The Free Press
In late January 2018, Israeli spies from Mossad stole 100,000 documents from a warehouse in a southern suburb of Iran’s capital, Tehran, and exfiltrated the materials back to Tel Aviv. Among this cache of papers, CDs, and computer files, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government unearthed the history of the Islamic Republic’s secret nuclear weapons program. It was code-named the AMAD Plan.
Israeli intelligence analysts who combed through the materials that winter learned about the importance of Iran’s overt uranium enrichment facilities to this bomb-making program, which were stationed in cities and towns like Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. But they also discovered that there were dozens of other undeclared nuclear sites that crisscrossed Iran’s 636,000 square miles and housed sensitive equipment and fissile material. The Israelis pinpointed the scientists, military officers, and bureaucratic offices driving the activities of the AMAD program and its related Iranian entities.
As Netanyahu’s military offensive against Iran enters its fifth day, the Israel Defense Forces are expanding their attacks on the country’s nuclear infrastructure, including destroying much of the uranium-enrichment and uranium-conversion sites at Natanz and Isfahan. But to anticipate Israel’s broader mission in Iran, U.S. and Israeli officials say, one needs to grasp the scale of the original AMAD Plan and how its tentacles stretch across the Middle Eastern country. Within the treasure trove of documents stolen by Israel seven years ago—which Netanyahu has called the Atomic Archive—exists essentially the targeting list for the war, these officials told The Free Press.
What remains unclear is just how far Israeli—and potentially American—air power will go in destroying this vast infrastructure. Israeli and U.S. officials both say the IDF doesn’t have the munitions required to destroy the Fordow enrichment facility, which is buried some 300 feet under a mountain in northwest Iran. And the question remains whether Jerusalem or Washington will need to dispatch military personnel and commando teams inside Iran to neutralize Fordow and hunt down other secreted equipment and fissile materials.
Iranian officials have publicly warned in recent weeks that they would divert enriched uranium from Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan to other secure sites in the country in advance of an Israeli attack. “Under conditions wherein threats made by the Zionist fanatics persist, the Islamic Republic of Iran shall be left with no recourse but to implement special measures for the protection of its nuclear facilities and materials,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote to United Nations leaders on May 22, three weeks before Netanyahu green-lighted Israel’s assault.
Given the surprise nature of Israel’s attack last week, American officials said it’s unknown if Iran made good on its threat.
The crisis over Iran’s nuclear program has festered at varying levels for more than two decades. But it came to a head in late May and precipitated the Israeli onslaught, U.S. officials who’ve been in discussions with Netanyahu’s government told The Free Press.
On May 31, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), issued a quarterly report documenting how Tehran had dramatically grown its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to 60 percent purity. This amount, outside analysts concluded, provided Tehran with the fissile material to produce nine atomic bombs if processed further. And Iran was on pace to produce dozens more.
The IAEA’s board then formally censured Tehran on June 12 for failing to cooperate with the agency in explaining the presence of processed uranium and nuclear equipment at three undeclared sites. Those sites had all been identified in the Iranian documents stolen by Israel and identified as part of the original AMAD Plan.
Iran responded to the IAEA’s condemnation by escalating its nuclear threats. This included announcing it would activate yet another uranium enrichment facility at a “third secure site” and further reduce its cooperation with the agency’s inspectors. Tehran also said it would expand the enrichment of uranium at Fordow.
That wasn’t all. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have indicated that Israeli intelligence detected other steps Tehran was taking to advance toward a bomb, without providing specifics. “The intel we got and we shared with the United States was absolutely clear, was absolutely clear that they were working, in a secret plan to weaponize the uranium,” Netanyahu told Fox News on Sunday. “They were marching very quickly.”
This information is likely to be highly scrutinized by the UN and European governments who have questioned the legality of the Israeli attack. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified before Congress in March that Washington “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” President Trump on Tuesday challenged Gabbard’s assessment, telling reporters: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.”
There were other, public steps Iran took in recent months that appeared aimed at signaling to the U.S. and Israel that it was moving to develop a nuclear weapons capacity, if not an actual bomb. The Free Press reported in September that Iran’s parliament, or Majlis, had greatly expanded the funding and programs of a Ministry of Defense unit called the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Farsi language–based acronym, SPND.
The Atomic Archive stolen by Mossad identified SPND as the successor organization to the AMAD Plan and the principal body involved in nuclear weapons research. Its original director, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated by Israel in an ambush outside Tehran in 2020, reportedly through the use of a remote-controlled machine gun.
Israel’s nearly weeklong attack on Iran has done significant damage to Iran’s core nuclear assets and missile-production sites, the IAEA and independent analysts have assessed. A primary target has been the Natanz facility that houses tens of thousands of centrifuges producing 60 percent enriched uranium that is protected by antiaircraft and antimissile batteries. The aboveground enrichment site is believed to have been totally destroyed, and the IAEA said on Tuesday that Israeli missiles successfully hit the underground facility as well. Electricity and water into Natanz have also been cut, causing further damage to any machines or nuclear materials stored there. Cutting Fordow’s power supply is another way to try and destroy the centrifuges operating there, nuclear experts say.
The IDF also destroyed a facility in Isfahan that converts uranium gas into metal, according to the IAEA. The agency had been particularly concerned about the site because the materials produced there could be fabricated into the core of an atomic weapon.
“It could be they’ve done a lot of damage, but you just don’t know [yet],” said David Albright, a nuclear scientist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, who’s extensively studied Iran’s nuclear weapons efforts. “I don’t think the Israelis know,” he added, noting the difficulty of remotely assessing the impact of Israeli missiles during these early attack waves, particularly on underground facilities.
The IDF also moved to neutralize Iranian government offices and personnel believed to be involved in active nuclear weapons research and identified in the stolen documents. Israel said strikes destroyed the headquarters of SPND in Tehran and warehouses containing nuclear weapons research. And the Israeli government reported assassinating at least 14 nuclear scientists.
Two identified by Iranian state television, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani and Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, have been cited by the U.S. and Israel as leaders of the AMAD Plan from its inception in the late 1990s. Mossad previously attempted to assassinate Abbasi-Davani in 2010 by placing a magnetized bomb on his car in Tehran. The scientist and university professor told state television last month that he was prepared to build atomic weapons, if instructed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“These are the weapons elite, and they do have tremendous knowledge and experience,” Albright told The Free Press about the dead scientists. “In the short run, it hurts a lot. In the long run, they can all be replaced.”
But the biggest target by far—and one still untouched—is the Fordow enrichment site, which is critical to the production of weapons-grade uranium.
Speculation has been mounting that President Trump could authorize the deployment of B-2 bombers stationed in the Indian Ocean bases on Diego Garcia to deliver the bunker buster bombs, known as Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), to attack Fordow. U.S. officials say just a few 30,000-pound MOPs could destroy the facility and potentially set back Iran’s overall nuclear program for years. But Trump continues to face strong opposition from leaders within the Republican Party and MAGA movement to any U.S offensive operations against the Iranian regime. (Read Gabe Kaminsky’s story on that MAGA war.)
Absent American intervention, Israel could be forced to conduct weeks of additional strikes on Iran and potentially insert commando units to try and destroy Fordow and other Iranian nuclear sites. But American officials who’ve studied the facility said its defenses are formidable and involve units from Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is likely mined and booby-trapped.
“I would not want to have to send forces down there,” a Trump administration official working on Iran told The Free Press. “It could be a medieval battle.”
