Images show “unusual” activity at Iran nuclear site before strikes

Satellite imagery captured ahead of U.S. strikes on three major Iranian nuclear sites showed “unusual” movement around the entrance to Iran’s Fordow enrichment facility.

Pictures captured on Thursday and Friday showed “unusual truck and vehicular activity” close to the entrance of the underground Fordow complex south of Tehran, satellite imagery giant Maxar said late on Saturday U.S. time.

A total of 16 cargo trucks were spotted on the access road leading up to the Fordow tunnel entrance on Thursday, but most of the trucks had relocated to one kilometer (0.6 miles) northwest of the access road by the following day, Maxar said.

New trucks and multiple bulldozers had appeared close to the main entrance by Friday, with one truck very close to the main tunnel entrance, the satellite imagery provider said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday evening the U.S. had bombed the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan sites in central Iran in “massive precision strikes” to take out Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon.

The strikes were a “spectacular military success,” Trump said. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

Israel launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists, as well as the country’s ballistic missile sites and other military assets, late on June 12 U.S. time. Iran responded with drone and ballistic missile barrages.

Israel targeted Natanz and Isfahan, but experts said only the U.S.’s B-2 heavy stealth bombers and 30,000lb “bunker buster” bombs could successfully take out Fordow, a complex built deep into a mountain roughly 60 miles from Tehran.

Fordow’s existence was secret until 2009.

This is a developing story and will be updated.