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00:21Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities
00:23have been completely and totally obliterated.
00:26We've taken out their senior technologists
00:28who are leading the race to build atomic weapons.
00:31In collaboration with the Washington Post, Evident Media,
00:34and Bellingcat, correspondent Sebastian Walker
00:37investigates the aftermath.
00:39Whoa, it's still falling down.
00:40Yeah.
00:41With rare access on the ground.
00:43Did you know who was living here?
00:45The honest man.
00:46Forensic analysis.
00:47If they had penetrated the halls,
00:49it would have been catastrophic.
00:50And high-level interviews.
00:52We assess that the elimination
00:54of all major nuclear scientists in Iran
00:57is the major center for the project.
00:59President Trump has said
01:00that the enrichment facilities targeted
01:02were completely and totally obliterated.
01:05Is he right?
01:06Now on Frontline.
01:09The determination was, and still is,
01:12that the damage was very substantial.
01:15Strike on Iran.
01:17The nuclear question.
01:18The nuclear question.
01:39I'm in Tehran, at a spot where weeks ago,
01:42a top Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated
01:45in an Israeli strike.
01:52The blast took out the side of this building.
01:56It was one strike in an unprecedented
01:58U.S. and Israeli air campaign.
02:01We were facing an imminent threat,
02:03a dual existential threat.
02:05Hundreds of munitions launched in the span of days,
02:08aiming to cripple Iran's nuclear program.
02:12Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities
02:14have been completely and totally obliterated.
02:25Iran fired back, launching barrages of ballistic missiles
02:28and drones into Israel.
02:29I've reported from Iran before,
02:30and foreign journalists especially,
02:31are always closely monitored.
02:32This time, it's even more so.
02:33The government is tightly controlling where we go,
02:34and who we can talk to.
02:35But it's a chance to see some of the damage up close.
02:36To sit down with top officials.
02:38How much has this set back
02:39Iran's nuclear program?
02:41And to try to understand the scale of the operation,
02:42and the question of what it left behind.
02:43And to try to understand the scale of the operation,
02:45and the question of what it left behind.
02:46of what it left behind.
03:16It's Friday prayer at the Tehran University campus.
03:37The Imams here are handpicked by Iran's supreme leader,
03:59Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
04:01And they echo his message that the 12-day war in June
04:04didn't devastate the country's nuclear program.
04:06As the U.S. and Israel have stated.
04:09The U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.S. and Israel have stated.
04:27Instead, they say,
04:28the bombing has drawn Iranians closer together,
04:31and hardened their resolve against their mortal enemies.
04:34They say to me that they will kill Iran's aircraft
04:40and the cellar of the U.S. Türkistan,
04:42and the U.S. US workers,
04:43The U.S. and Israel.
04:45They do theirrestrial way of explaining to Islam.
04:47We've been given permission to film here, accompanied by our minders.
05:05It's the kind of scene that Iran's hard-line theocratic government often wants to project
05:09to the outside world.
05:11But halfway through the sermon, we're told we have to leave.
05:14A sign of the constant challenges we'll be facing.
05:27My journey started two weeks earlier, in the newsroom of the Washington Post.
05:32Given the limitations of working inside Iran, we partnered with the Post's visual forensics
05:36team to help guide the reporting on the ground.
05:39And we worked with investigative journalists from non-profit outlets Bellingcat and Evident
05:44Media.
05:45The team has been poring over satellite imagery to understand from afar the impacts of the
05:50strikes and how much the nuclear program has been set back.
05:54Nilou Tabrizi speaks Farsi and has been combing social platforms accessible in Iran for images
06:00and video of the locations that were hit.
06:04We've been told we could get access to the site of an assassination and also speak to
06:09family members of a killed scientist.
06:12That would be really helpful to us, because we were only able to confirm about five of
06:17these names with their locations.
06:20I think we've gotten close to exhausting what we can do from afar, and this is really where
06:25the field reporting is going to come in handy.
06:26Eric Rich is the Post's deputy investigations editor.
06:35Good to see you.
06:37I mean, it would be great if we could coordinate while you're there, as you start to get a
06:43sense of like which scientists, families you might be able to talk to, let us know immediately
06:47and we can start to build sort of a dossier around that strike.
06:51So if anybody is able to share photos that they may have in their phones from immediately
06:56after, that would obviously be of even greater interest.
07:00So sending pictures back, sending videos back, that's something that's helpful.
07:04That would be hugely helpful.
07:05And we can, in real time, we can analyze them and try to, you know, understand if we can draw
07:10some conclusions or inferences that might shape questions, further questions that you can ask.
07:17Prior to the strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency had said that Iran
07:21had increased its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, though hadn't found evidence
07:27of a systematic nuclear weapons program.
07:30But Israel believed Iran was just a short step away from producing a nuclear bomb, which
07:35they saw as an existential threat.
07:40They seized the moment.
07:41We're hearing a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
07:44Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Life to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's
07:52very survival.
07:53In and around the capital, Tehran, Israeli targets seem to be expanding.
07:59The Iranians acknowledging that some of their senior military leaders have been killed or wounded.
08:09The first wave of attacks hit nuclear facilities, military targets and apartment blocks in Tehran.
08:18Our government minders have brought us to one of the locations that was hit.
08:21A building we're told is known as the Professor's Complex, since many academics live here.
08:31We're shown around by Iraj Rasooli, a microbiologist, and his relative Hanin.
08:38Whoa, it's still falling down.
08:41Yeah.
08:43Okay.
08:44Just be careful.
08:45Just be careful.
08:46Yeah.
08:47Sixth floor was hit.
08:50Where we are standing is third floor.
08:52Okay.
08:53Four, five, and one above that, six.
08:58From ninth floor to third floor, hundred percent destruction.
09:03I was sleeping there.
09:06That was my bedroom.
09:10My elder daughter was sleeping here.
09:13Younger daughter was sleeping there.
09:15So when I went to help her brother, he was thrown from his bed, here he was sleeping, to that corner.
09:26So when I went to help him, to lift him up, so his entire skin came on my hand.
09:33It was so bad, he was so badly burned.
09:37Rasooli says his son-in-law died.
09:40So did his daughter and grandson.
09:43Living three floors above them was a physics professor named Mohamed Teranshi.
09:49Sanctioned by the US in 2020, he was seen by Israel as a key player in Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
09:56Did you know the person that they were targeting?
10:00Yeah, yeah.
10:01You knew him personally?
10:02I knew him.
10:03Yeah, I knew him.
10:04He knew, but we didn't know that he is an important person for the government.
10:09You didn't know that he was doing this role in the...
10:13We knew that he was a physicist and he was chancellor of Islamic Azad University.
10:22We knew this much.
10:24So what Israel knew more than us, that is up to them.
10:29We don't know.
10:30We don't know.
10:31So I just wanted to send a voice note.
10:39We're at a building in the north part of Tehran.
10:45This is the site of one of the killings of one of the scientists.
10:50We're on the floor below where his apartment was.
10:54And I think there are six floors that are missing here.
10:58So the size of the munition that was used was extensive.
11:13There were civilians killed alongside this scientist.
11:16This is Dr. Mohamed Telanchi.
11:19He's a professor of physics at one of the universities.
11:23And the residents here say that they didn't really have any sense that he was associated
11:29with the nuclear program.
11:31Another strike in Tehran, less than two hours later, killed a scientist named Feridu Nabasi,
11:37who used to head the government agency that runs Iran's nuclear program.
11:41He had been sanctioned by the US and EU and survived an assassination attempt in 2010,
11:47widely attributed to Israel.
11:50As we travel around Tehran, we see posters of both men celebrated as martyrs.
11:56Both Abasi and Telanchi were buried alongside top military commanders also killed in the Israeli strikes.
12:03Thousands attended the funerals.
12:06We're given permission to visit the site of Telanchi's grave to see if we can find out anything more about him.
12:21Almost three months after the strikes, people are still coming to pay their respects to those killed by Israel.
12:28We approach a man who says he comes here once a week to pray for Telanchi.
12:33We have a number of Telanchi. Now, hundreds of Telanchi are present.
12:37I am now going to be able to find a man who will be able to get a man who will be able to pay his friends.
12:40But my kids are trying to show up to the path to the man who will be able to get to the man who will be able to get a man who will be able to get the man who will be able to get the man who will be able to get the man who will be able to do it.
12:48Our conversations are helping the post develop a picture of the importance of Telanchi and the other scientists killed.
12:58So he seems like a really critical character in this.
13:03Do we have any sense of whether he and the others are targeted for their general expertise
13:07or like a specific project that they were working on that was a part of the alleged
13:11nuclear program?
13:12I talked about this with a few different sources about how important are these guys, and someone
13:16mentioned they went after older scientists, none of these were younger people in the field,
13:21and so this one expert said it's probably because they want to try to destroy the brain
13:26trust, like the people who are foundational in this.
13:29But the other side of it is that for the past decade or so, maybe even longer, there's
13:35been a big push in Iran apparently to have people train and study up in theoretical physics
13:41and nuclear work.
13:44We repeatedly ask our minders if we can speak to relatives of the assassinated scientists
13:49who Israel claimed were leading Iran's nuclear program.
13:53They finally agreed to introduce us to Tehranchi's brother, Amir.
13:58So how would you describe his role in Iran's nuclear program?
14:02So the US says that he played a leading for the
14:32role in efforts to develop a nuclear device in the mid-2000s up to 2003.
14:39What's your response to that?
14:41According to me, it was an electromagnetism. It wasn't.
14:46This is a project that people don't want to use.
14:50It's a project, but it has different powers in the world.
14:55Iran has also created this project.
14:58It's based on a university.
15:01So he was placed on the list of sanctions by the US government.
15:05Were you surprised when this happened?
15:08No, it wasn't really important.
15:11It was a project that they had on this project,
15:15but it was a strong force from the US government.
15:19For people outside of Iran who are questioning
15:23how much these killings have set back
15:27Iran's nuclear program,
15:30how big a loss do you think it is to have his knowledge,
15:33his expertise taken out of the equation?
15:37The people who have studied the knowledge of Iran
15:42are based on these people's services.
15:47It's a test-based data.
15:48If any human beingsоб starring in Iran,
15:51it's a test-based data.
15:53This is a test-based data,
15:55and a test-based data is based on this method.
15:57It means research to organize and to engage with us.
15:59That is research that has been found around.
16:00And research is centered in the minds of this world and its core.
16:03It is not a body from the inside of this body,
16:09but the body is still alive in this land and this land.
16:33when we were done he showed me photographs that he'd taken that were on his computer there were
16:39what appeared to be fragments of the weapon pieces of metal what looked like rotors and also there
16:48was what appears to be a serial number s m s m b a m s o o a a 2008. he didn't want to give us the
17:03originals but we've filmed it on our camera and i've taken screenshots that i'm going to send to you
17:10working with open source investigators from bellingcat the post team starts piecing together
17:15how the strikes against the scientists were carried out and looking into whether the israelis
17:20used some kind of special weapon as had been reported in the israeli media so were there
17:26were there markings on the alleged fragments or we couldn't make it out yeah there were some markings
17:31on there um that had a possible part number um and a possible lot number you have s m b a m s
17:40zero zero four a but with a lot of these uh databases um are private from the arms company so it's not
17:48something we can check using open sources um especially if it's a weapon that hasn't been used
17:54before forever is there anything at the strike site that allows us to lean any insight into whether this
18:00munition was fired from an aircraft or the ground so from the damage alone the experts we talked to
18:07they weren't able to confirm that it's more likely that it was a longer range munition like a ballistic
18:13missile or a cruise missile
18:19in tehran we're pushing to see more strike sites
18:23our minders agreed to take us to where another nuclear scientist was killed
18:27we're told it happened within minutes of the torrenti strike the timing of the assassinations
18:33seems coordinated so that none of the targets had time to go into hiding
18:38we're at another location here it's where the scientist called ahmed reza zolfa gheri
18:46was killed local resident told us that she heard the explosion at around 3 30 a.m so almost the exact
18:57same time that the other strike took place
19:03ahmed reza zolfa gheri was the former dean of the faculty of nuclear engineering at the shahid beheshti
19:08research university which was sanctioned by the eu and others for links with iran's nuclear program
19:14as night falls we find a neighbor who lives across the street
19:23which one is your house sir this one
19:26is
19:35is
19:41I think it's rough, too.
19:55That's from the same night?
20:08Did you know who was living there?
20:11Yes.
20:12Yes.
20:13Yes.
20:14Yes.
20:15Yes.
20:16Yes.
20:17Yes.
20:18Yes.
20:19Yes.
20:20Yes.
20:21Yes.
20:22Yes.
20:23Yes.
20:26Over the course of several days, we're taken around Tehran to various locations where Israeli strikes had taken place.
20:33We sent pin locations, photos, and interviews with witnesses back to the team in the US, who combined them with satellite imagery and geolocated video, to start to piece together a bigger picture of what happened.
20:46It was an assault at multiple sites across the city.
20:53The strikes started in the early hours of the morning and hit in quick succession.
21:00Nine people Israel viewed as key to Iran's nuclear program. Scientists, engineers, physicists, all were killed.
21:10We were able to confirm the locations and tally civilian casualties from the strikes on Abdul Hamid Minoucha and Ahmed Reza Zulfagari, both nuclear engineering professors, killed just blocks from each other.
21:23Further east, we confirm the location and casualties from the strike on Mansour Asghari, a physics professor sanctioned by the US for alleged ties to nuclear weapons development.
21:38And in Saadat Abad neighborhood, where Tehran she was killed, witness accounts combined with images of the direction of the blast and structural damage indicate a weapon or weapons with the force of a roughly 500 pound bomb.
21:50Taken together, it reflects an unprecedented campaign by Israel in its scale, weaponry and impact.
22:00We've already done great things. We've taken out their senior military leadership.
22:04We've taken out their senior technologists who are leading the race to build atomic weapons that would threaten us, but not only us.
22:12We've done all that and many other things, but we are also aware of the fact that there's more to be done.
22:20Washington Post correspondent Suad McKennett spent time in Israel interviewing senior intelligence and military sources about the operation.
22:30She was able to speak to a senior military intelligence official who helped plan the assassinations, which he said had been years in the making.
22:36He let her record the meeting, but didn't want his face shown.
22:41We mapped out a group of roughly 100 scientists and we made an extensive analysis.
22:48We ended up with a group of the most valuable targets to be eliminated.
22:57The second phase was developing the intelligence and operation capability to precisely strike and eliminate each one of these targets up to the level of an apartment in Tehran.
23:10We've made everything possible to minimize the collateral damage that is expected and employed precise force only against targets that we thought were critical to deny Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
23:28Since knowledge is the core asset of any weaponization program, we assess that the elimination of all major nuclear scientists in Iran is a major setback for the project.
23:46A senior security official told the Post that Israel did use a so-called special weapon for precision strikes against military targets, but wouldn't get into details.
23:58The official also said that they were able to track the scientists and other targets using more than 100 local assets inside Iran.
24:06So apparently local Iranian assets played a major role in finding out where those scientists were living, if they were still active, where they were active.
24:17This apparently is also the first time in the history of Mossad that they led an operation in a foreign country with a majority of local assets.
24:29They said they wanted to send a message to the government in Iran together with the American intelligence services, which was these two would always work together in making sure that Iran would not reach a point where they could create and build a bomb.
24:44One of the scientists on Israel's list escaped death that first night.
24:59We want to go to the town where he fled, around six hours north of Tehran.
25:04The Iranians rarely let international reporters outside the capital.
25:08Our minders agree to take us, but they insist we stop at an airport near Karaj, a city where Iran produces centrifuges that enrich uranium.
25:23We're shown around by an airport official.
25:26What kinds of people would be landing in those planes?
25:29They claim this was a purely civilian site.
25:44The Israeli military said they had no record of a strike here.
25:47But the military intelligence official, the Post spoke to, said all the strikes were against high-value targets in the, quote, nuclear sphere, and had a military objective.
26:00Is flight logs?
26:01Log book.
26:03As we walk around, we notice our minders are filming our visit.
26:07Do you have any theory as to why Israel would target this place?
26:28No idea?
26:31No idea.
26:32Days after the strike here, Karaj's centrifuge production facility was also hit.
26:38We ask if we can go see it.
26:40Is it possible we can go to Karaj?
26:43What do you want from Karaj?
26:45It's where they say they were manufacturing the centrifuges in Karaj.
26:50Oh no, in Karaj, there's a military base, they don't let go.
26:56It's not possible?
26:57It needs higher coordination before.
26:59Uh-huh.
27:00Yeah.
27:04We continue north, to the town where the scientist, Mohamed Reza Sediqi Sabah, found refuge in a relative's home.
27:13He'd been sanctioned by the US in May 2025, accused of working on projects related to the development of nuclear explosive devices.
27:20On the last day of the war, an airstrike leveled the home with him and his relatives inside.
27:32I'm standing literally overlooking the site right now.
27:36So it looks like a larger weapon than was used in those strikes on June 13.
27:44And it was a long drive to get here.
27:48It was, you know, around six hours from the capital.
27:52This is a much smaller, kind of sleepy town almost.
27:56The arrival of local police, as well as men we're told are intelligence officers, is keeping residents far from our cameras.
28:09But the images we're sending back give the post and Bellingcat a new window into what happened here.
28:14So we were able to confirm this location because the frontline team visited on the ground and they sent us the coordinates.
28:23Uh, this is a part of Iran that's not imaged quite often.
28:26This is in Gilan province.
28:28Uh, this right here, where I'm kind of circling my cursor, this is the site that was struck.
28:34Um, and then the most recent post-strike imagery was not until August 31st, so a couple months afterwards.
28:41And this empty lot is where the residences once stood.
28:46And so the working theory from a few different experts is that perhaps two different 2,000-pound equivalent munitions landed in this crater.
28:56And then perhaps one last one here.
28:59Um, so we were able to measure the crater size.
29:02Um, I believe it was between 14 to 16 meters and 7 meters.
29:07When Saber was actually killed, that was at the end of the war.
29:11So it's possible they used a different munition.
29:14Maybe they felt more comfortable with, uh, Iranian air defense being, um, degraded.
29:19Or maybe it was just because he was farther away from, uh, Tehran at the time that he was actually killed successfully.
29:25Right.
29:26So you guys have spent some time looking at these images, the images from Iran, uh, done some forensic analysis.
29:32What is your sense of a takeaway?
29:34What have we learned from that?
29:36Um, I think it's helpful to, to go back to the first wave of our previous waves of nuclear scientists' assassinations in Iran and see how this is completely different.
29:45In the first wave of assassinations in the early 2000s, you had, um, you know, Mossad agents driving up on motorbikes, putting magnetic bombs on car windows.
29:55And it was, you know, they did these targeted strikes against a few scientists.
29:58And here we see an air campaign coordinated multiple scientists.
30:03I mean, this feels both different in tactics and also in goal.
30:06I think you're looking at, like, strategic degradation across a program instead of, like, disruption at the level of an individual scientist.
30:13Not far from the site is the mosque where Mohamed Reza Sediqi Sabah and his relatives are buried.
30:31Inside, our minders introduce us to someone who says he knew him.
30:35It seems like he had a high position that he was closely involved in the program.
30:53Can you understand why he was targeted?
30:56What impact do you think it will have, the fact that they were able to kill Mohamed Reza?
31:11How is that going to affect the nuclear program?
31:15We want to find out what Iranian officials have to say about these scientists Israel and the U.S. have said were critical to the nuclear program.
31:40The head of Iran's nuclear agency, the AEOI, agrees to meet me.
31:52Security guards don't allow us to film until we're deep inside his heavily guarded headquarters.
31:59Mohamed Aslami oversees all the country's nuclear sites.
32:02How much has the killing of these scientists set back the nuclear program?
32:23The U.S. says the goal of the nuclear program is to produce a nuclear weapon.
32:29What's your response?
32:30What's your response?
32:59The ability of the people's lives is in a part of energy and in a part of the other energy.
33:21We leave Tehran and travel south, through the mountainous landscape that's home to three nuclear sites
33:27that the US and Israel say are the heart of Iran's secret weapons program,
33:32where its stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium is believed to be produced and stored.
33:39Israel bombed the sites, and on the 10th day of the 12-day campaign, America joined the attack.
33:48A short time ago, the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities,
33:56Bordeaux, Natanz, and Esfahan.
34:00In total, US forces employed approximately 75 precision-guided weapons during this operation.
34:06Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
34:15As we approach Esfahan, the city closest to one of the key nuclear facilities,
34:19our minders want us to film the sight of another Israeli strike.
34:23They tell us that two cars with civilians were hit by an Israeli missile.
34:28And they've called someone they say is a witness to meet us.
34:30Did you see the strike?
34:34Yes.
34:35Did you see the strike?
34:59When I was there, I saw the wind coming, and the M4 came from there.
35:13Is there a CCTV camera here?
35:16There was a drone. It was a drone.
35:20They took the film.
35:22The Israeli military told us they had no knowledge of a strike at this location.
35:29We eventually arrive in Isfahan, 12 weeks since US cruise missiles slammed into the nuclear facility on its outskirts, where we're hoping to film.
35:48The city looks different from trips we'd taken here before, with fewer women wearing the hijab, a sign of opposition that's been building for years against theocratic rule.
36:01As we wait for permission, our minders tell us we can ask people about the bombing.
36:06But on that question, no one wants to speak.
36:09Excuse me, do you guys speak English for any chance?
36:13Yes.
36:14Can we interview you?
36:17On camera, is it possible?
36:20No.
36:21Can we talk to you on camera?
36:23No problem, but you ask me.
36:26About the 12-day war?
36:29No.
36:30Thanks.
36:31In the end, a message comes from Tehran that we're not going to be allowed to film the damage at the centre.
36:41They claim it's not safe.
36:45This is as close as they'll take us.
36:48The bombed facility is just behind this ridge.
36:50Do you think we could get a shot from that place?
36:57It's a station for cable car.
37:02For the nuclear centre, could we drive close to it?
37:05Even if we don't stop and get out?
37:10Even from the car, you need to open the machine.
37:12Even from the car?
37:13Yes.
37:20But away from Isfahan, my colleagues back in Washington have been piecing together what happened there and at the other nuclear sites.
37:33Isfahan is Iran's largest nuclear complex.
37:37The US says it launched more than two dozen precision-guided tomahawks at the site.
37:42Satellite imagery obtained by the Post's visual forensics team shows damage to the main uranium conversion facility.
37:48This piece of damage is from Israeli strikes previously and then this is when the US hit the Isfahan centre here and our sources told us that this damage means that it was not almost completely out of operation.
38:01Isfahan is also reported to have held much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium.
38:07What happened to that material is unclear.
38:09The US says Natanz was struck by two bunker-busting bombs known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators or MOPs.
38:19Satellite imagery shows visible penetration points that align with underground centrifuge buildings.
38:26Israel had also struck the electrical infrastructure here, crippling the site before the US bombs did their damage.
38:32And that electricity is so key because the centrifuges are spinning at such a high rate that if the electricity is cut, the spinning will stop.
38:44And that can compromise the structural integrity of these very delicate machines such that they will spin out and sort of destroy themselves.
38:51Fordow took the heaviest hit. The US focused the most powerful munitions on what it considers Iran's most important enrichment site, buried deep inside this mountain range.
39:03The US says B-2 bombers dropped 12 MOPs, most of them through two ventilation shafts.
39:09Satellite imagery before and after the strike show two ventilation openings that appear to confirm this, but not the extent of the damage.
39:22The team has also been able to gather information on what may have happened once the bombs penetrated underground at Fordow.
39:27Using floor plans released after a 2018 raid by Mossad and diagrams exhibited by the Pentagon, the post built a 3D model of the likely position of the underground complex and its ventilation infrastructure.
39:41It shows the MOPs entering above or near the areas probably used for enrichment activity, but it suggests multiple scenarios about the possible level of damage.
39:51A source with knowledge of the design said the center shafts of each structure zigzag on their way to the centrifuge halls below, which would mean the MOPs could have hit additional rock.
40:04If the MOPs managed to penetrate to the halls, they in all likelihood would have destroyed the centrifuges and related infrastructure.
40:12The MOPs still could have undermined the centrifuges even without penetrating the interior. If they had penetrated the halls, they would have, it would have been catastrophic.
40:26If it were to hit from above the facility, but not inside the facility, the force of that explosion would still sort of move through the rock and rattle the facility in a way that could cause the function of the wall.
40:42One of the centrifuges to be undermined.
40:46Regardless of the damage, it's still unclear how much of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was destroyed, whether it's buried under rubble in these bombed facilities or whether at least some is in another location.
40:59In the meantime, our colleagues at the post have also begun to detect new activity at another underground facility that was not bombed.
41:07There's something I wanted to ask you as you're in a pretty sensitive reporting environment, so I can't explicitly say the names, but there's a site of interest that we have that was not hit by US strikes, but it's an important site.
41:21I just want to flag there has been some increased activity that we've seen on satellite imagery.
41:27The activity the post has detected is at a site built inside a mountain called Kuhe Kolangazla, or Pickaxe Mountain.
41:37On our journey back from Isfahan, the road passes close to Pickaxe Mountain.
41:41We find an excuse to stop and take pictures.
41:46The complex is somewhere in this range, believed to be buried deeper than any of the facilities that were bombed.
41:53Seb took some photos from here of Pickaxe.
42:06Our photos add to a picture the team is building on Pickaxe from satellite imagery.
42:10You really get a sense of the topography there, which you kind of lose in satellite.
42:14Part of the security infrastructure that is expected at a secure site like this would be building perimeter walls and security features that help control what comes in and what comes out.
42:26Iran has said the purpose of Pickaxe Mountain is to house a production plant for assembling centrifuges.
42:32The ability for the regime to reconstruct centrifuges is going to be important in their ability to bounce back, which puts more eyes on Pickaxe.
42:46And if indeed there is centrifuge construction taking place there, what that means is that they would be able to come back relatively quickly.
42:55Analysts also suspect that Pickaxe's dimensions and estimated depth could be used for uranium enrichment.
43:01All for storing near weapons grade uranium.
43:04Using satellite imagery, the post has been able to show the site is now being fortified and expanded.
43:10Here this summer, on the right hand side, you can see the status of the security wall underway.
43:18You can see them making their way through the rock.
43:21Now compare that here on the left now this fall, where you can see that security perimeter becoming closer to completion.
43:30I think what's so interesting about this site is it gets at this question of what's next.
43:36And we're seeing evidence, it sounds like, of a continuation of the program at this site.
43:42The satellite imagery shows that two tunnel entrances have been covered with dirt and rock, which experts say hardens them against possible airstrikes.
43:51And piles of excavated material or spoil next to the entrances have increased in size, indicating continued tunneling activity.
43:59Recent satellite imagery also shows the presence of heavy equipment and construction vehicles.
44:06Hey Seb, I just want to touch base on pickaxe with you.
44:15The purpose of pickaxe is unclear, international inspectors have never gained access to it, so any information you could find out would be useful.
44:21Hey, thanks for that. We are now back in Tehran. Hopefully we're going to get to speak to a senior official.
44:28I'll take it up with them and I'll keep you posted.
44:35Our trip near its end, we finally hear that the senior official we can meet is one of Iran's most powerful leaders.
44:42Ali Larajani is in charge of both Iran's national security and the security security and the security security.
44:47We are now back in Tehran.
44:48We are now back in Tehran.
44:49Hopefully we're going to get to speak to a senior official.
44:51I'll take it up with them and I'll keep you posted.
44:54Our trip near its end, we finally hear that the senior official we can meet is one of Iran's most powerful leaders.
45:00Ali Larajani is in charge of both Iran's national security and decisions around its nuclear policy.
45:07He reports directly to Ayatollah Khamenei.
45:10This is his first interview since the 12-day war.
45:18Can you say definitively, here, now, after the strikes, that Iran has no intention of developing a nuclear weapon?
45:26We didn't have any time. We've been announced several times.
45:31And in the future, is that out of the question?
45:33This is not the Islamic government policy.
45:38This is the future.
45:41With the sights that were hit by American strikes, President Trump has said that the enrichment facilities targeted were completely and totally obliterated.
45:53Is he right?
45:54I've been told by myself.
45:57I've been told that the victims of ours were a lot.
46:00They were a lot of Rashid.
46:01They were a man.
46:02They were a man.
46:03They were a man.
46:04They were a man.
46:05They were a man.
46:06They were a man.
46:07They were a man.
46:08They were a man.
46:11There's a site south of Natanz where international observers have seen new reinforcements of the entrance.
46:19There's been some activity noticed there.
46:21It's known as Pickaxe Mountain.
46:23Is there any new activity that these strikes have created?
46:27Is there anything you can tell us about that site?
46:29No, it's not special.
46:31It's only that we have to do this work from the places.
46:36But in the future, it's possible to do this work and to do their activities.
46:44What's your assessment of the extent to which these sites have been damaged and how much this has set back Iran's nuclear program?
46:54I don't have a statement very specific.
46:57In this world, but in my opinion, they can't be able to remove Iran's nuclear program.
47:04Because when you are a technology owner, they can't be able to remove it from the inside.
47:10It's like if you are a partner, a man.
47:13They can't be able to remove it from you.
47:15You can also make it.
47:17They can't be able to remove it from the inside.
47:22Our minders take us to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile museum,
47:26where Iran's latest military hardware is on display.
47:29It's believed some of these ballistic missiles could be capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
47:36Despite the 12-day war, Iran and its leaders continue to shroud its nuclear program in secrecy and mystery.
47:47It's time to leave Iran and seek answers elsewhere.
47:51We travel to Vienna, home to the IAEA, the world's governing nuclear watchdog.
47:58Raphael Grossi is the head of the agency.
48:01His inspectors were on the ground in Iran prior to the bombing,
48:05but haven't been allowed to return to the sites hit by the US and Israel.
48:13You have the ability to assess damage in a unique way that others don't.
48:20What was your initial assessment after the strikes on the key facilities, Natanz, Fordo and Esfahan?
48:28Obviously, without having physical access to a place, any evaluation is partial.
48:34It's not complete.
48:36But the difference between our assessment and the assessment of anybody else is that we knew exactly what was inside.
48:43Can you give us an overall picture of what that determination was?
48:49The determination was, and still is, that the damage was very substantial. Very substantial.
48:58While President Trump has insisted that Iran was nearing a bomb, Grossi says he hasn't seen evidence of an active weapons program.
49:06But he's concerned about the amount of enriched uranium Iran was stockpiling.
49:11How far do you think Iran is today from developing a nuclear weapon?
49:18I think here we have to be very careful what we say.
49:23All the access and inspections that we were carrying out allowed us to determine that there is no credible information that would lead us to believe that they were developing a nuclear weapon.
49:35So this, I think, has to be said very clearly, as well as the rest.
49:40A number of, I mean, a huge amount of near-weapon-grade enrichment.
49:48And, of course, these technological capabilities that were there, which were a source of legitimate concern by the international community.
49:58Do you think that there is a risk from these strikes that it pushes Iran's nuclear program further underground?
50:08If time passes and inspections do not resume, well, then there will be doubts.
50:17And, I mean, I'm not saying that there will be an immediate consequence.
50:20But, certainly, the situation will become a source of a greater concern in terms of non-periferation or the potential activities leading to nuclear weapons.
50:37At the Imamzadeh Saleh Mosque in Tehran, nuclear scientists and military commanders killed in June are buried and venerated as heroes.
50:46The country is at a crossroads over its nuclear future and how its adversaries will respond.
50:55So how are people feeling now? Are you expecting or worried about more conflict that's coming?
51:01Yeah, of course, because they say it's not ending and every day is passing.
51:08Trump say one thing, Netanyahu say another.
51:11And every night that we want to go to sleep, we don't know if tomorrow we wake up or not.
51:18We must not allow Iran to rebuild its military nuclear capacities.
51:23Iran's stockpiles of enriched uranium, these stockpiles must be eliminated.
51:29My position is very simple.
51:32The world's number one sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess the most dangerous weapon.
51:38What's your message to the Trump administration if there are more attacks?
51:44What will be the consequences of that?
51:46We want our troops to support our government and that we must inform Iran's government.
51:53We must inform Iran's government and we must inform Iran's government.
51:58The world has to be affected by the progress of the country and that we want to control Iran's government.
52:03Because as the country's government can't understand them.
52:06We must help Iran's government.
52:08For more on this and other Frontline programs,
52:24visit our website at pbs.org slash Frontline.
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