Report: Iran Continuing Work at Underground Nuclear Facility at Fordo

Iran is continuing and even accelerating the pace of its work at its underground nuclear facility at Fordo, opposition website Iran International reported on Saturday.

According to the report, which is based on information disseminated on an online forum affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, several advanced IR-6 centrifuges have already been installed at the secretive site, and the regime can “turn Iran’s nuclear program into nuclear weapons program in the blink of an eye.”

With that, the report implies that the regime in Tehran is preserving “the nuclear weapon option” in case Israeli leaders order an attack on Iran’s above-ground nuclear site at Natanz in the Isfahan Province some 540 kilometers (280 miles) south of the capital.

In June, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that Iran was preparing to use advanced IR-6 centrifuges, which can more easily switch between enrichment levels, at Fordo.

As a reminder, Iran’s nuclear weapons program was directed by the country’s former chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated in November 2020 near Tehran in an operation widely attributed to the Mossad.

The ayatollah regime directly accused Israel of killing Fakhrizadeh, particularly after he was mentioned by name by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a 2018 presentation unveiling stolen Iranian nuclear documents.