Inside Irans Fordow nuclear site a fortress in the mountains Israel likely needs the US and bunker buster bombs to topple

There’s just one Iranian nuclear facility left on Israel’s hit list — and it may be up to the US to take it out.Iran’s Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is a fortress built deep within the mountains — up to 300 feet underground.That’s out of reach of Israel’s known munitions.

Only America’s 15-ton bunker-buster bomb, GBU-57A/B Massive Ordinance Penetrator, is thought to be capable of touching it.While Israel has surprised Western intelligence in the past with the scope of their arms and strategies, nothing the Jewish state has shown off so far suggests it has the means to penetrate Fordow’s defenses, said Nicholas Carl, a research manager at the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project.“America is the only partner who can step in and do that,” Carl told The Post.So far, President Trump has suggested that he’s much more interested in playing peacemaker than wading into the conflict on Israel’s side.Completed in 2009, Fordow lies hidden in the mountains about 100 miles south of Tehran as one of three major nuclear enrichment sites in Iran.

Iran has spent years fortifying the facility, which has been able to avoid most major attacks from Israel that target Tehran’s nuclear program.“Tehran has made sure the facility can survive airstrike attacks, making Fordow a much harder target than the other facilities that have been hit through the years,” Carl explained.While the base does not necessarily house the most advanced nuclear enrichment plants in Iran, it does have highly advanced centrifuges that are a prime target for Israel.“The entire operation… really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow,” Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the US, told reporters on Friday during the first wave of attacks.

To reach those centrifuges, Israel would need America’s so-called “bunker busters,” bombs specifically designed to penetrate deep below ground to blow up its target.The “MOP” and other American b...