Latest News

EXPLAINER-Iran's main nuclear facilities, long in Israel's sights

After Iran's rocket attack on Israel on Tuesday, there is speculation that Israel might strike Iran's nuclear facilities as it has actually long threatened to do.

Below are a few of Iran's main nuclear facilities.

HOW CLOSE IS IRAN TO HAVING NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Iran's nuclear program is topped many places. While the risk of Israeli airstrikes has actually loomed for years, just a few of the websites have been constructed underground. The United States and the U.N. nuclear guard dog think Iran had a collaborated, secret nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003. The Islamic Republic rejects ever having had one or preparing to have one.

Iran consented to limitations on its nuclear activities in exchange for remedy for international sanctions under a 2015 handle world powers. That pact fell apart after then-President Donald Trump pulled out the United States in 2018 and Iran began abandoning the limitations the next year.

Iran has been broadening its uranium enrichment program since, reducing the so-called breakout time it would need to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a nuke to a. matter of weeks from at least a year under the 2015 accord.

Actually making a bomb with that product would take longer. How long is less clear and the topic of dispute. Iran is now improving uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close. to the 90% of weapons grade, at 2 sites, and in theory it has. enough material enriched to that level, if enhanced even more, for. nearly 4 bombs, according to a yardstick of the International. Atomic Energy Company (IAEA), the U.N. watchdog.

NATANZ

A complex at the heart of Iran's enrichment program on a. plain abutting mountains outside the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of. Qom, south of Tehran. Natanz homes facilities consisting of 2. enrichment plants: the huge, underground Fuel Enrichment Plant. ( FEP) and the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP).

A banished Iranian opposition group exposed in 2002 that. Iran was covertly developing Natanz, firing up a diplomatic. standoff between the West and Iran over its nuclear intents. that continues today.

The FEP was built for enrichment on an industrial scale, able. to house 50,000 centrifuges. Around 14,000 centrifuges are. currently set up there, roughly 11,000 of which are in. operation, refining uranium to as much as 5% pureness.

Diplomats with understanding of Natanz explain the FEP as being. about 3 floors below ground. There has long been debate. about just how much damage Israeli airstrikes could do to it. Damage has actually been done to centrifuges at the FEP by other means,. including an explosion and power cut in April 2021 that Iran. stated was an attack by Israel. The above-ground PFEP homes just a few hundred centrifuges but. Iran is improving to approximately 60% pureness there.

FORDOW

On the opposite side of Qom, Fordow is an enrichment website. dug into a mountain and for that reason probably much better safeguarded from. potential bombardment than the FEP.

The 2015 handle significant powers did not enable Iran to enrich. at Fordow at all. It now has more than 1,000 centrifuges. operating there, a portion of them advanced IR-6 machines. improving to approximately 60%. In addition, Iran just recently doubled the number of centrifuges. set up at Fordow, with all the new ones being IR-6 machines.

The United States, Britain and France announced in 2009 that. Iran had actually been secretly constructing Fordow for many years and had actually failed. to inform the IAEA. U.S. President Barack Obama said then: The. size and configuration of this center is irregular with a. serene program.

ISFAHAN

Iran has a big nuclear innovation centre on the outskirts. of Isfahan, its second largest city. It consists of the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant (FPFP) and the. uranium conversion facility (UCF) that can process uranium into. the uranium hexafluoride that is fed into centrifuges.

There is devices at Isfahan to make uranium metal, a. procedure that is especially proliferation-sensitive considering that it. can be utilized to design the core of a nuclear bomb. The IAEA has actually stated there are machines for making centrifuge parts. at Isfahan, describing it in 2022 as a brand-new area.

KHONDAB

Iran has actually a partially developed heavy-water research study reactor. originally called Arak and now Khondab. Heavy-water reactors. present a nuclear proliferation danger because they can easily. produce plutonium which, like enriched uranium, can be used to. make the core of an atom bomb. Under the 2015 offer, building and construction was stopped, the reactor's core. was eliminated and filled with concrete to make it unusable. The. reactor was to be revamped to minimise the production of. plutonium and not to produce weapon-grade plutonium in normal. operation. Iran has notified the IAEA that it plans to bring. the reactor online in 2026.

TEHRAN RESEARCH CENTRE

Iran's nuclear research study centers in Tehran consist of a. research study reactor.

BUSHEHR

Iran's only operating nuclear power plant, on the Gulf. coast, utilizes Russian fuel that Russia then takes back when it is. spent, reducing the proliferation threat.

(source: Reuters)