The six Iranian nuclear facilities that Israel is reportedly targeting

Tensions in the Middle East are rising despite US efforts to broker a deal between Israel and Iran to halt production of nuclear bomb materials.

Part of Israel's target is Iran's nuclear program, which is spread across many locations. Although the threat of Israeli airstrikes has loomed for decades, only a few of the sites have been built underground.

Does Iran have a nuclear weapons program?

The United States and the UN nuclear watchdog believe Iran had a coordinated, secret nuclear weapons program that it halted in 2003. The Islamic Republic denies having or planning to have one. Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear activities in exchange for international sanctions relief under a 2015 agreement with world powers. That pact collapsed after Donald Trump, then serving his first term as president, withdrew the United States from the pact in 2018 and Iran began phasing out the restrictions the following year.

Is Iran increasing its uranium enrichment?

Yes. Iran has been expanding its uranium enrichment program since the pact fell apart, reducing the so-called "breakout time" it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb to days or just over a week from at least a year under the 2015 agreement.

In reality, making a bomb with that material would take longer. How long is less clear and a matter of debate. Iran is enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, close to 90% weapons-grade purity, at two facilities, and theoretically has enough material enriched at that level, if further enriched, for six bombs, according to a criterion of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog.

Where are Iran's nuclear facilities located? NATANZ

Netanyahu said Friday that Israel had attacked Natanz as part of its operation.

Located at the heart of Iran's enrichment program, on a plain bordering mountains on the outskirts of the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, Natanz houses two enrichment plants: the massive underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) and the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP).

An Iranian opposition group in exile revealed in 2002 that Iran was secretly building Natanz, sparking a diplomatic standoff with the West over its nuclear intentions that continues today. The FEP was built for commercial-scale enrichment, with the capacity to house 50,000 centrifuges. Currently, there are approximately 16,000 centrifuges installed there, of which about 13,000 are operational, refining uranium to 5% purity.

Diplomats familiar with Natanz describe the EPF as a facility about three stories underground. The potential damage caused by Israeli airstrikes has long been debated.

Damage to the FEP centrifuges has occurred through other means, including an explosion and power outage in April 2021 that Iran claimed was an Israeli attack. The aboveground PFEP only houses hundreds of centrifuges, but Iran enriches up to 60% purity there.

FORDOW

On the opposite side of Qom, Fordow is an enrichment center carved into a mountain and therefore probably better protected from potential bombing than the PFEP. The 2015 agreement with the major powers did not allow Iran to enrich at Fordow at all. It now has around 2,000 centrifuges operating there, most of them advanced IR-6 machines, up to 350 of which are enriching uranium to 60%. The United States, Great Britain, and France announced in 2009 that Iran had been secretly building Fordow for years and had not informed the IAEA. Then-US President Barack Obama said at the time: "The size and configuration of this facility are incompatible with a peaceful program."

ISFAHAN

Iran has a large nuclear technology center on the outskirts of Isfahan, its second largest city.

It includes the Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant (FPFP) and the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF), which can process uranium into uranium hexafluoride, which is fed into centrifuges. Iran also stores enriched uranium in Isfahan, diplomats say. Isfahan also houses equipment for manufacturing uranium metal, a particularly sensitive process from a proliferation perspective because it can be used to design the core of a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA has stated that machines for making centrifuge parts are located in Isfahan, describing it as a "new site" in 2022.

KHONDAB

Iran has a partially built heavy-water research reactor, originally called Arak and now Khondab. Heavy-water reactors pose a nuclear proliferation risk because they can easily produce plutonium, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atomic bomb.

Under the 2015 agreement, construction was halted, the reactor core was removed, and it was filled with concrete to render it unusable. The reactor was to be redesigned "to minimize plutonium production and not produce weapons-grade plutonium under normal operating conditions."

Iran has informed the IAEA that it plans to put the reactor into operation in 2026.

TEHRAN RESEARCH CENTER

Iran's nuclear research facilities in Tehran include a research reactor.

BUSHER

Iran's only operating nuclear power plant, located on the Gulf coast, uses Russian fuel, which Russia reclaims when it is used up, reducing the risk of proliferation.

(With information from AFP)