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← The June 22 Strikes

Fordow: The Mountain Only America Could Bomb

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that the United States, not Israel, bombed Fordow, with twelve 30,000-pound bombs, and that Israel's own planners said it had to be that way. STRONG that the bombing damaged but did not destroy the site, on the word of US officials and the Pentagon's own intelligence agency.

Fordow is the reason America entered the war. It is a uranium enrichment plant dug into a mountain near the holy city of Qom. Israel's air force could hit Natanz and Isfahan on its own. It could not reach Fordow. Only the American B-2 bomber carries the one bomb built to reach it.

Why Fordow needed American bombs​

  • Fordow's halls sit deep inside the mountain. One widely shared description put the plant "80-90 m inside mountain" (@shanaka86, March 1, 2026); a later post, citing CBS, said Iran had boasted it was "buried under 260 feet of rock" (Michael Rothman, June 25, 2026).
  • The GBU-57 "Massive Ordnance Penetrator" is the only conventional bomb designed for a target like this. Arabic-language coverage of the strike, citing its specifications, said it can go through about 18 meters of concrete or 61 meters of earth (Monte Carlo Doualiya, relayed in the research captures for this topic).
  • Israel's own officials said it in private. In leaked minutes of Israel's security cabinet, a senior military official is quoted: "Fordo will be destroyed only if the US attacks it" (Jamal Abdi, September 15, 2025). See The Leaked Israeli Deliberations.
  • A viral Arabic post the morning of the strike put the regional view simply: only America had the capability, after Israel failed at Fordow (@aishaalsayed9, 1.5 million views).

What was dropped​

The count shifted through the night, and a reader should know that before trusting any first number:

Who said itBombs on Fordow
Fox News source, first hourtwo bombs on the Fordow entrances (@ILRedAlert)
Trump to Sean Hannitysix 30,000-pound bombs, plus 30 Tomahawks on the other two sites
CNN, same night"12 bunker-buster bombs were dropped on Fordow, not 6" (@Osint613 relaying CNN)
New York Times, June 24, citing Brian Carter of AEI"B-2s dropped 12 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs on Fordo, and six aboveground entry craters are now visible" (NYT)
Pentagon final count14 GBU-57s in all, across Fordow and Natanz

General Caine later described how the twelve were used: the first two blew the concrete covers the Iranians had cast over the ventilation shafts the week before, and then "Six MOPs struck each of the two main shafts along the ridge line." Of the last bomb in each stack: "Weapon number six was designed as a flex weapon to allow us to cover if one of the preceding jets or one of the preceding weapons did not [succeed]." The bombs moved "down into the complex at greater than 1,000 feet per second" (as quoted in a long post quoting the June 26 Pentagon briefing). The Times' satellite analysis agreed that Fordow was hit "at the precise locations of two structures that experts said might be ventilation shafts" (NYT interactive).

The fifteen-year story behind the bomb is on its own page: The Fifteen-Year Target.

What the bombs did, according to the officials​

  • The President, that night: "A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow." In his address: the sites were "completely and totally obliterated."
  • A senior US official, to the New York Times the same day: the strike "had not destroyed the heavily fortified facility but said that the strike had severely damaged it, taking it 'off the table.'" The official "noted that even a dozen bunker-busting bombs could not destroy the site" (NYT interactive).
  • Israel's army, in its initial assessment: Fordow was "not fully destroyed, but severely damaged" (as reported in the NYT snippet preserved in the research captures).
  • The Council on Foreign Relations, reading the imagery: "six large craters and ash blanketing the mountainside, but the damage to the facility itself remains unknown" (CFR).
  • The Institute for Science and International Security, later: Fordow was the least damaged of the main sites, about 30 percent, against 75 percent for the main Natanz plant and 90 percent for Isfahan's conversion plant (as summarized by Michael Rothman, May 4, 2026).
  • Iran's state broadcaster said the damage was limited to the entrance and exit tunnels. An IRNA correspondent said the morning after that Fordow "appears undamaged" (@DI313_).

So the one site that needed America was the one site the bombing damaged least. That is the finding in the Pentagon's own preliminary assessment too: see The DIA Preliminary Assessment.

Did Iran clear it first?​

Satellite images from June 19 and 20 showed "16 trucks gathered... with heavy machinery near the entrance to the main facility" (John Pollock). Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran's parliament speaker, said Iran expected a strike on Fordow and the facility had been evacuated in advance (Sprinter Press roundup). The regional outlet Amwaj reported, from a high-level Iranian political source, that Washington gave advance notice of a one-time strike and that most enriched uranium had been moved (as relayed by Dr. Mehmet Canbekli). Where the uranium went is followed on The Missing Uranium.

Israel's boast: "We toured the Fordow nuclear site many times"​

In August 2026, former Mossad director Yossi Cohen told a conference of Israeli local authorities: "We toured the Fordow nuclear site many times to understand the site," and described the American bombing of Fordow as everything he had hoped for, according to Israeli media (@MarioNawfal citing CBS, August 12, 2026). An Iranian researcher executed in August 2025 had, according to his circulated confession, briefed Israel on Fordow and Natanz (@ahmadslmanz). See Mossad Inside Iran.

The site next door that was never hit​

Near Natanz, Iran has been digging a deeper complex known as Pickaxe Mountain. A June 28, 2025 summary said US and Israeli officials confirmed it was left out because it is over 300 meters deep, and that the IAEA has no access (@inside_IL_intel). Trump later called it "a possible target for a nice big fat shot" (as reported by the Wall Street Journal in July 2026, per the research captures). The next target is always deeper, and the only country with the bombs to reach it is the United States.

Status: Donald Trump, Dan Caine, Yossi Cohen, Brian Carter and Mehdi Mohammadi are alive, as far as these sources show.

Sources​

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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