A secret Iranian nuclear weapons research facility was destroyed in Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic last month, according to US and Israeli sources.
US officials said the facility, 20 miles east of Tehran, was being used to design the explosive mechanism needed to detonate a nuclear bomb.
Israeli strikes also destroyed three other nearby buildings that were being used to mix solid fuel for ballistic missiles, the Institute for Science and International Security said.
Taleghan 2, which is part of the larger Parchin military complex, was previously reported to have been closed down in 2003.
But US intelligence from earlier this year detected Iranian scientists conducting research at the facility that would “lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon”.
Few knew about site’s purpose
US and Israeli officials said that this included metallurgy, explosive testing and computer modelling.
The Taleghan 2 facility was so secretive that only a select few in the Iranian regime were aware of the site’s real purpose.
“It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t,” one US official told the Axios news site.
After activity was detected at the site, the US sent a private warning to the Iranian regime. It was hoped that Iran would then cease operations, but nuclear activity continued, officials said.
In July, the US director of national intelligence delivered a report to Congress, which warned that Iran had “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so”.
The same report also notably omitted a sentence used as standard by US intelligence in recent years, which says that Iran “isn’t currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device”.
Iran has repeatedly denied having a nuclear weapons programme, though supreme leader Ali Khamenei has said that world leaders “wouldn’t be able to stop us”.
“Iran is not after nuclear weapons, period,” said Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, last week.
Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ strategy
Israel has been locked in a multi-front war since Hamas – backed by Iran – launched the October 7 attacks on southern Israel in 2023.
Hezbollah – also supported by the Iranian regime – then escalated attacks on Israel from Lebanon the following day.
Iranian-backed militias have also frequently fired on Israel from Yemen and Iraq.
Iran and Israel have also attacked each other directly. Israel’s October 25 attack on Iran was in retaliation for Tehran’s mass missile barrage of the Jewish state on October 1.
When Donald Trump returns to the White House in January, he is expected to take a more hardline stance on Iran than President Joe Biden.
During his first term, Mr Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” sanctions policy on Iran, intended to force Tehran to stop funding its regional allies and abandon its hopes of a nuclear weapon,
Israel signed the US-brokered Abraham Accords during Mr Trump’s first term, which normalised its ties with some Muslim countries, such as United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Israel said it hopes to forge a similar deal with Saudi Arabia, although the kingdom has said it will not normalise ties with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Axios said the Iranian mission to the UN declined to comment on its report.
