How Much Damage Have Israeli Strikes Caused to Iran’s Nuclear Program?

A satellite image shows new vehicle tracks and dirt piles over underground centrifuge facility at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after airstrike in Iran in this handout image dated June 15, 2025. (Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)
A satellite image shows new vehicle tracks and dirt piles over underground centrifuge facility at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after airstrike in Iran in this handout image dated June 15, 2025. (Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)
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How Much Damage Have Israeli Strikes Caused to Iran’s Nuclear Program?

A satellite image shows new vehicle tracks and dirt piles over underground centrifuge facility at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after airstrike in Iran in this handout image dated June 15, 2025. (Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)
A satellite image shows new vehicle tracks and dirt piles over underground centrifuge facility at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran after airstrike in Iran in this handout image dated June 15, 2025. (Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)

Israel has carried out wide-ranging military strikes on Iran, hitting sites including some of its most important nuclear facilities.

Below is a summary of what is known about the damage inflicted on Iran's nuclear program, incorporating data from the last quarterly report by the UN nuclear watchdog on May 31.

OVERVIEW

Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity. This could easily be refined further to the roughly 90% which is weapons grade.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iran's nuclear sites including its enrichment plants, says that is of "serious concern" because no other country has enriched to that level without producing nuclear weapons. Western powers say there is no civil justification for enrichment to that level.

Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons. It points to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Israel, which is not a party to the NPT, is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Israel does not deny or confirm that.

HEART OF THE PROGRAM: URANIUM ENRICHMENT

Iran had three operating uranium enrichment plants when Israel began its attacks:

* The Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz (power supply hit)

A vast underground facility designed to house 50,0000 centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium.

There has long been speculation among military experts about whether Israeli airstrikes could destroy the facility given that it is several floors underground.

There are about 17,000 centrifuges installed there, of which around 13,500 were operating at last count, enriching uranium to up to 5%.

Electricity infrastructure at Natanz was destroyed, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told the UN Security Council on Friday, specifically an electrical sub-station, the main electric power supply building, emergency power supply and back-up generators.

While there was no indication of a physical attack on the underground hall containing the FEP, "the loss of power ... may have damaged the centrifuges there", he said.

Grossi has cited unspecified "information available to the IAEA". While Iran has provided the agency with some information, the IAEA generally makes extensive use of satellite imagery.

* The Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz (destroyed)

The smallest and, being above-ground, the softest target of the three enrichment plants. Long a research and development center, it used fewer centrifuges than the other plants, often connected in smaller clusters of machines known as cascades.

It did, however, have two interconnected, full-size cascades of up to 164 advanced centrifuges each, enriching uranium to up to 60%. Apart from that, there were only up to 201 centrifuges operating at the PFEP enriching to up to 2%.

Most of the research and development work attributed to the PFEP had recently been moved underground to the FEP, where more than 1,000 of its advanced centrifuges were enriching to up to 5%.

The PFEP was destroyed in the Israeli attack, Grossi said.

* The Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant (no visible damage)

Iran's most deeply buried enrichment site, dug into a mountain, suffered no visible damage, Grossi reiterated on Monday.

While it has only about 2,000 centrifuges in operation, it produces the vast majority of Iran's uranium enriched to up to 60%, using roughly the same number of centrifuges as the PFEP did, because it feeds uranium enriched to up to 20% into those cascades compared to 5% at the PFEP.

Fordo therefore produced 166.6 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% in the most recent quarter. According to an IAEA yardstick, that is enough in principle, if enriched further, for just under four nuclear weapons, compared to the PFEP's 19.2 kg, less than half a bomb's worth.

OTHER FACILITIES

Israeli strikes damaged four buildings at the nuclear complex at Isfahan, the IAEA has said, including the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) and facilities where work on uranium metal was conducted.

While it has other uses, mastering uranium metal technology is an important step in making the core of a nuclear weapon. If Iran were to try to make a nuclear weapon, it would need to take weapons-grade uranium and turn it into uranium metal.

Uranium conversion is the process by which "yellowcake" uranium is turned into uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges, so that it can be enriched. If the UCF is out of use, Iran will eventually run out of uranium to enrich unless it finds an outside source of uranium hexafluoride.

SCIENTISTS

At least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed in Israeli attacks since Friday, including in car bombs, two sources said on Sunday.

Israel's armed forces named nine of them on Saturday, saying they "played a central part of the progress toward nuclear weapons" and that "their elimination represents a significant blow to the Iranian regime's ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction". That assertion could not immediately be verified.

Western powers have often said Iran's nuclear advances provide it with an "irreversible knowledge gain", suggesting that while losing experts or facilities may slow progress, the advances are permanent.

URANIUM STOCKPILE

Iran has a large stock of uranium enriched to different levels.

As of May 17, Iran was estimated to have enough uranium enriched to up to 60% for it to make nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick.

At lower enrichment levels it has enough for more bombs, though it would take more effort: enough enriched to up to 20% for two more, and enough enriched to up to 5% for 11 more.

Much of Iran's most highly enriched uranium stockpile is stored at Isfahan under IAEA seal, officials have said. The IAEA does not report where it is stored, nor has it said whether it was affected by the strikes.

OPEN QUESTIONS

* How will Iran respond?

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV on Saturday Iran would take measures to protect nuclear materials and equipment that would not be notified to the IAEA and it would no longer cooperate with the IAEA as before.

Lawmakers are also preparing a bill that could prompt Iran to pull out of the NPT, following in the footsteps of North Korea, which announced its withdrawal in 2003 and went on to test nuclear weapons.

The IAEA does not know how many centrifuges Iran has outside its enrichment plants. Any further reduction in cooperation with the IAEA could increase speculation that it will or has set up a secret enrichment plant using some of that supply.

Existing centrifuge cascades can also be reconfigured to enrich to a different purity level within a week, officials have said.

* What is the status of the uranium stock?

If Iran can no longer convert, its existing stock of uranium hexafluoride and enriched uranium becomes even more important.

* How bad is the damage?

The IAEA has not yet been able to carry out inspections to assess the damage there in detail.

* Will there be more attacks?

Soon after the attacks started on Friday, US President Donald Trump urged Iran to make a deal with the United States to impose fresh restrictions on its nuclear program "before there is nothing left". Talks scheduled for June 15 were called off.



Why Greenland Is Strategically Important to Arctic Security

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
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Why Greenland Is Strategically Important to Arctic Security

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Location, location, location: Greenland’s position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy.

Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and US President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls the mineral-rich island that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government also opposes US designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.

The island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Here’s why Greenland is strategically important to Arctic security:

Greenland’s location is key

Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.

Security threats

In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.

Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?”

Meanwhile, Russia has sought to assert its influence over wide areas of the Arctic in competition with the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway. Moscow has also sought to boost its military presence in the polar region, home to its Northern Fleet and a site where the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons. Russian military officials have said that the site is ready for resuming the tests, if necessary.

Russia's military has been restoring old Soviet infrastructure in the Arctic and building new facilities. Since 2014, the Russian military has opened several military bases in the Arctic and worked on reconstructing airfields.

European leaders’ concerns have been heightened since Russia launched a war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening the capability of its armed forces there. But he said that Moscow was holding the door open to broader international cooperation in the region.

US military presence

The US Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, which was built after the US and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland Treaty in 1951. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the US and NATO.

Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.

Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said that an American takeover wouldn't improve upon Washington’s current security strategy.

“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk (Greenland's capital) versus the Greenlandic flag,” he told The Associated Press. “There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want.

"If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.”

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow US military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where US troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, in a response to lawmakers’ questions, wrote over the summer that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the US tries to annex all or part of Greenland.

Danish armed forces in Greenland

Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic. Last year, the government announced a roughly 14.6 billion-kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”

The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.

Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command is headquartered in Nuuk, and tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.

The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland.

Mineral wealth

Greenland is also a rich source of the so-called rare earth minerals that are a key component of cellphones, computers, batteries and other high-tech gadgets that are expected to power the world’s economy in the coming decades.

That has attracted the interest of the US and other Western powers as they try to ease China’s dominance of the market for these critical minerals.

Development of Greenland’s mineral resources is challenging because of the island’s harsh climate, while strict environmental controls have proved an additional hurdle for potential investors.


Protest-Hit Iran Warily Watches the US After its Raid on Venezuela

Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
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Protest-Hit Iran Warily Watches the US After its Raid on Venezuela

Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)

Iran faces a new round of protests challenging the country's theocracy, but it seems like the only thing people there want to talk about is half a world away: Venezuela.

Since the US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend, Iranian state media headlines and officials have condemned the operation. In the streets and even in some official conversations, however, there's a growing question over whether a similar mission could target the country's top officials including the supreme leader, 86-year-old Ali Khamenei.

The paranoia feeds into wider worries among Iranians. Many fear that close US ally Israel will target Iran again as it did during the 12-day war it launched against Tehran in June. Israel killed a slew of top military officials and nuclear scientists, and the US bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Khamenei is believed to have gone into hiding for his protection.

“God bless our leader, we should be careful too," said Saeed Seyyedi, a 57-year-old teacher in Tehran, worried the US could act as it did in Venezuela.

"The US has always been after plots against Iran, especially when issues like oil, Israel are part of the case. In addition, it can be complicated when it is mixed with the Russia-Ukraine war, the Lebanese (group) Hezbollah and drug accusations.”

The US long has accused the Iranian-backed Hezbollah of running drug-smuggling operations to fund its operations, including in Latin America, which the group denies.

‘Please pray’

Immediately after Maduro’s seizure, an analyst on Iranian state television claimed, without offering evidence, that the US and Israel had plans during the war last year to kidnap Iranian officials with a team of dual-national Iranians. Even for conspiracy-minded Iranian television, airing such a claim is unusual.

Then on Sunday night, the prominent cleric Mohammad Ali Javedan warned an audience at prayers in Tehran University that Khamenei's life was in danger.

“Someone said he had a bad dream that the leader’s life is in danger," Javedan said, without elaborating. "Please pray.”

However, Iran is roughly twice the size of Venezuela and has what analysts consider to be a much stronger military and robust security forces. The memory of Operation Eagle Claw, a failed US special forces mission to rescue hostages held after the 1979 US Embassy takeover in Tehran, also haunts Washington.

Then there's the political situation in Iran, with its theocracy protected by hard-liners within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who answer only to Khamenei.

They could launch assassinations, cyberattacks and assaults on shipping in the Middle East, warned Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Iran’s military.

And crucially, Iran also still has fissile nuclear material.

“In the grand-strategy scheme of things, they need to think about the day after,” Nadimi said of anyone considering a Venezuela-style raid. “Iran is a much more complex political situation. They have to calculate the costs and benefits.”

Not just the Iranians

Others wonder what part of the world the US might take interest in next, while critics have warned about setting a dangerous precedent.

“The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on social media on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly link Maduro's detention to Iran but acknowledged the protests sweeping Tehran and other cities, saying: “It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”

Hours before the US action in Venezuela, US President Donald Trump warned Iran that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the US “will come to their rescue.”

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denounced the comments by Trump and Netanyahu as an “incitement to violence, terrorism and killing.”

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who had been close to Trump but resigned Monday after a falling-out with the president, directly linked the Venezuela operation to Iran.

“The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran," Greene wrote on social media.

‘Make Iran Great Again’

US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, put on a “Make Iran Great Again” hat during a Sunday segment on Fox News. He later posted an image showing him and Trump smiling after the president autographed a similar-looking hat.

“I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again," Graham said.


Iran at a Critical Crossroads Testing the Survival of its Regime

Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Iran at a Critical Crossroads Testing the Survival of its Regime

Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)

Iran is confronting one of the most consequential junctures since the founding of the republic in 1979. The pressures bearing down on the system are no longer confined to economic sanctions or familiar forms of external coercion, but now cut to the heart of the governing formula itself: how to ensure the regime’s survival without accelerating the very forces that threaten to undermine it.

At the center of this moment lies a stark existential dilemma. A permissive response to internal unrest risks allowing protests to spread and harden into a protracted campaign of political attrition, while a sweeping security crackdown would heighten external dangers, at a time of mounting international hostility and unprecedented US warnings.

Caught between these two paths, Tehran finds its room for maneuver shrinking to levels it has rarely faced before.

Passing protests or structural shift?

The evolution of the current protests raises a central question about their nature: are they a containable social wave, or a deeper expression of a shift in public mood? The spread of demonstrations to small and medium-sized cities, and the widening of their social base, reflect an advanced level of discontent, even if it has not yet reached the threshold of a comprehensive explosion.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues that this wave differs from previous ones.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the latest protests, unlike earlier waves led by university students or low-income workers in major cities, are now driven by young people in smaller towns and supported by university students nationwide.

He described them as “more entrenched and widespread,” though not yet as large as some previous protests, noting the absence of government employees and oil workers, alongside a strong female presence once again.

This assessment aligns with the reading of Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who pointed to three key differences defining this wave: the nature of the participating forces, the symbolism of its launch from Tehran’s bazaar, and the impact of Israeli strikes that have punctured the aura surrounding Iran.

By contrast, Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, cautions against overestimating the street’s ability to bring about rapid change, noting that the Iranian system is highly organized and does not hesitate to use violence to control society.

‘Political fuel’

Iran’s economic crisis is no longer a technical issue that can be separated from politics. The collapse of the currency, the erosion of purchasing power, and declining trust in institutions have turned the economy into a direct driver of protest.

With each new round of pressure or sanctions, the sense deepens that the system is incapable of delivering real solutions without making political concessions.

Alex Vatanka, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, argues that what is unfolding goes beyond anger over prices or living conditions.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the protests reflect a deeper shift in public opinion, in which opposition is no longer directed at specific policies but at the model of governance itself. This shift, he said, confronts the system with a difficult question: can the economy be saved without rethinking the structure of power?

The security establishment: cohesion or fatigue?

Security institutions, from the Revolutionary Guards and their Basij mobilization arm to the intelligence services, form the backbone of the system’s ability to endure. Historically, these institutions have been the primary guarantor of internal stability, but mounting pressures now raise questions about their moral and ideological cohesion.

Rubin said that cracks are widening, pointing to rumors that Tehran has turned to deploying forces from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces and Afghanistan’s Fatemiyoun Brigade due to declining confidence in some Revolutionary Guard units’ willingness to carry out orders.

Vatanka, for his part, acknowledged that these institutions remain cohesive for now, but warned that this cohesion is under growing strain from economic and social exhaustion, which over time could erode morale and produce partial fractures, even if open defections remain unlikely in the foreseeable future.

From deterrence to breaking taboos

If internal challenges are pressing on the structure of power, the external environment multiplies the risks. US-Israeli escalation, coupled with the waning weight of regional allies, places Iran before a radically different strategic landscape.

Threats by US President Donald Trump to support Iranian protesters signal a qualitative shift in US rhetoric, in which the focus is no longer confined to the nuclear program, but now includes Iran’s internal dynamics as part of the pressure equation.

Nadimi said that the developments in Venezuela and the arrest of Nicolas Maduro as carrying troubling implications for Tehran, while stressing the differences between the two cases, arguing that Iran is larger and more complex, and that Washington does not believe its system can be easily overthrown without a clear internal alternative.

Vatanka, however, sees a significant psychological impact from that precedent, saying it has weakened the assumption that leaders are immune from personal targeting.

The regional network: asset or burden?

Israeli strikes in June that targeted military leaders and sovereign symbols inside Iran reflect a shift in Israel’s security doctrine, from containment to direct confrontation.

O’Hanlon said that this pattern, following events in Venezuela and attacks on figures linked to Iran’s nuclear program, has become more likely under Trump, reflecting a willingness to break taboos that once held.

At the same time, questions are resurfacing over the effectiveness of Iran’s regional network. According to Vatanka, these arms are no longer a real deterrent, but have become, given their rising costs, a strategic burden.

Rubin agreed, adding that they have drained the state treasury, although he does not rule out the system turning to them if the crisis intensifies on the domestic front.

Amid this complex entanglement between internal and external pressures, the Iranian system’s options are narrowing as never before.

Between those who see this weakness as an opportunity to rebalance the region and those who fear widespread chaos, the core question remains: Is Tehran facing a manageable crisis of governance or an existential crisis that could shape Iran and the region for decades to come?