Israel recently learned from its agents inside Iran — presumably native informants working with Mossad — that Iran’s nuclear scientists had successfully completed tests of their design of a nuclear weapon. This meant that Iran was potentially only weeks away from being able to produce such a weapon, and that intolerable threat had to be dealt with without delay. More on Israel’s discovery that prompted the attack, can be found here: “Israel found Iran carried out key tests for nuke design ahead of strikes — report,” Times of Israel, June 15, 2025:
Ahead of its strikes on Iran, Israel discovered that the Islamic Republic’s scientists had conducted successful experiments in the design process of a nuclear weapon, bringing it weeks away from being able to produce a bomb if it chose to do so, according to a Hebrew media report Sunday.
This “golden information” was presented by intelligence officials to the political leadership before the decision was made to carry out preemptive strikes Friday, along with the concern that Israel didn’t know everything and that Tehran could be at an even more advanced stage in building a nuclear bomb than the available information showed, Army Radio reported, citing unnamed security officials.
According to the report, Iran gathered scientists and split them into several working groups to labor in secret on components of the process of weaponizing nuclear material into an actual explosive device, beginning around the end of 2023 or the start of 2024 — shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
This aspect of designing a nuclear device ran in parallel to Iran’s enrichment of uranium to levels that have no use for civilian purposes, but are required to build a nuclear bomb. According to an International Atomic Energy Agency report at the end of May, Iran’s stockpile of uranium, if enriched further, was enough to build nine nuclear weapons.
The Israel Defense Forces managed to monitor the secret weapons process, which left Jerusalem with no doubt that Iran had decided to build a nuclear weapon after the massacre in southern Israel, Army Radio said.
A senior Israeli military official said Saturday that “all the scientists eliminated in the opening strikes had, over the years, been involved in developing the nuclear detonation device.”
The IDF named nine Iranian nuclear scientists it assassinated in the opening strikes, and detailed its efforts to kill them.
They were named as: Fereydoon Abbasi, expert in nuclear engineering; Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, expert in physics; Akbar Motalebi Zadeh, expert in chemical engineering; Saeed Barji, expert in materials engineering; Amir Hassan Fakhahi, expert in physics; Abd al-Hamid Minoushehr, expert in reactor physics; Mansour Asgari, expert in physics; Ahmad Reza Zolfaghari Daryani, expert in nuclear engineering; and Ali Bakhouei Katirimi, expert in mechanics.
“All the scientists and experts who were eliminated were significant sources of knowledge in the Iranian nuclear project, and had decades of cumulative experience in the development of nuclear weapons,” the IDF said….
Think of the extraordinary level of planning by the IDF to know exactly where each of those nine scientists lived in Tehran, a city of 9.5 million people, and exactly, too, where each of them would be on a particular day at a particular time.
It likely will take not days, but weeks, to completely end Iran’s nuclear threat, and to destroy as well its vast arsenal of ballistic missiles and its ballistic missile factories. In order to sufficiently damage or destroy the uranium enrichment facilities built underground at Natanz, and those built inside a mountain at Fordow. These sites will have to be repeatedly hit so as to smash through their thick cement walls; should the Americans decide to provide Israel with their largest — 30,000 pound — bunker-buster bombs, and the bombers able to deliver them, this could hasten that destruction.
Meanwhile, Iranian physicists and engineers trained in nuclear physics are likely to be rethinking their career choices. Perhaps teaching high school science classes would be, in every respect, a better choice.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
On the contrary, all that becomes move if the regime falls before these projects are aborted. Already there have been reports of major leaders fleeing the country. If all the IRGC, Basij & other islamic military & militias disband as a result of the regime coming apart – like they did in Syria a few months ago, then there will be no threat to Israel or anyone even w/ those weapons intact
Although once it takes over, the new government should work w/ Israel, US and IAEA to disband all those nukes. Maybe the US & Israel won’t mind a nuclear energy program by a successor, non-islamic government
OLD GUY says
Problem, those that are running will come back and start all over again, its Islam don’t forget.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
No, according to surveys by Iranian groups like GAMAAN published here on jihadwatch, as of 2020, 60% of Iranians had left islam and are now either Atheists, Agnostics or have embraced some other faith, like Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Bahai’i…. So if this regime falls, the next regime is likely to be secular
What needs to happen though is islam needs to be banned. Or at least heavily regulated, like it is in Uzbekistan
Walter Sieruk says
The very title of this article reveals the obvious truth ,which reads “Key advancement in Iran’s Nuclear program led Israel to attack.”
With that it’s very fitting to reiterate that those Israel air strikes the missile sites and Iranian chief military strategy centers in that dangerous and hostile anti-Israel and likewise anti-Jewish Islamic regime of Iran is a very appropriate action.
For the government authorities and officials of the State of Israel have a duty and responsibility to ensure the safety security and lives of the people who are citizens of that nation by launching strikes on the missile weapon centers and military strategy command centers in Iran as well as other military and weapons places of the aggressive and hostile Islamic terror/murder regime of Iran. It’s a matter of basic self-defense .
As the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, wisely, had declared “The right to self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.”
crown says
“ Iran’s nuclear scientists had successfully completed tests of their design of a nuclear weapon. This meant that Iran was potentially only weeks away from being able to produce such a weapon…”
Well, hang on there just a second! I just heard Tucker, and his esteemed guest Jeffrey Sachs, tell us that Iran would never, never, never produce a bomb, and that it’s just Israel that is causing the trouble!
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs, che coppia! Both conspiracy theorists, both antisemites (yes, there is no other word for Jeffrey Sachs). Dear “crown,” don’t waste more of your precious time on those dopes. Read a good book. I just finished “Nicholas Nickleby.” You might enjoy it..
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Wasn’t Jeffrey Sachs the genius who almost tanked the Russian government of Yegor Gaidar, immediately after the abolition of the Soviet Union, due to the shock therapy he subjected Russians to? There is usually a “hockey-stick” transition b/w changes – starting a tad slow, but accelerating as more people go on to accept it
I agree that Tucker is an antisemite, but I don’t agree that he’s a conspiracy theorist. Both during his stints at Fox as well as in his own podcast on @X, the other things that he was on happened to be dead right: our policy on Russia, our policy on China, American cities, the plight of working class Americans, whether conservatives should continue supporting corporations who hate their values and betray them (I’m looking at you, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet….). There isn’t a more eloquent advocate for the things I believe in, which is what makes his antisemitism so annoying. However, by selling out to both Qatar and the current regime in Iran, he’s completely turned me off
somehistory says
I wonder how many of those expert scientists were educated in the U.S. or the U.K.
Walter Sieruk says
With this Hugh Fitzgerald along with its heading alone ,makes it an appropriate time to restate that the authorities in power in the State of Israel do have every right to use military force to protect Israel and her citizens from that aggressive and spite-filled “mullah regime “ of Iran.
For that’s the reasonable thing for the governmental officials to do in order the ensure the safety, life’s and security of the citizens of that Jewish State.
That hostile and vicious Islamic regime of Iran is enriching uranium for nuclear weapons should be of no surprise to any informed person. It even supplies deadly weapons to those murderous jihad entities Hamas and Hezbollah.
Therefore it should be made known that if the founder of the current Islamic tyranny ,Ayatollah Khomeini would still be alive today ,he would spit on those Westerners who say that “Islam is a non-violent religion.”
For as Ayatollah Khomeini had clearly announced that “Those who know nothing about Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war….There are hundreds psalms and hadiths urging of Muslims to value war and to fight. …I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.” [1] So if he was alive today who would spit on those Westerners who say that “Islam is a non-violent religion.” [1]
There are also many places in the Qu ‘ran that instruct in violence and killing for the cause of Islam.
As found in ,for example Surah 2:191. 4:89.. 5:33. 9:5, 111,112 ,123. 47:4.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 339.
Greg says
Why is Israel allowed to have nuclear weapons (which Israel has never admitted but – notably never denied) but Iran is not?
Wellington says
Because Israel is a decent nation that believes in freedom and Iran is presently run by very evil people. This is why—and if you can’t figure this out, there is probably nothing you can figure out correctly.
The world’s most terrible weapons ideally should be in the hands of the world’s most humane nations. Yes, an inhumane nation like Russia under Putin does have nuclear weapons but why spread this iniquity, this unfortunate situation, even more? Really, if you can’t figure this one out, you can’t figure out anything of substance.
somehistory says
Israel has them as a deterrence. (Like saying my Shepherd can get to you before you can get to the gate)
iran would have them to annihilate.
Wellington says
Methinks, somehistory, that Greg is guilty of a most terrible error, i.e., moral equivalency thinking. Put another way, and a bit more unkindly, he’s a moral idiot.
Winston 101 says
Greg,
I believe you’re trying to apply “the shoe on the other foot test”?
But that doesn’t apply to Israel Vs. Iran. Why? You need to look into the “nature” of Islam. It marries offensive jihad, (terrorism, violence and war), with martyrdom,(jihadis are 1st in line for paradise). Islam steeps followers in this lethal brew their entire lives in order to overcome their natural desire for self preservation, including the lives of their children. That’s how they produce voluntary,adult and child, suicide bombers.
Now think about an entire nation of Suicide Bombers, ruled by High Priests of Suicide Bombing. The deterrence of MADD(Mutually Assured Destruction Deterrence) doesn’t work with Islam because they have trained, day and night ,to ‘love death, more than Westerners love life’. Dying for Allah is their greatest goal. It’s the very point of their life.
Israel has a population of about 10 million people, Iran has about 91 million. Israel is a 1 nuclear bomb target while Iran would consider it a bargain to loose 10 million of their 91 million to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
dumbledoresarmy says
One does wonder whether it is not only Natanz and Fordow.
What if they are.. at least in part…. decoys??
What if there is a third facility, lurking somewhere, perhaps hidden in plain sight??
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Israeli spies have been all over Iran, and one reason they have managed it is how cooperative local Iranians have been. Chances are that they have pointed Israel to all the facilities
Once the regime falls, we can find out more
OldJarhead says
Who else in the area is almost as fearful as Israel about Iran having nukes?
Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Iran with the bomb would become the local hegemon, not just the neighborhood bully they are now.