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Using rare on-the-ground access in Iran and in-depth forensic analysis, FRONTLINE, The Washington Post, Evident Media and Bellingcat conduct an immersive investigation of Iran's nuclear program in the aftermath of the U.S. and Israeli strikes.
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00:20Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
00:26We've taken out their senior technologists who are leading the race to build atomic weapons.
00:31In collaboration with the Washington Post, Evident Media and Bellingcat, correspondent Sebastian Walker investigates the aftermath.
00:38Whoa, it's still falling down.
00:40Yeah.
00:40With rare access on the ground.
00:42Did you know who was living here?
00:44Astonished man.
00:45Forensic analysis.
00:47If they had penetrated the halls, it would have been catastrophic.
00:50And high-level interviews.
00:51We assess that the elimination of all major nuclear scientists in Iran is a major subject for the project.
00:58President Trump has said that the enrichment facilities targeted were completely and totally obliterated.
01:05Is he right?
01:08Now on Frontline.
01:09The determination was and still is that the damage was very substantial.
01:15Strike on Iran.
01:17The nuclear question.
01:21It is.
01:24The treatmentists.
01:25It is.
01:28It is.
01:30It is.
01:50In the middle of the trap.
01:58I'm in Tehran, at a spot where weeks ago, a top Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated
02:04in an Israeli strike.
02:11The blast took out the side of this building.
02:15It was one strike in an unprecedented US and Israeli air campaign.
02:20We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat.
02:25Hundreds of munitions launched in the span of days, aiming to cripple Iran's nuclear program.
02:31Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
02:44Iran fired back, launching barrages of ballistic missiles and drones into Israel.
02:53I've reported from Iran before and foreign journalists especially are always closely monitored.
03:00This time, it's even more so.
03:02The government is tightly controlling where we go and who we can talk to.
03:07But it's a chance to see some of the damage up close.
03:11To sit down with top officials.
03:14How much has this set back Iran's nuclear program?
03:22And to try to understand the scale of the operation and the question of what it left behind.
03:53It's Friday prayer at the Tehran University campus.
04:15The Imams here are handpicked by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and they echo
04:21his message that the 12-day war in June didn't devastate the country's nuclear program, as the US and Israel
04:28have stated.
04:46Instead, they say, the bombing has drawn Iranians closer together and hardened their resolve against their mortal enemies.
05:08We've been given permission to film here.
05:17We've been given permission to film here.
05:22We've been given permission to film here, accompanied by our minders.
05:24It's the kind of scene that Iran's hard-line theocratic government often wants to project to the outside world.
05:31But halfway through the sermon, we're told we have to leave.
05:33A sign of the constant challenges we'll be facing.
05:46My journey started two weeks earlier, in the newsroom of the Washington Post.
05:51Given the limitations of working inside Iran, we partnered with the Post's visual forensics team to help guide the reporting
05:57on the ground.
05:58And we worked with investigative journalists from non-profit outlets Bellingcat and Evident Media.
06:04The team has been poring over satellite imagery to understand from afar the impacts of the strikes and how much
06:11the nuclear program has been set back.
06:14Nilou Tabrizi speaks Farsi and has been combing social platforms accessible in Iran for images and video of the locations
06:21that were hit.
06:24We've been told we could get access to the site of an assassination and also speak to family members of
06:30a killed scientist.
06:32That would be really helpful to us because we were only able to confirm about five of these names with
06:38their locations.
06:39I think we've gotten close to exhausting what we can do from afar and this is really where the field
06:45reporting is going to come in handy.
06:51Eric Rich is the Post's deputy investigations editor.
06:55Good to see you. Thank you.
06:58I mean, it would be great if we could coordinate while you're there, as you start to get a sense
07:03of like which scientists, families you might be able to talk to.
07:06Let us know immediately and we can start to build sort of a dossier around that strike.
07:10Also, if anybody is able to share photos that they may have in their phones from immediately after, that would
07:17obviously be of even greater interest.
07:19So sending pictures back, sending videos back, that's something that's helpful.
07:24That would be hugely helpful and we can, in real time, we can analyze them and try to, you know,
07:29understand if we can draw some conclusions or inferences that might shape questions, further questions that you can ask.
07:36Prior to the strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency had said that Iran had increased its stockpile of near weapons
07:43grade enriched uranium, though hadn't found evidence of a systematic nuclear weapons program.
07:49But Israel believed Iran was just a short step away from producing a nuclear bomb, which they saw as an
07:56existential threat.
07:59They seized the moment.
08:01We're hearing a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
08:04Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Line to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
08:14In and around the capital, Tehran, Israeli targets seem to be expanding.
08:19The Iranians acknowledging that some of their senior military leaders have been killed or wounded.
08:28The first wave of attacks hit nuclear facilities, military targets and apartment blocks in Tehran.
08:37Our government minders have brought us to one of the locations that was hit.
08:41A building we're told is known as the Professor's Complex, since many academics live here.
08:50We're shown around by Iraj Rasooli, a microbiologist, and his relative, Hanin.
08:58Whoa, it's still falling down.
09:01Yeah.
09:05Yeah.
09:06Just be careful, huh?
09:07Yeah.
09:09Sixth floor was hit.
09:11Where we are standing is third floor.
09:14Okay.
09:15Four, five, and one above that, six.
09:18From ninth floor to third floor, hundred percent destruction.
09:24I was sleeping there.
09:27That was my bedroom.
09:31My elder daughter was sleeping here.
09:33Younger daughter was sleeping there.
09:37So when I went to help her brother, he was thrown from his bed, here he was sleeping, to that
09:45corner.
09:46So when I went to help him, to lift him up, so his entire skin came on my hand.
09:54It was so bad, he was so badly burned.
09:58Rasooli says his son-in-law died.
10:00So did his daughter and grandson.
10:04Living three floors above them, was a physics professor named Mohamed Teranchi.
10:10Sanctioned by the US in 2020, he was seen by Israel as a key player in Iran's pursuit of a
10:15nuclear weapon.
10:17Did you know the person that they were targeting?
10:21Yeah, yeah.
10:21You knew him personally?
10:23I knew him.
10:23Yeah, I knew him.
10:24He knew, but we didn't know that he is an important person for the government.
10:30You didn't know that he was doing this role in the...
10:33We knew that he was a physicist and he was chancellor of Islamic Azad University.
10:43We knew this much.
10:45So what Israel knew more than us, that is up to them.
10:49We don't know.
10:51We don't know.
10:57So I just wanted to send a voice note.
11:01We're at a building in the north part of Tehran.
11:05This is the site of one of the killings of one of the scientists.
11:11They're on the floor below where his apartment was.
11:15And I think there are six floors that are missing here.
11:18So the size of the munition that was used was extensive.
11:32There were civilians killed alongside this scientist.
11:37This is Dr Mohamed Telanchi.
11:40He's a professor of physics at one of the universities.
11:43And the residents here say that they didn't really have any sense that he was associated with the nuclear program.
11:52Another strike in Tehran, less than two hours later, killed a scientist named Feridu Nabassi,
11:57who used to head the government agency that runs Iran's nuclear program.
12:02He had been sanctioned by the US and EU and survived an assassination attempt in 2010 widely attributed to Israel.
12:10As we travel around Tehran, we see posters of both men celebrated as martyred.
12:16Both Abassi and Telanchi were buried alongside top military commanders also killed in the Israeli strikes.
12:24Thousands attended the funerals.
12:35We're given permission to visit the site of Telanchi's grave to see if we can find out anything more about
12:40him.
12:42Almost three months after the strikes, people are still coming to pay their respects to those killed by Israel.
12:48We approach a man who says he comes here once a week to pray for Telanchi.
12:53We have one of Telanchi, and now there are hundreds of Telanchi present.
12:57I am going to give myself a chance to be able to do this.
13:00But my kids are trying to convince me that I will be able to get on the path of Telanchi's
13:04grave.
13:04The path of Telanchi, the path of Telanchi, will continue that path.
13:12Our conversations are helping the post develop a picture of the importance of Telanchi and the other scientists killed.
13:20So he seems like a really critical character in this.
13:22Do we have any sense of whether he and the others are targeted for their general expertise or like a
13:27specific project that they were working on that was part of the alleged nuclear program?
13:31I talked about this with a few different sources about how important are these guys and someone mentioned they went
13:37after older scientists.
13:38None of these were younger people in the field.
13:40And so this one expert said it's probably because they want to try to destroy the brain trust like this,
13:46you know, the people who are foundational in this.
13:48But the other side of it is that for the past decade or so, maybe even longer, there's been a
13:54big push in Iran apparently to have people train and study up in theoretical physics and nuclear work.
14:03We repeatedly ask our minders if we can speak to relatives of the assassinated scientists who Israel claimed were leading
14:10Iran's nuclear program.
14:12They finally agreed to introduce us to Telanchi's brother, Amir.
14:17So how would you describe his role in Iran's nuclear program?
14:22Mmhmm.
14:23,
14:24?
14:49So the US says that he played a leading role in efforts to develop
14:55a nuclear device in the mid-2000s, up to 2003.
14:59What's your response to that?
15:21So he was placed on the list of sanctions by the US government.
15:25Were you surprised when this happened?
15:39For people outside of Iran who are questioning how much these killings have set back Iran's
15:49nuclear program, how big a loss do you think it is to have his knowledge, his expertise
15:54taken out of the equation?
15:57What do you think?
16:00What do you think?
16:07What do you think?
16:07What do you think?
16:08The human being of a world is a human being.
16:14And the human being with the need, and the meaning of the human being and the vision of this society
16:23has.
16:23It is not a body from the inside of this body,
16:29but the body is still alive in this land and this land.
16:53when we were done he showed me photographs that he'd taken that were on his computer there were
16:59what appeared to be fragments of the weapon pieces of metal what looked like rotors and also there
17:08was what appears to be a serial number he didn't want to give us the originals but we've filmed it
17:25on our camera and i've taken screenshots that i'm going to send to you working with open source
17:31investigators from bellingcat the post team starts piecing together how the strikes against the
17:36scientists were carried out and looking into whether the israelis used some kind of special
17:41weapon as had been reported in the israeli media so were there were there markings on the alleged
17:47fragments or we couldn't make it out yeah there were some markings on there um that had a possible
17:53part number um and a possible lot number you have s m b a m s zero zero four a
18:01but with a lot of these
18:03uh databases um are private from the arms company so it's not something we can check using open
18:10sources um especially if it's a weapon that hasn't been used before trevor is there anything at the
18:16strike site that allows us to lean any insight into whether this munition was fired from an aircraft or
18:21the ground so from the damage alone the experts we talked to they weren't able to confirm that
18:28it's more likely that it was a longer range munition like a ballistic missile or a cruise missile
18:38in tehran we're pushing to see more strike sites
18:43our minders agreed to take us to where another nuclear scientist was killed
18:47we're told it happened within minutes of the tehranchi strike the timing of the assassinations seems
18:53coordinated so that none of the targets had time to go into hiding we're at another location here it's
19:01where the scientist called ahmed reza zolfa gary was killed local resident told us that she heard the
19:11explosion at around 3 30 a.m so almost the exact same time that the other strike took place
19:23ahmed reza zolfa gary was the former dean of the faculty of nuclear engineering at the shahid beheshdi
19:28research university which was sanctioned by the eu and others for links with iran's nuclear program
19:35as night falls we find a neighbor who lives across the street
19:42which one is your house this one
20:14that's from the same night
20:23it's from there yeah did you know who is living there
20:44over the course of several days we're taken around tehran to various locations where israeli strikes had
20:50taken place we sent pin locations photos and interviews with witnesses back to the team in the
20:58u.s who combined them with satellite imagery and geo located video to start to piece together a bigger
21:04picture of what happened
21:10it was an assault at multiple sites across the city
21:15the strike started in the early hours of the morning and hit in quick succession
21:22nine people israel viewed as key to iran's nuclear program scientists engineers physicists all were killed
21:31we are able to confirm the locations and tally civilian casualties from the strikes on abdulhamid minoucha
21:37and ahmed reza zolfa gary both nuclear engineering professors killed just blocks from each other
21:45in the east
21:46further east we confirm the location and casualties from the strike on mansoor as gary
21:50a physics professor sanctioned by the u.s for alleged ties to nuclear weapons development
21:57and in sardat abad neighborhood where tehran she was killed witness accounts combined with images of
22:03the direction of the blast and structural damage indicate a weapon or weapons with the force of a roughly 500
22:08pound bomb
22:11taken together it reflects an unprecedented campaign by israel in its scale weaponry and impact
22:19we've already done great things we've taken out their senior military leadership we've taken out
22:24their senior technologists who are leading the race to build atomic weapons that would threaten us but
22:30not only us we've done all that and many other things but we are also aware of the fact that
22:36there's more to be done
22:42washington post correspondent suad mckenet spent time in israel interviewing senior intelligence and
22:47military sources about the operation she was able to speak to a senior military intelligence
22:52official who helped plan the assassinations which he said had been years in the making
22:57he let her record the meeting but didn't want his face shown we mapped out a group of roughly 100
23:04scientists and we made an extensive analysis and we ended up with a group of the most valuable
23:14targets to be eliminated the second phase was developing the intelligence and operation capability
23:22to precisely strike and eliminate each one of these targets up to the level of an apartment in tehran
23:31we've made everything possible to minimize the collateral damage that is expected and employed
23:39precise force only against targets that we thought were critical to deny iran's pursue of nuclear weapons
23:48since knowledge is the core asset of any weaponization program we assess that the elimination of all major
24:00nuclear scientists in iran is a major setback for the project
24:07a senior security official told the post that israel did use a so-called special weapon for precision
24:14strikes against military targets but wouldn't get into details the official also said that they
24:20were able to track the scientists and other targets using more than 100 local assets inside iran
24:26so apparently local iranian assets played a major role in finding out where those scientists were
24:34living if they were still active where they were active this apparently is also the first time in the
24:40history of mossad that they led an operation in a foreign country with a majority of local assets they
24:49said they wanted to send a message to the government in iran together with the american intelligence
24:54services which was these two would always work together in making sure that iran would not reach
25:00a point where they could create and build a bomb
25:13one of the scientists on israel's list escaped death that first night
25:19we want to go to the town where he fled around six hours north of tehran
25:24the iranians rarely let international reporters outside the capital
25:28our minders agree to take us but they insist we stop at an airport near courage
25:34a city where iran produces centrifuges that enrich uranium
25:42we're shown around by an airport official
25:45what kinds of people would be landing in those planes
25:49they claim this was a purely civilian site the israeli military said they had no record of a strike
26:07here but the military intelligence official the post spoke to said all the strikes were against high
26:13value targets in the quote nuclear sphere and had a military objective
26:20it's flight logs log book as we walk around we notice our minders are filming our visit
26:40do you have any theory as to why israel would would target this place
26:46no idea no idea days after the strike here courage's centrifuge production facility was also hit
26:57we ask if we can go see it is it possible we can go to courage what do you want
27:03from courage
27:04it's where they say they were manufacturing the centrifuges
27:07it's in courage oh no in courage there's a military base uh they don't let go
27:15it's not possible it's it needs a higher coordination before
27:23we continue north to the town where the scientist mohammed reza sedeghi sabah found refuge in a
27:29relative's home he'd been sanctioned by the u.s in may 2025 accused of working on projects related to
27:38the development of nuclear explosive devices
27:42on the last day of the war an airstrike leveled the home with him and his relatives inside
27:51i'm standing literally overlooking the site right now
27:56so it looks like a larger weapon than was used in those strikes on june 13 and
28:05it was a long drive to get here it was you know around six hours from the capital this is
28:11a
28:13much smaller kind of sleepy town almost
28:18the arrival of local police as well as men we're told are intelligence officers
28:23is keeping residents far from our cameras
28:28but the images we're sending back give the post and bellingcat a new window into what happened here
28:36so we were able to confirm this location because the frontline team visited on the ground and they
28:41sent us the coordinates this is a part of iran that's not imaged quite often this is in gilan province
28:48this right here where i'm kind of circling my cursor this is the site that was struck
28:54and then the most recent post-strike imagery was not until august 31st so a couple months afterwards
29:01and this empty lot is where the residences once stood and so the working theory from a few different
29:09experts is that perhaps two different 2000 pound equivalent munitions landed in this crater and then
29:16perhaps one last one here so we were able to measure the crater size i believe it was between 14
29:24to 16
29:25meters and seven meters when saber was actually killed that was at the end of the war so it's possible
29:31they used a different munition maybe they felt more comfortable with uh iranian air defense being
29:38degraded or maybe it was just because he was farther away from tehran at the time that he was actually
29:44killed successfully right so you guys have spent some time looking at these images the images from iran
29:50done some forensic analysis what is your sense of a takeaway what have we learned from that i think it's
29:56helpful to to go back to the first wave of our previous waves of nuclear scientists assassinations
30:02in iran and see how this is completely different in the first wave of assassinations in the early 2000s
30:08you had um you know mossad agents driving up on motorbikes putting magnetic bombs on car windows
30:14and it was you know they did these targeted strikes against a few scientists and here we see an air
30:20campaign coordinated multiple scientists i mean this feels both different in tactics and also in goal
30:26i think you're looking at like strategic degradation across a program instead of like disruption at the
30:31level of an individual scientist
30:42not far from the site is the mosque where muhammad reza sedig-i sabah and his relatives are buried
30:51inside our minders introduce us to someone who says he knew him
31:05it seems like he had a high position that he was closely involved in the program can you understand
31:14why he was targeted what impact do you think it will have the fact that they were able to kill
31:30muhammad reza
31:31uh how is that going to affect the nuclear program
31:35we want to find out what iranian officials have to
31:54say about these scientists israel and the us have said were critical to the nuclear program
32:01the head of iran's nuclear agency the aeoi agrees to meet me
32:11security guards don't allow us to film until we're deep inside his heavily guarded headquarters
32:18and that's what i have said
32:18mohammad islami oversees all the country's nuclear sites
32:24how much has the killing of these scientists set back the nuclear program
32:30No, nothing.
32:31They don't have any impact.
32:32They will teach us at school.
32:34They will teach us at school.
32:38We will not change anything.
32:42The US says the goal of the nuclear program is to produce a nuclear weapon.
32:49What's your response?
32:50It's a shame.
32:51It's completely fine to say it's a shame.
32:54Which countries do they want to throw in Iran so much?
32:57It's a shame.
32:59It's a shame.
33:01Who is the one who is in Israel?
33:04Who is the one who is in Iran?
33:06The Iran's program is to produce a nuclear weapon.
33:15The world is to produce a huge amount of life.
33:21It's also in energy and other energy.
33:40We leave Tehran and travel south through the mountainous landscape that's home to three
33:45nuclear sites that the U.S. and Israel say are the heart of Iran's secret weapons program,
33:51where its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium is believed to be produced and stored.
33:58Israel bombed the sites, and on the 10th day of the 12-day campaign, America joined the attack.
34:07A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three
34:13key nuclear facilities, Bordeaux, Natanz, and Esfahan.
34:19In total, U.S. forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation.
34:25Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
34:34As we approach Esfahan, the city closest to one of the key nuclear facilities,
34:38our minders want us to film the site of another Israeli strike.
34:43They tell us that two cars with civilians were hit by an Israeli missile,
34:47and they've called someone they say is a witness to meet us.
35:13Did you see the strike?
35:32Is there a CCTV camera here?
35:35Is there a CCTV camera here?
35:46Yes, they had no knowledge of a strike at this location.
35:59We eventually arrive in Esfahan, 12 weeks since U.S. cruise missiles slammed into the nuclear
36:05facility on its outskirts, where we're hoping to film.
36:09The city looks different from trips we'd taken here before, with fewer women wearing their
36:14hijab, a sign of opposition that's been building for years against theocratic rule.
36:21As we wait for permission, our minders tell us we can ask people about the bombing.
36:26But on that question, no one wants to speak.
36:30Excuse me, do you guys speak English for any chance?
36:33Can we interview you?
36:35Yes.
36:36On camera, is it possible?
36:40No.
36:41No.
36:41Can we talk to you on camera?
36:43No problem, but you ask me.
36:46About the 12-day war?
36:49No.
36:50No problem.
36:50Thanks.
36:55In the end, a message comes from Tehran that we're not going to be allowed to film the damage
36:59at the centre.
37:01They claim it's not safe.
37:04This is as close as they'll take us.
37:07The bomb facility is just behind this ridge.
37:13Do you think we could get a shot from that place?
37:21For the nuclear centre, could we drive close to it, even if we don't stop and get out?
37:29Even from the car?
37:31Even from the car?
37:33Yes.
37:42But away from Isfahan.
37:44My colleagues back in Washington have been piecing together what happened there,
37:48and at the other nuclear sites.
37:53Isfahan is Iran's largest nuclear complex.
37:56The U.S. says it launched more than two dozen precision-guided tomahawks at the site.
38:02Satellite imagery obtained by the post's visual forensics team shows damage to the main uranium conversion facility.
38:08This piece of damage is from Israeli strikes previously, and then this is when the U.S. hit the Isfahan
38:15centre here,
38:16and our sources told us that this damage means that it was not almost completely out of operation.
38:21Isfahan is also reported to have held much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium.
38:26What happened to that material is unclear.
38:30The U.S. says Natanz was struck by two bunker-busting bombs known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators, or MOPs.
38:38Satellite imagery shows visible penetration points that align with underground centrifuge buildings.
38:45Israel had also struck the electrical infrastructure here, crippling the site before the U.S. bombs did their damage.
38:53And that electricity is so key because the centrifuges are spinning at such a high rate that if the electricity
39:00is cut, the spinning will stop.
39:03And that can compromise the structural integrity of these very delicate machines, such that they will spin out and sort
39:10of destroy themselves.
39:13Fordow took the heaviest hit. The U.S. focused the most powerful munitions on what it considers Iran's most important
39:20enrichment site, buried deep inside this mountain range.
39:23The U.S. says B-2 bombers dropped 12 MOPs, most of them through two ventilation shafts.
39:31Satellite imagery before and after the strike show two ventilation openings that appear to confirm this, but not the extent
39:37of the damage.
39:41The team has also been able to gather information on what may have happened once the bombs penetrated underground at
39:47Fordow.
39:48Using floor plans released after a 2018 raid by Mossad and diagrams exhibited by the Pentagon, the post built a
39:553D model of the likely position of the underground complex and its ventilation infrastructure.
40:01It shows the MOPs entering above or near the areas probably used for enrichment activity, but it suggests multiple scenarios
40:09about the possible level of damage.
40:12A source with knowledge of the design said the center shafts of each structure zigzag on their way to the
40:18centrifuge halls below, which would mean the MOPs could have hit additional rock.
40:24If the MOPs managed to penetrate to the halls, they in all likelihood would have destroyed the centrifuges and related
40:31infrastructure.
40:34The MOPs still could have undermined the centrifuges even without penetrating the interior.
40:40If they had penetrated the halls, they would have, it would have been catastrophic.
40:46If it were to hit from above the facility, but not inside the facility, the force of that explosion would
40:54still sort of move through the rock and rattle the facility in a way that could cause the function of
41:01the centrifuges to be undermined.
41:05Regardless of the damage, it's still unclear how much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was destroyed, whether it's buried
41:12under rubble in these bombed facilities, or whether at least some is in another location.
41:19In the meantime, our colleagues at the post have also begun to detect new activity at another underground facility that
41:26was not bombed.
41:28There's something I wanted to ask you as you're in a pretty sensitive reporting environment, so I can't explicitly say
41:33the names, but there is a site of interest that we have that was not hit by US strikes, but
41:40it's an important site.
41:41So I just want to flag, there has been some increased activity that we've seen on satellite imagery.
41:48The activity the post has detected is at a site built inside a mountain called Kuhe Kolangazla, or Pickaxe Mountain.
41:56On our journey back from Isfahan, the road passes close to Pickaxe Mountain.
42:03We find an excuse to stop and take pictures.
42:07The complex is somewhere in this range, believed to be buried deeper than any of the facilities of the bombed.
42:22Seeb took some photos from here of Pickaxe.
42:26Our photos add to a picture the team is building on Pickaxe from satellite imagery.
42:31You really get a sense of the topography there, which you kind of lose in satellite.
42:35Part of the security infrastructure that is expected at a secure site like this would
42:40be building perimeter walls and security features that help control what comes in and what comes
42:45out. Iran has said the purpose of Pickaxe Mountain is to house a production plant for
42:50assembling centrifuges. The ability for the regime to reconstruct centrifuges is going
43:00to be important in their ability to bounce back, which puts more eyes on Pickaxe and if
43:06indeed there is centrifuge construction taking place there, what that means is that they would
43:11be able to come back relatively quickly. Analysts also suspect that Pickaxe's dimensions
43:17and estimated depth could be used for uranium enrichment or for storing near-weapons-grade
43:23uranium. Using satellite imagery, the post has been able to show the site is now being fortified
43:28and expanded.
43:30Here this summer, on the right-hand side, you can see the status of the security wall underway.
43:38You can see them making their way through the rock. Now compare that here on the left now
43:44this fall where you can see that security perimeter becoming closer to completion.
43:50I think what's so interesting about this site is it gets at this question of what's next
43:55and we're seeing evidence, it sounds like, of a continuation of the program at this site.
44:02The satellite imagery shows that two tunnel entrances have been covered with dirt and rock,
44:07which experts say hardens them against possible airstrikes. And piles of excavated material,
44:13or spoil, next to the entrances have increased in size, indicating continued tunneling activity.
44:20Recent satellite imagery also shows the presence of heavy equipment and construction vehicles.
44:44The satellite imagery shows the presence of heavy equipment.
44:44Hey, Seb, I just want to touch base on pickaxe with you. The purpose of pickaxe is unclear,
44:50international inspectors have never gained access to it, so any information you could find
44:55out would be really helpful.
44:59Hey, thanks for that. We are now back in Tehran. Hopefully we're going to get to speak to a senior
45:05official. I'll take it up with them and I'll keep you posted.
45:13Our trip near its end, we finally hear that the senior official we can meet is one of Iran's
45:18most powerful leaders. Ali Larajani is in charge of both Iran's national security and decisions
45:25around its nuclear policy. He reports directly to Ayatollah Khamenei. This is his first interview
45:32since the 12-day war.
45:37Can you say definitively, here, now, after the strikes, that Iran has no intention of developing
45:45a nuclear weapon?
45:50And in the future, is that out of the question?
46:00With the sights that were hit by American strikes, President Trump has said that the enrichment
46:07facilities targeted were completely and totally obliterated. Is he right?
46:30There's a site south of Natanz where international observers have seen new reinforcements of the entrance. There's been some activity
46:40noticed there. It's known as
46:41Pickaxe Mountain. Is there any new activity that these strikes have created? Is there anything you can tell us about
46:48that site?
47:04What's your assessment of the extent to which these sites have been damaged and how much this has set back
47:12Iran's nuclear program?
47:14I don't have a very specific point in this country. But I don't want to bring the internet to Iran's
47:22nuclear power.
47:24Because when you are a technology member, they don't want to bring it from the internet.
47:29This is like that you are a leader of a leader, and they will be able to bring it from
47:34you.
47:35You can also build it.
47:41Our minders take us to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Missile Museum, where Iran's
47:46latest military hardware is on display.
47:49It's believed some of these ballistic missiles could be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
47:56Despite the 12-day war, Iran and its leaders continue to shroud its nuclear program in
48:02secrecy and mystery.
48:06It's time to leave Iran and seek answers elsewhere.
48:11We travel to Vienna, home to the IAEA, the world's governing nuclear watchdog.
48:18Rafael Grossi is the head of the agency.
48:21His inspectors were on the ground in Iran prior to the bombing, but haven't been allowed
48:25to return to the sites hit by the US and Israel.
48:32You have the ability to assess damage in a unique way that others don't.
48:40What was your initial assessment after the strikes on the key facilities, Natanz, Fordo and Esfahan?
48:47Obviously, without having physical access to a place, any evaluation is partial.
48:54It's not complete.
48:55But the difference between our assessment and the assessment of anybody else is that we
49:00knew exactly what was inside.
49:02Can you give us an overall picture of what that determination was?
49:08The determination was, and still is, that the damage was very substantial.
49:15Very substantial.
49:16Very substantial.
49:17While President Trump has insisted that Iran was nearing a bomb, Grossi says he hasn't
49:22seen evidence of an active weapons program.
49:25But he's concerned about the amount of enriched uranium Iran was stockpiling.
49:31How far do you think Iran is today from developing a nuclear weapon?
49:38I think here we have to be very careful what we say.
49:42All the access and inspections that we were carrying out allowed us to determine that there
49:48is no credible information that would lead us to believe that they were developing a nuclear
49:54weapon.
49:54So this, I think, has to be said very clearly, as well as the rest.
50:00A number of, I mean, a huge amount of near-weapon-grade enrichment and, of course, these technological
50:11capabilities that were there, which were a source of legitimate concern by the international
50:17community.
50:18Do you think that there is a risk from these strikes that it pushes
50:23Iran's nuclear program further underground?
50:27If time passes and inspections do not resume, well, then there will be doubts.
50:36And I mean, I'm not saying that there will be an immediate consequence, but certainly the
50:43situation will become a source of a greater concern in terms of non-periferation or the potential
50:51activities leading to nuclear weapons.
50:57At the Imamzadeh Saleh Mosque in Tehran, nuclear scientists and military commanders killed in
51:03June are buried and venerated as heroes.
51:07The country is at a crossroads over its nuclear future and how its adversaries will respond.
51:14So how are people feeling now?
51:16Are you expecting or worried about more conflict that's coming?
51:21Yeah, of course, because they say it's not ending and every day it's passing.
51:27The Trump say one thing, Netanyahu say another, and every night that we want to go to sleep,
51:33we don't know if tomorrow we wake up or not.
51:37We must not allow Iran to rebuild its military nuclear capacities.
51:43Iran's stockpiles of enriched uranium, these stockpiles must be eliminated.
51:49My position is very simple.
51:52The world's number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous
51:57weapon.
51:58What's your message to the Trump administration if there are more attacks?
52:03What will be the consequences of that?
52:05When we have peace We will not be able to achieve any other nations.
52:08We will only allow you to region the country of terror.
52:17You must have been able to occupy Iran's government.
52:18When they say that Iran should support Iran, the majority of Iran shouldn't be allowed to
52:25No one can't support them with any other species.
52:40How much has this set back Iran's nuclear program?
52:48Find additional reporting with our partners at The Washington Post and see our past films
52:54and coverage of Iran. Connect with Frontline on Facebook and Instagram and stream anytime
52:58on the PBS app, YouTube, or PBS.org slash Frontline.
53:32For more on this and other Frontline programs, visit our website at PBS.org slash Frontline.
53:55Frontline's Strike on Iran, The Nuclear Question is available on Amazon Prime Video.
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