By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US and Israeli intelligence agencies believe they would quickly detect any attempt by Iran to retrieve or relocate a stockpile of highly enriched uranium buried beneath the Isfahan nuclear site, The New York Times reported Sunday, expanding on earlier reporting by The Jerusalem Post.

The focus is on approximately 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, which remained intact after Israeli and US strikes in June 2025 during Operation Rising Lion.

The operation targeted Iran’s key nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan and damaged dozens of additional sites connected to the country’s nuclear program.

According to The Jerusalem Post’s September 2025 report, Israel’s Mossad intelligence service had identified the location of the enriched uranium and believed it could intervene if Tehran attempted to move toward weaponization.

Israeli officials indicated at the time that monitoring the material would remain a priority, at least until the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was granted access to inspect it.

Western governments had made IAEA inspections of the uranium one of the conditions for avoiding the reimposition of global sanctions in late summer 2025, but Tehran never allowed inspectors to visit the site.

US-Iran war inevitable, Israel preparing for joint attack with US
The New York Times reported Sunday that US intelligence agencies are also closely watching the buried stockpile.

Officials familiar with the intelligence assessment said Iran—or potentially another group—could access the material through a narrow entry point despite the damage inflicted on the Isfahan facility during last year’s air campaign.

The uranium is stored as gas inside canisters, according to the report, though officials said it remains uncertain how quickly the material could be extracted or transported.

US officials told the newspaper that intelligence agencies maintain continuous surveillance of the location and are confident they would detect any attempt to move the uranium.

Speaking Saturday aboard Air Force One, US President Donald Trump said Washington has not tried to seize the material. “Right now we’re just decimating them, but we haven’t gone after it. But [it is] something we could do later on. We wouldn’t do it now.”

He added that further weakening Iran’s defenses would be necessary before any such operation, saying that “if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level.”