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00:00Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
00:21We've taken out their senior technologists who are leading the race to build atomic weapons.
00:25In collaboration with the Washington Post, Evident Media and Bellingcat, correspondent Sebastian
00:31Walker investigates the aftermath with rare access on the ground, forensic analysis, and
00:45high-level interviews.
00:46We assess that the elimination of all major nuclear scientists in Iran is a major set
00:53up for the project.
00:54President Trump has said that the enrichment facilities targeted were completely and totally
00:59obliterated.
01:00Is he right?
01:03Now on Frontline.
01:04The determination was, and still is, that the damage was very substantial.
01:10Strike on Iran.
01:12The nuclear question.
01:16The nuclear question.
01:18The nuclear question.
01:22The nuclear issue.
01:27The nuclearance of the human being funded by the military.
01:33The nuclear force of the American Union.
01:39The nuclear force of the human being funded by the military.
01:45I'm in Tehran, at a spot where weeks ago a top Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated
01:59in an Israeli strike.
02:07The blast took out the side of this building.
02:11It was one strike in an unprecedented US and Israeli air campaign.
02:15We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat.
02:20Hundreds of munitions launched in the span of days, aiming to cripple Iran's nuclear program.
02:27Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
02:39Iran fired back, launching barrages of ballistic missiles and drones into Israel.
02:49I've reported from Iran before, and foreign journalists especially are always closely monitored.
02:56This time, it's even more so.
02:58The government is tightly controlling where we go and who we can talk to.
03:03But it's a chance to see some of the damage up close.
03:07To sit down with top officials.
03:08And to try to understand the scale of the operation, and the question of what it left behind.
03:22It's Friday prayer for the Tehran University campus.
03:50The Imams here are handpicked by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
03:57And they echo his message that the 12-day war in June didn't devastate the country's nuclear program, as the US and Israel have stated.
04:10The Imams here are handpicked by Iran's supreme leader.
04:15And they echo his message that the 12-day war in June didn't devastate the country's nuclear program, as the US and Israel have stated.
04:24The Imams here are the same.
04:25And the U.S. troops in the Ukraine.
04:27The U.S. troops in the world are the same.
04:29And from the name of Salami, Baagir and Hajiazadeh,
04:34The U.S. troops in the world are the same.
04:36The U.S. troops in the world are the same.
04:40Instead, they say, the bombing has drawn Iranians closer together and hardened their resolve
04:47against their mortal enemies.
05:10We've been given permission to film here, accompanied by our minders.
05:19It's the kind of scene that Iran's hard-line theocratic government often wants to project to the outside world.
05:25But halfway through the sermon, we're told we have to leave.
05:29A sign of the constant challenges we'll be facing.
05:40My journey started two weeks earlier, in the newsroom of the Washington Post.
05:45Given the limitations of working inside Iran, we partnered with the Post's visual forensics team
05:50to help guide the reporting on the ground.
05:53And we worked with investigative journalists from non-profit outlets Bellingcat and Evident Media.
05:59The team has been poring over satellite imagery to understand from afar the impacts of the strikes
06:04and how much the nuclear program has been set back.
06:08Nilou Tabrizi speaks Farsi and has been combing social platforms accessible in Iran
06:13for images and video of the locations that were hit.
06:18We've been told we could get access to the site of an assassination
06:22and also speak to family members of a killed scientist.
06:26That would be really helpful to us.
06:28Because we were only able to confirm about five of these names with their locations.
06:33I think we've gotten close to exhausting what we can do from afar
06:38and this is really where the field reporting is going to come in handy.
06:45Eric Rich is the Post's deputy investigations editor.
06:49Good to see you. Thank you.
06:50I mean it would be great if we could coordinate while you're there
06:56as you start to get a sense of like which scientists, families you might be able to talk to.
07:00Let us know immediately and we can start to build sort of a dossier around that strike.
07:05Also if anybody is able to share photos that they may have in their phones from immediately after,
07:11that would obviously be of even greater interest.
07:13So sending pictures back, sending videos back, that's something that's helpful?
07:18That would be hugely helpful and we can, in real time, we can analyse them
07:21and try to, you know, understand if we can draw some conclusions or inferences
07:25that might shape questions, further questions that you can ask.
07:31Prior to the strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency
07:34had said that Iran had increased its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium,
07:39though hadn't found evidence of a systematic nuclear weapons program.
07:44But Israel believed Iran was just a short step away from producing a nuclear bomb,
07:48which they saw as an existential threat.
07:53They seized the moment.
07:55We're hearing a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
07:58Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Life
08:02to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
08:07In and around the capital, Tehran, Israeli targets seem to be expanding.
08:14The Iranians acknowledging that some of their senior military leaders have been killed or wounded.
08:23The first wave of attacks hit nuclear facilities, military targets and apartment blocks in Tehran.
08:28Our government minders have brought us to one of the locations that was hit.
08:34A building we're told is known as the Professor's Complex, since many academics live here.
08:40We're shown around by Iraj Rasooli, a microbiologist, and his relative Hanin.
08:53Whoa. It's still falling down.
08:55Yeah.
08:56Yeah.
09:00Just be careful, huh?
09:01Yeah.
09:03Sixth floor was hit.
09:06Where we are standing is third floor.
09:08Okay.
09:09Four, five, and one above that, six.
09:13From ninth floor to third floor, hundred percent destruction.
09:18I was sleeping there.
09:19I was sleeping there.
09:21That was my bedroom.
09:24My elder daughter was sleeping here.
09:27Younger daughter was sleeping there.
09:29So when I went to help her brother, he was thrown from his bed, here he was sleeping, to that corner.
09:40So when I went to help him, to lift him up, so his entire skin came on my hand.
09:48It was so bad, he was so badly burned.
09:52Rasooli says his son-in-law died.
09:55So did his daughter and grandson.
09:58Living three floors above them was a physics professor named Mohamed Teranshi.
10:04Sanctioned by the US in 2020, he was seen by Israel as a key player in Iran's pursuit of a nuclear.
10:11Did you know the person that they were targeting?
10:15Yeah, yeah.
10:16You knew him personally?
10:17I knew him.
10:18Yeah, I knew him.
10:19He knew, but we didn't know that he is an important person for the government.
10:24You didn't know that he was doing this role in the...
10:28We knew that he was a physicist and he was chancellor of Islamic Azad University.
10:37We knew this much.
10:38So what Israel knew more than us, that is up to them.
10:44We don't know.
10:45We don't know.
10:51So I just wanted to send a voice note.
10:54We're at a building in the north part of Tehran.
11:00This is the site of one of the killings of one of the scientists.
11:05They're on the floor below where his apartment was.
11:08And I think there are six floors that are missing here.
11:13So the size of the munition that was used was extensive.
11:18There were civilians killed alongside this scientist.
11:31This is Dr Mohamed Tehran chief.
11:33He's a professor of physics at one of the universities and the residents here say that they didn't really have any sense that he was associated with the nuclear program.
11:45Another strike in Tehran, less than two hours later, killed a scientist named Feridun Abbasi, who used to head the government agency that runs Iran's nuclear program.
11:55He had been sanctioned by the US and EU and survived an assassination attempt in 2010 widely attributed to Israel.
12:05As we travel around Tehran, we see posters of both men celebrated as martyrs.
12:11Both Abbasi and Tehranchi were buried alongside top military commanders also killed in the Israeli strikes.
12:17Thousands attended the funerals.
12:29We're given permission to visit the site of Tehranchi's grave to see if we can find out anything more about him.
12:36Almost three months after the strikes, people are still coming to pay their respects to those killed by Israel.
12:41We approach a man who says he comes here once a week to pray for Tehranchi.
12:48We have a Tehranchi and now hundreds of Tehranchi are present.
12:52I am now coming to my own.
12:53I will probably be able to do my own work.
12:54But my friends will be able to help me to get a closer approach to the journey.
12:58The journey that they have gone to half a half, will continue to the journey.
13:04Our conversations are helping the post develop a picture of the importance of Tehranchi and the experience of Tehranchi.
13:10And the other scientists killed.
13:14So he seems like a really critical character in this.
13:16Do we have any sense of whether he and the others are targeted for their general expertise
13:20or like a specific project that they were working on that was a part of the alleged nuclear program?
13:26I talked about this with a few different sources about how important are these guys.
13:29And someone mentioned they went after older scientists, none of these were younger people in the field.
13:34And so this one expert said it's probably because they want to try to destroy the brain trust, like the people who are foundational in this.
13:43But the other side of it is that for the past decade or so, maybe even longer, there's been a big push in Iran apparently to have people train and study up in theoretical physics and nuclear work.
13:56We repeatedly asked our minders if we can speak to relatives of the assassinated scientists who Israel claimed were leading Iran's nuclear program.
14:06They finally agreed to introduce us to Tehranchi's brother, Amir.
14:10So how would you describe his role in Iran's nuclear program?
14:17So the US says that he played a leading role in the US
14:44So the US says that he played a leading role in efforts to develop a nuclear device in the mid-2000s up to 2003.
14:53What's your response to that?
14:55So he was placed on the list of sanctions by the US government. Were you surprised when this happened?
15:22No, it wasn't really important.
15:25It wasn't important.
15:26It wasn't important.
15:27It wasn't important.
15:28It wasn't important.
15:29It wasn't important.
15:30It wasn't important.
15:31It wasn't important.
15:32For people outside of Iran who are questioning how much these killings have set back Iran's nuclear program,
15:44how big a loss do you think it is to have his knowledge, his expertise taken out of the equation?
15:51How big a loss is of your knowledge?
15:52What's your understanding of Iran's nuclear program, if you have a new medicine?
15:57How big a loss is of your health and education?
16:01What are your concerns about Bulgarian people?
16:03What are your concerns about this program?
16:05What is your business that has suffered from Iranian people?
16:09What do you think of your knowledge from Iran's nuclear program?
16:10What do you think of Iran's nuclear program?
16:12He is in his mind and his mind and his thoughts.
16:18He is not his body.
16:24But he is still alive in this land and this land.
16:42you a quick note because we've just wrapped an interview with Taranchi's brother. When
16:48we were done, he showed me photographs that he'd taken that were on his computer. There
16:54were what appeared to be fragments of the weapon, pieces of metal, what looked like
17:00rotors, and also there was what appears to be a serial number. He didn't want to give
17:17us the originals, but we've filmed it on our camera and I've taken screenshots that I'm
17:22going to send to you. Working with open source investigators from Bellingcat, the Post team
17:29starts piecing together how the strikes against the scientists were carried out, and looking
17:33into whether the Israelis used some kind of special weapon as had been reported in the
17:38Israeli media.
17:41So were there markings on the alleged fragments or we couldn't make it out?
17:45Yeah, there were some markings on there that had a possible part number and a possible lot
17:50number. You have S-M-B-A-M-S-004-A, but with a lot of these databases are private from the
18:02arms company, so it's not something we can check using open sources, especially if it's
18:07a weapon that hasn't been used before. Trevor, is there anything at the strike site
18:11that allows us to blen any insight into whether this munition was fired from an aircraft or
18:17the ground? So, from the damage alone, the experts we talked to, they weren't able
18:22to confirm that. It's more likely that it was a longer-range munition, like a ballistic
18:28missile or a cruise missile.
18:34In Tehran, we're pushing to see more strike sites. Our minders agreed to take us to where
18:40another nuclear scientist was killed. We're told it happened within minutes of the Tehran
18:45country strike. The timing of the assassinations seems coordinated so that none of the targets
18:50had time to go into hiding.
18:53We're at another location here. It's where the scientist called Ahmed Reza Zolfagheri was
19:02killed. A local resident told us that she heard the explosion at around 3.30 a.m., so almost
19:11the exact same time that the other strike took place.
19:18Ahmed Reza Zolfagheri was the former dean of the Faculty of Nuclear Engineering at the
19:22Shahid Beheshti Research University, which was sanctioned by the EU and others for links
19:27with Iran's nuclear program. As night falls, we find a neighbour who lives across the street.
19:34which one is your house? This one? This one? Second, I saw a
20:00That's from the same night.
20:22Did you know who was living there?
20:30I didn't know who was living there.
20:39Over the course of several days,
20:41we're taken around Tehran to various locations
20:44where Israeli strikes had taken place.
20:48We sent pin locations, photos and interviews with witnesses
20:51back to the team in the US
20:53who combined them with satellite imagery
20:55and geo-located video
20:57to start to piece together a bigger picture of what happened.
21:05It was an assault at multiple sites across the city.
21:10The strikes started in the early hours of the morning
21:13and hit in quick succession.
21:17Nine people Israel viewed as key to Iran's nuclear program.
21:21Scientists, engineers, physicists, all were killed.
21:25We were able to confirm the locations and tally civilian casualties
21:29from the strikes on Abdul Hamid Minoucha and Ahmed Reza Zulfagari,
21:33both nuclear engineering professors,
21:35killed just blocks from each other.
21:40Further east, we confirmed the location and casualties
21:42from the strike on Mansour Asghari,
21:44a physics professor sanctioned by the US
21:47for alleged ties to nuclear weapons development.
21:52And in Sadat Abad neighborhood, where Tehran she was killed.
21:55Witness accounts combined with images of the direction of the blast
21:58and structural damage indicate a weapon or weapons
22:01with the force of a roughly 500 pound bomb.
22:06Taken together, it reflects an unprecedented campaign by Israel
22:10in its scale, weaponry and impact.
22:13We've already done great things.
22:15We've taken out their senior military leadership.
22:18We've taken out their senior technologists
22:20who are leading the race to build atomic weapons
22:23that would threaten us, but not only us.
22:26We've done all that and many other things.
22:28But we are also aware of the fact that there's more to be done.
22:32Washington Post correspondent Suad McKennett
22:35spent time in Israel interviewing senior intelligence
22:37and military sources about the operation.
22:40She was able to speak to a senior military intelligence official
22:42who helped plan the assassinations,
22:44which he said had been years in the making.
22:46He let her record the meeting, but didn't want his face shown.
22:49We mapped out a group of roughly 100 scientists and we made an extensive analysis.
23:04And we ended up with a group of the most valuable targets to be eliminated.
23:11The second phase was developing the intelligence and operation capability
23:17to precisely strike and eliminate each one of these targets
23:21up to the level of an apartment in Tehran.
23:26We've made everything possible to minimize the collateral damage
23:30that is expected and employed precise force
23:35only against targets that we thought were critical
23:39to deny Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
23:42Since knowledge is the core asset of any weaponization program,
23:50we assess that the elimination of all major nuclear scientists in Iran
23:56is a major setback for the project.
24:02A senior security official told the Post that Israel did use a so-called special weapon
24:07for precision strikes against military targets, but wouldn't get into details.
24:12The official also said that they were able to track the scientists
24:15and other targets using more than 100 local assets inside Iran.
24:21So apparently local Iranian assets played a major role in finding out
24:26where those scientists were living, if they were still active, where they were active.
24:30This apparently is also the first time in the history of Mossad
24:35that they led an operation in a foreign country with a majority of local assets.
24:43They said they wanted to send a message to the government in Iran
24:46together with the American intelligence services,
24:49which was these two would always work together in making sure
24:52that Iran would not reach a point where they could create and build a bomb.
24:58One of the scientists on Israel's list escaped death that first night.
25:13We want to go to the town where he fled, around six hours north of Tehran.
25:18The Iranians rarely let international reporters outside the capital.
25:22Our minders agree to take us, but they insist we stop at an airport near Karaj,
25:27a city where Iran produces centrifuges that enrich uranium.
25:37We're shown around by an airport official.
25:40What kinds of people would be landing in those planes?
25:43They claim this was a purely civilian site.
25:58The Israeli military said they had no record of a strike here.
26:02But the military intelligence official the Post spoke to said all the strikes were against high-value targets
26:08in the quote, nuclear sphere, and had a military objective.
26:14Is flight logs?
26:15Log book.
26:17As we walk around, we notice our minders are filming our visit.
26:25The situation here is not necessary.
26:28It is a perfect place.
26:29All the activities that are in this field are in the field,
26:32it is a perfect opportunity.
26:34There is no other thing here.
26:36Do you have any theory as to why Israel would target this place?
26:40No idea.
26:41Days after the strike here, Karaj's centrifuge production facility was also hit.
26:52We ask if we can go see it.
26:54Is it possible we can go to Karaj?
26:57What do you want from Karaj?
26:59It's where they say they were manufacturing the centrifuges in Karaj.
27:03No, in Karaj is a military base, they don't let go.
27:10It's not possible?
27:11It needs higher coordination before.
27:14Uh-huh.
27:18We continue north, to the town where the scientist, Mohamed Reza Sediqi Sabah,
27:23found refuge in a relative's home.
27:27He'd been sanctioned by the US in May 2025,
27:30accused of working on projects related to the development of nuclear explosive devices.
27:37On the last day of the war, an airstrike leveled the home with him and his relatives inside.
27:46I'm standing literally overlooking the site right now.
27:51So it looks like a larger weapon than was used in those strikes on June 13.
27:57And it was a long drive to get here.
28:02It was, you know, around six hours from the capital.
28:06This is a much smaller, kind of sleepy town almost.
28:13The arrival of local police, as well as men we're told are intelligence officers,
28:17is keeping residents far from our cameras.
28:22But the images we're sending back give the post and Bellingcat a new window into what happened here.
28:27So we were able to confirm this location because the frontline team visited on the ground and they sent us the coordinates.
28:37This is a part of Iran that's not imaged quite often.
28:40This is in Gilan province.
28:41This right here where I'm kind of circling my cursor.
28:45This is the site that was struck.
28:48And then the most recent post strike imagery was not until August 31st.
28:54So a couple months afterwards.
28:56And this empty lot is where the residences once stood.
28:59And so the working theory from a few different experts is that perhaps two different 2,000 pound equivalent munitions landed in this crater and then perhaps one last one here.
29:13So we were able to measure the crater size.
29:17I believe it was between 14 to 16 meters and seven meters.
29:20When Saber was actually killed, that was at the end of the war.
29:25So it's possible they used a different munition.
29:27Maybe they felt more comfortable with Iranian air defense being degraded.
29:33Or maybe it was just because he was farther away from Tehran at the time that he was actually killed successfully.
29:40Right. So you guys have spent some time looking at these images, the images from Iran, done some forensic analysis.
29:47What is your sense of a takeaway?
29:48What have we learned from that?
29:49I think it's helpful to go back to the first wave of our previous waves of nuclear scientists' assassinations in Iran and see how this is completely different.
30:00In the first wave of assassinations in the early 2000s, you had, you know, Mossad agents driving up on motorbikes, putting magnetic bombs on car windows.
30:09And it was, you know, they did these targeted strikes against a few scientists.
30:13And here we see an air campaign coordinated multiple scientists.
30:16I mean, this feels both different in tactics and also in goal.
30:19I think you're looking at, like, strategic degradation across a program instead of, like, disruption at the level of an individual scientist.
30:26Not far from the site is the mosque where Mohamed Reza Sediqi Sabah and his relatives are buried.
30:42Inside, our minders introduce us to someone who says he knew him.
30:48It seems like he had a high position that he was closely involved in the program. Can you understand why he was targeted?
31:09What impact do you think it will have? The fact that they were able to kill Mohamed Reza? How is that going to affect the nuclear program?
31:29We want to find out what Iranian officials have to say about these scientists Israel and the US have said were critical to the nuclear program.
31:36The head of Iran's nuclear agency, the AEOI, agrees to meet me.
32:00Security guards don't allow us to film until we're deep inside his heavily guarded headquarters.
32:12Mohamed Islami oversees all the country's nuclear sites.
32:19How much has the killing of these scientists set back the nuclear program?
32:37The US says the goal of the nuclear program is to produce a nuclear weapon. What's your response?
32:44No responsibilities?
32:45No drugs.
32:46No drugs.
32:47It is absolutely ordinary human beings.
32:48It is very weak to the world who can use the war in Iran toMylar.
32:49No drugs.
32:50No drugs.
32:51It is a bad mental case in Iran.
32:53Who is a medical system in Israel?
32:54No drugs in Israel is to quarantine?
32:59No drugs?
33:00No drugs?
33:01No drugs in Iran's nuclear power?
33:02It's a bad mental moment.
33:04The Iran's nuclear activities that it is available to the Iranian authorities.
33:09This is a program for the quality of the people's life,
33:16both in a part of energy and in a part of the other energy.
33:39This is an escape that's home to three nuclear sites
33:42that the US and Israel say are the heart of Iran's secret weapons program,
33:46where its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium
33:49is believed to be produced and stored.
33:53Israel bombed the sites,
33:55and on the 10th day of the 12-day campaign,
33:58America joined the attack.
34:02A short time ago, the US military carried out
34:05massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities,
34:10Bordeaux, Natanz, and Esfahan.
34:13In total, US forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons
34:18during this operation.
34:20Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities
34:22have been completely and totally obliterated.
34:29As we approach Esfahan,
34:30the city closest to one of the key nuclear facilities,
34:33our minders want us to film the site of another Israeli strike.
34:37They tell us that two cars with civilians
34:40were hit by an Israeli missile,
34:42and they've called someone they say is a witness to meet us.
34:46When I came to the film,
34:48I saw the film.
34:50When I came to the film,
34:52I saw the plane,
34:54and I saw the plane,
34:56and I saw the plane,
34:58and I saw the plane,
35:00and I saw the plane,
35:02and I saw the plane,
35:03and the plane.
35:04I saw the plane,
35:05and I was like,
35:06and I saw the plane,
35:07and I saw the plane.
35:08And I saw it.
35:09Did you see the strike?
35:12Is there a CCTV camera here?
35:39The Israeli military told us they had no
35:41knowledge of a strike at this location.
35:54We eventually arrive in Isfahan,
35:5612 weeks since US cruise missiles
35:58slammed into the nuclear facility on its
36:00outskirts, where we're hoping to film.
36:03The city looks different from trips
36:05we'd taken here before, with fewer women
36:07wearing the hijab, a sign of opposition
36:10that's been building for years against theocratic rule.
36:16As we wait for permission, our minders tell us
36:18we can ask people about the bombing.
36:20But on that question, no one wants to speak.
36:23Excuse me, do you guys speak English for any chance?
36:27Can we interview you?
36:29On camera, is it possible?
36:33No.
36:35Can we talk to you on camera?
36:37No problem, but you ask me.
36:40About the 12-day war?
36:43No.
36:44No problem.
36:45No problem.
36:46Thanks.
36:50In the end, a message comes from Tehran
36:52that we're not going to be allowed
36:53to film the damage at the centre.
36:55They claim it's not safe.
36:59This is as close as they'll take us.
37:01The bombed facility is just behind this ridge.
37:08Do you think we could get a shot from that place?
37:10It's a station for cable car.
37:16For the nuclear centre, could we drive close to it?
37:19Even if we don't stop and get out?
37:23Even from the car, you need to open the machine.
37:26Even from the car?
37:27Yes.
37:28Yes.
37:37But away from Isfahan.
37:39My colleagues back in Washington
37:41have been piecing together what happened there
37:43and at the other nuclear sites.
37:47Isfahan is Iran's largest nuclear complex.
37:51The US says it launched more than two dozen
37:53precision-guided Tomahawks at the site.
37:55Satellite imagery obtained by the post's
37:58visual forensics team shows damage
38:00to the main uranium conversion facility.
38:03This piece of damage is from Israeli strikes previously
38:06and then this is when the US hit the Isfahan centre here
38:10and our sources told us that this damage means
38:12that it was knocked almost completely out of operation.
38:16Isfahan is also reported to have held
38:18much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium.
38:20What happened to that material is unclear.
38:24The US says Natanz was struck by two bunker-busting bombs
38:28known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators or MOPs.
38:32Satellite imagery shows visible penetration points
38:35that align with underground centrifuge buildings.
38:39Israel had also struck the electrical infrastructure here,
38:42crippling the site before the US bombs did their damage.
38:45And that electricity is so key because the centrifuges are spinning
38:50at such a high rate that if the electricity is cut,
38:55the spinning will stop and that can compromise the structural integrity
39:00of these very delicate machines such that they will spin out
39:03and sort of destroy themselves.
39:05Fordow took the heaviest hit.
39:08The US focused the most powerful munitions on what it considers
39:12Iran's most important enrichment site,
39:15buried deep inside this mountain range.
39:18The US says B-2 bombers dropped 12 MOPs,
39:21most of them through two ventilation shafts.
39:25Satellite imagery before and after the strike
39:27show two ventilation openings that appear to confirm this,
39:30but not the extent of the damage.
39:32The team has also been able to gather information
39:37on what may have happened once the bombs penetrated underground
39:41at Fordow.
39:43Using floor plans released after a 2018 raid by Mossad
39:46and diagrams exhibited by the Pentagon,
39:48the post built a 3D model of the likely position
39:51of the underground complex and its ventilation infrastructure.
39:55It shows the MOPs entering above or near the areas
39:59probably used for enrichment activity,
40:01but it suggests multiple scenarios about the possible level of damage.
40:06A source with knowledge of the design said the centre shafts
40:09of each structure zigzag on their way to the centrifuge halls below,
40:14which would mean the MOPs could have hit additional rock.
40:18If the MOPs managed to penetrate to the halls,
40:21they in all likelihood would have destroyed the centrifuges
40:24and related infrastructure.
40:28The MOPs still could have undermined the centrifuges
40:32even without penetrating the interior.
40:35If they had penetrated the halls,
40:37it would have been catastrophic.
40:39If it were to hit from above the facility but not inside the facility,
40:46the force of that explosion would still sort of move through the rock
40:51and rattle the facility in a way that could cause the function
40:55of the centrifuges to be undermined.
41:00Regardless of the damage,
41:01it's still unclear how much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium
41:04was destroyed, whether it's buried under rubble in these bombed facilities
41:09or whether at least some is in another location.
41:13In the meantime,
41:14our colleagues at the post have also begun to detect new activity
41:18at another underground facility that was not bombed.
41:22There's something I wanted to ask you,
41:24as you're in a pretty sensitive reporting environment,
41:26so I can't explicitly say the names,
41:28but there is a site of interest that we have
41:31that was not hit by U.S. strikes,
41:34but it's an important site.
41:35I just want to flag,
41:36there has been some increased activity
41:39that we've seen on satellite imagery.
41:43The activity the post has detected
41:45is at a site built inside a mountain
41:47called Kuhe Kolangasla,
41:49or Pickaxe Mountain.
41:51On our journey back from Isfahan,
41:52the road passes close to Pickaxe Mountain.
41:55We find an excuse to stop and take pictures.
42:00The complex is somewhere in this range,
42:03believed to be buried deeper
42:05than any of the facilities that were bombed.
42:16Seb took some photos from here of Pickaxe.
42:19Our photos add to a picture the team is building
42:22on Pickaxe from satellite imagery.
42:24You really get a sense of the topography there,
42:26which you kind of lose in satellite.
42:29Part of the security infrastructure
42:31that is expected at a secure site like this
42:33would be building perimeter walls
42:36and security features that help control
42:38what comes in and what comes out.
42:41Iran has said the purpose of Pickaxe Mountain
42:43is to house a production plant
42:44for assembling centrifuges.
42:46The ability for the regime
42:50to reconstruct centrifuges
42:53is going to be important
42:55in their ability to bounce back,
42:57which puts more eyes on Pickaxe.
43:00And if indeed there is centrifuge
43:02construction taking place there,
43:04what that means is that they would be able
43:06to come back relatively quickly.
43:09Analysts also suspect that Pickaxe's
43:11dimensions and estimated depth
43:13could be used for uranium enrichment.
43:15All for storing near-weapons-grade uranium.
43:18Using satellite imagery,
43:19the post has been able to show
43:21the site is now being fortified and expanded.
43:24Here this summer, on the right-hand side,
43:27you can see the status of the security wall underway.
43:32You can see them making their way through the rock.
43:35Now compare that here on the left now this fall,
43:38where you can see that security perimeter
43:42becoming closer to completion.
43:45I think what's so interesting about this site
43:47is it gets at this question of what's next.
43:49And we're seeing evidence, it sounds like,
43:51of a continuation of the program at this site.
43:56The satellite imagery shows that two tunnel entrances
43:59have been covered with dirt and rock,
44:01which experts say hardens them against possible airstrikes.
44:05And piles of excavated material or spoil next to the entrances
44:09have increased in size, indicating continued tunneling activity.
44:13Recent satellite imagery also shows the presence of heavy equipment
44:18and construction vehicles.
44:39Hey Seb, I just want to touch base on pickaxe with you.
44:42The purpose of pickaxe is unclear.
44:44International inspectors have never gained access to it.
44:47So any information you could find out would be really helpful.
44:53Hey, thanks for that.
44:55We are now back in Tehran.
44:57Hopefully we're going to get to speak to a senior official.
45:00I'll take it up with them and I'll keep you posted.
45:08Our trip near its end,
45:09we finally hear that the senior official we can meet
45:12is one of Iran's most powerful leaders.
45:14Ali Larajani is in charge of both Iran's national security
45:18and decisions around its nuclear policy.
45:20He reports directly to Ayatollah Khamenei.
45:24This is his first interview since the 12-day war.
45:27Can you say definitively, here, now, after the strikes,
45:31that Iran has no intention of developing a nuclear weapon?
45:37has no intention of developing a nuclear weapon.
45:45And in the future, is that out of the question?
45:47With the sights that were hit by American strikes,
45:57President Trump has said that the enrichment facilities targeted
46:02were completely and totally obliterated.
46:05Is he right?
46:07In the past, I was just speaking to him.
46:09I told him that the people of us were very rich.
46:14They were very rich,
46:16they were very rich.
46:17They were very rich.
46:18They were very rich.
46:19They were very rich.
46:20They were faithful.
46:21They were not able to see their words.
46:23There's a site south of Natanz where international observers have seen new reinforcements of the entrance.
46:33There's been some activity noticed there. It's known as Pickaxe Mountain.
46:37Is there any new activity that these strikes have created?
46:41Is there anything you can tell us about that site?
46:43No, it's not special. We didn't do this work from those places.
46:51But in the future, we can do this work and make their proper activities.
46:58What's your assessment of the extent to which these sites have been damaged
47:05and how much this has set back Iran's nuclear program?
47:09I don't have a statement yet, but in my opinion,
47:13they can't be able to send a message to Iran at any time.
47:18Because when you have a technology,
47:22they can't be able to send a message to Iran.
47:24For example, if you are a partner,
47:27they will be able to send this message from you.
47:30You can send it back.
47:32Our minders take us to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Missile Museum,
47:40where Iran's latest military hardware is on display.
47:43It's believed some of these ballistic missiles could be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
47:49Despite the 12-day war, Iran and its leaders continue to shroud its nuclear program in secrecy and mystery.
47:57It's time to leave Iran and seek answers elsewhere.
48:05We travel to Vienna, home to the IAEA, the world's governing nuclear watchdog.
48:12Rafael Grossi is the head of the agency.
48:15His inspectors were on the ground in Iran prior to the bombing,
48:18but haven't been allowed to return to the sites hit by the U.S. and Israel.
48:26You have the ability to assess damage in a unique way that others don't.
48:34What was your initial assessment after the strikes on the key facilities,
48:39Natanz, Fordo and Esfahan?
48:41Obviously, without having physical access to a place, any evaluation is partial.
48:48It's not complete.
48:50But the difference between our assessment and the assessment of anybody else
48:54is that we knew exactly what was inside.
48:57Can you give us an overall picture of what that determination was?
49:02The determination was, and still is, that the damage was very substantial. Very substantial.
49:12While President Trump has insisted that Iran was nearing a bomb,
49:15Grossi says he hasn't seen evidence of an active weapons program.
49:19But he's concerned about the amount of enriched uranium Iran was stockpiling.
49:25How far do you think Iran is today from developing a nuclear weapon?
49:32I think here we have to be very careful what we say.
49:37All the access and inspections that we were carrying out allowed us to determine
49:42that there is no credible information that would lead us to believe
49:47that they were developing a nuclear weapon.
49:49So this, I think, has to be said very clearly, as well as the rest.
49:54Do you think that there is a risk from these strikes that it pushes Iran's nuclear program further underground?
50:22If time passes and inspections do not resume, well, then there will be doubts.
50:31And, I mean, I'm not saying that there will be an immediate consequence,
50:34but certainly the situation will become a source of a greater concern in terms of non-proliferation
50:45or the potential activities leading to nuclear weapons.
50:51At the Imamzadeh Saleh Mosque in Tehran,
50:54nuclear scientists and military commanders killed in June are buried and venerated as heroes.
51:00The country is at a crossroads over its nuclear future and how its adversaries will respond.
51:09So how are people feeling now? Are you expecting or worried about more conflict that's coming?
51:15Yeah, of course, because they say it's not ending.
51:19And every day it's passing, Trump say one thing, Netanyahu say another.
51:24And every night that we want to go to sleep, we don't know if tomorrow we wake up or not.
51:31We must not allow Iran to rebuild its military nuclear capacities.
51:37Iran's stockpiles of enriched uranium, these stockpiles must be eliminated.
51:44My position is very simple.
51:46The world's number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon.
51:53What's your message to the Trump administration if there are more attacks?
51:58What will be the consequences of that?
52:00We will not hurry to the Trump administration.
52:03We will say, we will not have a chance to answer the answer,
52:08as it is for Iranian people to threaten.
52:12When Iran needs to be deprived of a terror movement,
52:17we will not give a sense of direction.
52:18People will not giveивает the word.
52:21What is the sounds of terror movement?
52:23Another one is the ground running the weapon.
52:25The war of terror movement in the war,
52:27the war of terror movement in the war.
52:29Go to pbs.org slash frontline for more of our interview with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.
52:37How much does this set back Iran's nuclear program?
52:44Find additional reporting with our partners at The Washington Post and see our past films and coverage of Iran.
52:50Connect with Frontline on Facebook and Instagram and stream anytime on the PBS app, YouTube or pbs.org slash frontline.
52:59For more on this and other Frontline programs,
53:29visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline.
53:50Frontline's Strike on Iran, the Nuclear Question is available on Amazon Prime Video.
54:16Cardi House.
54:17You
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