With President Donald Trump setting a deadline for Iran to negotiate, the regime is removing the nuclear cache trapped in sites damaged in the Israeli and U.S. strike during the 12-Day War last summer.
Imagery captured by U.S. satellites showed Iran constructing makeshift roofs over two of the destroyed nuclear sites in a bid to hide the work being undertaken to salvage the weapons-grade material. According to The Telegraph (UK), the “construction could indicate Iranian scientists attempting to recover key nuclear assets that may have survived the bombing without detection by Israel or the United States.”
As U.S. warships position themselves in the Persian Gulf, President Trump on Friday announced that he had set a deadline for the regime to accept this term, without giving further details. The terms set by President Trump require Tehran to give up its nuclear program and stop massacring Iranians protesting against the regime.
The Mullah regime appears to have rejected these terms. “No negotiation is possible under the current situation. Trump’s conditions for negotiation are unrealistic and unnegotiable,” The Washington Post reported Sunday, quoting an Iranian official.
CBS News detailed Iranian efforts to salvage its nuclear program:
As tensions soar over Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests, satellite images show activity at two Iranian nuclear sites bombed last year by Israel and the United States that may be a sign of Tehran trying to obscure efforts to salvage any materials remaining there.
The images from Planet Labs PBC show that roofs have been built over two damaged buildings at the Isfahan and Natanz facilities, the first major activity noticeable by satellite at any of the country’s stricken nuclear sites since Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June.
Those coverings block satellites from seeing what’s happening on the ground — right now, it’s the only way for inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor the sites, as Iran has prevented access.
The new roofs do not appear to be a sign of reconstruction starting at the heavily damaged facilities, experts who examined the sites said. Instead, they are likely part of Iran’s efforts “to assess whether key assets — such as limited stocks of highly enriched uranium — survived the strikes,” said Andrea Stricker, who studies Iran for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has been sanctioned by Tehran.
“They want to be able to get at any recovered assets they can get to without Israel or the United States seeing what survived,” she said.
The main above-ground enrichment building at Natanz was known as the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant. Israel hit the building on June 13, leaving it “functionally destroyed,” and “seriously damaging” underground halls holding cascades of centrifuges, the IAEA’s director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said at the time. (…)
Planet Labs PBC images show Iran began in December to build a roof over the damaged plant. It completed work on the roof by the end of the month. Iran has not provided any public acknowledgment of that work. Natanz’s electrical system appears to still be destroyed.
At Isfahan, Iran began building a similar roof over a structure near the facility’s northeast corner, finishing the work in early January. The exact function of that building isn’t publicly known, although the Israeli military at the time said its strikes at Isfahan targeted sites there associated with centrifuge manufacturing. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment over the construction.
Instead of accepting President Trump’s reasonable demands, the Iranian regime is toughening its stance. Iran’s dictator, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Sunday threatened to unleash a ‘regional war’ in case of a U.S. strike against the regime, a reference to Iranian terrorist proxies located across the Middle East. “The Americans should know that if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war,” the 86-year-old tyrant declared.
With Iran refusing to take Washington’s ultimatum seriously, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee warned that the president was not making ’empty threats’ toward the regime. Additional warships were joining the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group in the region, according to news reports ahead of the weekend. The Wall Street Journal noted Saturday that the “U.S. military has assembled a formidable force in the Middle East within striking range of Iran.”
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY