Iran persists in advancing its clandestine subterranean nuclear facility

The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to push forward with a secret underground nuclear facility located south of the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant, according to newly released satellite imagery.

The Institute for Science and International Security compared the new images that were taken earlier this year with previous satellite images of the construction site at Kolang Gaz La mountain from 2022 and 2023.

“The site is slated to hold a new, large, advanced centrifuge assembly facility that replaces the Iranian Centrifuge Assembly Center (ICAC) destroyed in an attack in July 2020,” the report said. “Iran is apparently determined to make the new facility harder to destroy. In fact, the tunnel complex is more deeply buried than the Fordow underground enrichment plant, with more entrances and no apparent ventilation shaft, making it harder to destroy than Fordow and certainly harder than a surface facility.”

The report added that Iran appears to have completed the construction of the tunnels and is now working on “construction inside the tunnel complex, likely related to the finishing of the underground rooms.”

Iran is further breaking international laws by refusing to comply with its obligations “under modified Code 3.1 of its comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA) to declare new nuclear facilities such as uranium enrichment plants in the design phase, and continued lack of full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” the report added.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at Hudson Institute and the director of its Keystone Defense Initiative, slammed President Joe Biden’s appeasement of the Iranian regime in a statement to The Daily Wire.

“There could not be a U.S. team more eager to placate the Iran regime than this White House, and the approach has only encouraged the regime to become more belligerent, more dangerous, and willing to advance its illicit nuclear program,” she said. “We are running out of time to overhaul this Middle East strategy. Iran cannot be permitted to finish this site.”

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“Iran has successfully distracted the West from focusing on ongoing construction at the Natanz facility, which could allow the Tehran regime to complete a dash to nuclear weapons,” said Andrea Stricker, FDD Research Fellow and Deputy Director of FDD’s Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program.

“Washington must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear deterrent and permanently changing the game in the Middle East,” she added.

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