Waikato University Professor Al Gillespie on international reaction to US strikes on Iran. Video / Herald NOW
Satellite imagery taken today shows at least six apparent bomb entry points at Iran’s key Fordow uranium enrichment facility, according to a Washington Post visual analysis and multiple experts.
The images are the first look at damage to one of Iran’s main nuclear facilities after American bombers struckthat site and two others yesterday.
United States President Donald Trump said the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s three key nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.
This combination of pictures shows Iran's Isfahan nuclear enrichment facility on June 16, 2025 (top), and Iran's Isfahan nuclear enrichment facility in central Iran after US strikes. Photo / AFP
Pentagon leaders used a more measured description at a news conference, saying the sites all sustained “extremely severe damage” and they believed they had achieved a “destruction of capabilities” at Fordow.
A senior Israeli official told the Washington Post that an early assessment shows the nuclear site in Isfahan was “annihilated” and the facilities in Fordow and Natanz were “severely damaged”.
Blast analysts cautioned against drawing conclusions too quickly, as underground impacts depend on a variety of factors, including depth of detonation and surrounding geology.
Satellite image by Maxar Technologies shows the Fordo underground nuclear facility in Iran before US strikes. Photo / Maxar Technologies
Satellite image by Maxar Technologies shows the Fordo underground nuclear facility in Iran after US. Maxar Technologies
Between 1.45 and 2.30am local time, satellites used for spotting fires and severe weather around the world appear to have detected significant heat-related events close to the Fordow site.
The heat signatures were captured in a location that experts said was used for air defence at the site.
General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that as the B-2 stealth bombers carrying bunker-busting Massive Ordnance Penetrators approached Fordow and Natanz, US forces deployed “suppression weapons” against any potential Iranian surface-to-air threats.
Satellite photo by Maxar Technologies, shows craters and ash on the ridge at Fordo underground complex in Iran after US strikes. Photo / Maxar Technologies
Ultimately, Iran’s air-defence systems did not appear to fire at the US aircraft on their way in and out of Iranian airspace, Pentagon officials said.
At about 2.10am local time, Caine said, the lead B-2 bomber dropped the first two GBU-57 MOPs on the Fordow facility.
The 13,610km precision-guided bombs are designed to destroy subterranean targets. In total, seven B-2s dropped 14 bombs at Fordow and Natanz, according to officials.
Satellite images show two clusters of three entry points along the ridge above the Fordow facility, according to experts who reviewed imagery of the aftermath.
Satellite image by Maxar Technologies shows the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after US strikes. Photo / Maxar Technologies
The analysts said the strikes appear to have targeted the 250m-long cascade hall – the main part of the facility where the centrifuges are located – which was built into the mountain and later covered.
Clustering several munitions around a single point of impact is a common targeting method for destroying bunkers and well-hardened structures, said Wes Bryant, the former chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Centre of Excellence.
Satellite images from the days before the US strike showed “unusual truck and vehicular activity” at Fordow, according to a senior analyst at the satellite firm Maxar Technologies.
On Friday NZT, there were 16 cargo trucks along the access road leading to the underground military complex.
Images taken the next day show that most of the trucks had moved a little more than a kilometre northwest, farther from the facility, according to the analysis. Other trucks and bulldozers were positioned near the site’s entrance, including one truck directly next to it.
Spencer Faragasso, senior research fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, who reviewed an image taken at the weekend, before the strikes, said among other reasons, the Iranians may have backfilled the tunnels as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of hazardous material.
“They probably shut things down and removed what they could, then sealed it up,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Non-proliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies, said in a message, leaving Washington and Jerusalem to play “whack-a-mole with Iran”.
Now, the tunnel entrances near where trucks were seen appear to be filled with dirt, either from the shock wave of the bombing or from previous Iranian activity.
A coating of grey-blue ash made of debris from the facility lies across the sand.
- Jonathan Baran, Alex Horton and Souad Mekhennet contributed to this report.
