‘Badly damaged’: Iran's first admission of damage to nuclear sites in US strikes

A satellite image shows damage to the tunnel entrances of the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Research Center, following US airstrikes amid the Iran-Israel conflict. (Courtesy: Reuters photo)

In what can be termed as the first admission of the impact of the US strikes, Iran's foreign ministry on Tuesday said that its nuclear facilities have been "badly damaged" by the US attacks

Esmail Baghaei, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, confirmed Wednesday that the country's nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged” in American strikes over the weekend. Speaking on Al Jazeera, Baghaei refused to go into detail but conceded the strikes on Sunday by American B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had been significant. “Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that's for sure,” he said.

Iran has spent decades building multi-tiered military capabilities at home and across the region that were at least partly aimed at deterring the United States from attacking it. By entering Israel's war.

An early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the attack said the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities did not destroy the country's nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months.

The attack – codenamed Operation Midnight Hammer – was carried out by seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flying from the US, after a deception flight by other B-2s into the Pacific. Tomahawk missiles were fired from US ships in waters south of Iran.

Iran has claimed that it evacuated the sites several days ago, and satellite imagery from several days ago suggests there was unusual truck traffic at Fordow. That appears to confirm the movement of some material from the site, possibly including the uranium stockpile – or parts of it – which remains unaccounted for.

Hassan Abedini, the deputy political head of Iran’s state broadcaster, said Iran had evacuated the three sites – Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow – some time ago.