Iran Expands Natanz Nuclear Facility by Digging Underground Tunnels

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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Iran Expands Natanz Nuclear Facility by Digging Underground Tunnels

This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows construction on a new underground facility at Iran's Natanz nuclear site near Natanz, Iran, on April 14, 2023. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch US weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press.

The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.

With Iran now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb as diplomacy over its nuclear program remains stalled.

Completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its program without tripping US and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict.”

The construction at the Natanz site comes five years after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord. Trump argued the deal did not address Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nor its support of militias across the wider Middle East.

But what it did do was strictly limit Iran’s enrichment of uranium to 3.67% purity, powerful enough only to power civilian power stations, and keep its stockpile to just some 300 kilograms (660 pounds).

Since the demise of the nuclear accord, Iran has said it is enriching uranium up to 60%, though inspectors recently discovered the country had produced uranium particles that were 83.7% pure. That is just a short step from reaching the 90% threshold of weapons-grade uranium.

As of February, international inspectors estimated Iran’s stockpile was over 10 times what it was under the Obama-era deal, with enough enriched uranium to allow Tehran to make “several” nuclear bombs, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

President Joe Biden and Israel’s prime minister have said they won’t allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon. “We believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal, but the president has also been clear that we have not removed any option from the table,” the White House said in a statement to the AP.

Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, though officials in Tehran now openly discuss their ability to pursue one.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to questions from the AP regarding the construction, said that “Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities are transparent and under the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.” However, Iran has been limiting access for international inspectors for years.

Iran says the new construction will replace an above-ground centrifuge manufacturing center at Natanz struck by an explosion and fire in July 2020. Tehran blamed the incident on Israel, long suspected of running sabotage campaigns against its program.

Tehran has not acknowledged any other plans for the facility, though it would have to declare the site to the IAEA if they planned to introduce uranium into it. The Vienna-based IAEA did not respond to questions about the new underground facility.

The new project is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tehran. Natanz has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago.
Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the facility sprawls across 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) in the country’s arid Central Plateau.
Satellite photos taken in April by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by the AP show Iran burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or “Pickaxe Mountain,” which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing.

A different set of images analyzed by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies reveals that four entrances have been dug into the mountainside, two to the east and another two to the west. Each is 6 meters (20 feet) wide and 8 meters (26 feet) tall.

The scale of the work can be measured in large dirt mounds, two to the west and one to the east. Based on the size of the spoil piles and other satellite data, experts at the center told AP that Iran is likely building a facility at a depth of between 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet). The center’s analysis, which it provided exclusively to AP, is the first to estimate the tunnel system’s depth based on satellite imagery.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nonprofit long focused on Iran’s nuclear program, suggested last year the tunnels could go even deeper.

Experts say the size of the construction project indicates Iran likely would be able to use the underground facility to enrich uranium as well — not just to build centrifuges. Those tube-shaped centrifuges, arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional cascades spinning would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.

“So the depth of the facility is a concern because it would be much harder for us. It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,” said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the center who led the analysis of the tunnel work.

The new Natanz facility is likely to be even deeper underground than Iran’s Fordo facility, another enrichment site that was exposed in 2009 by US and other world leaders. That facility sparked fears in the West that Iran was hardening its program from airstrikes.

Such underground facilities led the US to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating, according to the American military. US officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. It is not clear that such a one-two punch would damage a facility as deep as the one at Natanz.

With such bombs potentially off the table, the US and its allies are left with fewer options to target the site. If diplomacy fails, sabotage attacks may resume.

Already, Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Israel also is believed to have killed scientists involved in the program, struck facilities with bomb-carrying drones and launched other attacks. Israel’s government declined to comment.

Experts say such disruptive actions may push Tehran even closer to the bomb — and put its program even deeper into the mountain where airstrikes, further sabotage and spies may not be able to reach it.

“Sabotage may roll back Iran’s nuclear program in the short-term, but it is not a viable, long-term strategy for guarding against a nuclear-armed Iran,” said Davenport, the nonproliferation expert. “Driving Iran’s nuclear program further underground increases the proliferation risk.”



Soldier who Blew Up Tesla at Trump Hotel Left Note Saying Blast Was to be a 'Wake Up Call' for US

Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
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Soldier who Blew Up Tesla at Trump Hotel Left Note Saying Blast Was to be a 'Wake Up Call' for US

Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS
Flames rise from a Tesla Cybertruck after it exploded outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, in Las Vegas, Nevada, US, January 1, 2025 in this screengrab taken from a social media video. Alcides Antunes/via REUTERS

A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck just before it blew up outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left notes saying the New Year's Day explosion was a stunt to serve as a “wake up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.
Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan.
“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday.
The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the Trump International Hotel. According to The Associated Press, authorities said that Livelsberger acted alone.
Livelsberger's letters covered a range of topics including political grievances, societal problems and both domestic and international issues, including the war in Ukraine. He said in one letter that the US was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.”
Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren.
“We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said Friday. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”
The new details came as investigators were still trying to determine whether Livelsberger sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.
Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Musk has recently become a member of Trump’s inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.
“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” Spencer Evans, the FBI special agent in charge in Las Vegas, said Friday.
Livelsberger died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Investigators have not yet explained how Livelsberger shot himself inside the Cybertruck while simultaneously igniting fireworks and camp fuel packed inside, causing the explosion.
Among the charred items found inside were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.
In recent years Livelsberger confided to Alicia Arritt, a former girlfriend who had served as an Army nurse, that he faced significant pain and exhaustion she attributed to traumatic brain injury.
He opened up to Arritt, 39, whom he met and began dating in Colorado in 2018, about exhaustion, pain that kept him up at night, and reliving violence from his deployment in Afghanistan, Arritt said.
“My life has been a personal hell for the last year,” he told Arritt in text messages during their early days of dating that she shared with The Associated Press.
The Green Berets are highly trained US Army special forces who specialize in guerrilla warfare and unconventional fighting tactics. Livelsberger rose through the ranks and deployed twice to Afghanistan and served in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, according to the Army. He recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died.
He was awarded five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.
Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger's hometown of Colorado Springs Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbors said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.
Across-the-street neighbor Cindy Helwig said she last saw him when he asked to borrow a tool to fix an SUV.
“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig.
The explosion came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. The FBI says they believe Jabbar acted alone and that it is being investigated as a terrorist attack.