As Israel continues to strike Iran, targeting its nuclear facilities, it might not hit at Fordow nuclear facility because for that Israel needs to have a bunker buster bomb from the US.
Built into the side of a mountain, the facility is Tehran’s second nuclear enrichment site after Natanz and is a heavily guarded complex.
However, if Israel wants to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility, the US has to intervene and help in attacking the site.
The US has to provide “bunker-buster bombs” to Israel, which are believed to significantly damage the Fordow nuclear fuel enrichment plant.
What are bunker-buster bombs?
The bunker buster is a broad term used to describe bombs that are designed to penetrate deep below the surface before exploding.
The weapon is the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a bomb six metres in length and weighing 13.6 tonnes, whose dense casings enable it to remain unharmed while it goes through rock and concrete before detonating deep inside underground.
In this particular case, it refers to the latest GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb in the American arsenal.
Roughly, it is the 30000-pound precision-guided bomb and is guided to attack deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels, according to the US Air Force.
The bomb is believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet below the surface before exploding and these bombs can be dropped one after another, which can effectively drill deeper and deeper with successive blasts.
In March 2023, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that it had discovered uranium enriched to 83.7 per cent purity at Fordow, which is close 90 per cent that is needed to create nuclear weapons.
But will US get involved?
There have been speculations that the US might get involved in the Israel-Iran war, which further intensified when President Donald Trump left the G7 Summit in a rush.
However, Trump contradicted France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s claims, saying that his reasons for leaving early certainly had nothing to do with a ceasefire”, adding, “Much bigger than that … Stay tuned!”
Trump has also reiterated many times in the past two months, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon amid the US-Iran row.