Iran maintains that its nuclear programme is peaceful and purely for civilian purposes.
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