Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen revealed Tuesday that Israeli spies had “toured” Iran’s heavily fortified Fordow nuclear site “many times” to understand the underground facility before its eventual destruction by U.S. forces — offering a striking glimpse into the depth of Israel’s intelligence penetration of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
“We toured the Fordow nuclear site many times in order to understand the site,” Cohen, who led Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency from 2016 to 2021, said at the Galilee Conference in northern Israel.
Cohen did not elaborate on when the operations took place, who participated, or whether Mossad agents physically entered the facility. Israeli reports likewise noted that it remained unclear whether he was describing operatives inside Fordow or another form of intelligence surveillance.
Cohen made clear, however, how significant the eventual American attack on the site was to Israel’s years-long campaign against Iran’s nuclear program.
“Its bombing by the Americans was the fulfillment of all my dreams,” he said.
Fordow presented an extraordinary military challenge because much of the uranium enrichment facility was constructed roughly 300 feet underground beneath a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom, protected by layers of rock and reinforced concrete.
The United States ultimately struck Fordow on June 22, 2025, during joining Israel’s 12-day Operation Rising Lion campaign against Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure.
Seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers flew approximately 18 hours from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri as part of the operation, with six of the bombers dropping 12 massive GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bombs on Fordow. A seventh B-2 dropped two additional weapons on the Natanz nuclear facility, while a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against infrastructure at Isfahan.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine later disclosed extraordinary details of the attack, explaining that American forces targeted two ventilation shafts leading into Fordow. Initial bombs were used to blast through concrete Iran had placed over the openings before additional bunker-busters followed essentially the same path deep into the underground complex.
Cohen’s disclosure adds another extraordinary example to Mossad’s long record of penetrating some of the most sensitive reaches of Iran’s nuclear program.
Under Cohen, Mossad carried out its audacious 2018 operation to seize Iran’s secret nuclear archive from a warehouse in Tehran, extracting tens of thousands of documents and digital files detailing the regime’s clandestine nuclear work. Cohen has also previously suggested Israeli intelligence was behind sabotage at Iran’s underground Natanz centrifuge facility and revealed that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the leading scientist long identified by Israel as a central figure in Iran’s nuclear weapons program, had been in Mossad’s sights for years before his 2020 assassination.
Days after leaving the Mossad in 2021, Cohen even told Israeli interviewer Ilana Dayan that he could take her to the underground “cellar” at Natanz where “the centrifuges used to spin” — another cryptic indication of the intelligence service’s remarkable familiarity with Iran’s supposedly secure nuclear infrastructure.
Cohen also addressed Iran’s remaining nuclear material Tuesday, arguing that the regime’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium does not by itself mean Tehran is on the verge of producing a weapon.
“Uranium enriched to 60% is still far from a bomb,” Cohen said.
Nuclear experts have nevertheless warned that 60-percent enriched uranium represents a major technical step toward weapons-grade material. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, has assessed that material enriched to that level could potentially be further enriched to weapons grade within days or weeks, depending on Iran’s available centrifuges and other capabilities.
The whereabouts of Iran’s remaining highly enriched uranium have consequently remained a central concern for Washington and Jerusalem since the 2025 strikes.
Much of the stockpile has been believed buried beneath Iran’s damaged nuclear facilities, including within underground tunnels at Isfahan, where Iran reportedly collapsed access points and planted explosive mines following the attacks. Israel has also assessed that Tehran may have transferred some nuclear material to Pickaxe Mountain, another deeply fortified underground complex near Natanz.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that Pickaxe Mountain would face the same fate as Iran’s other nuclear facilities if Tehran attempts to use it to rebuild its program, while expressing confidence in Washington’s ability to detect renewed Iranian nuclear activity.
“We know exactly what’s going on,” Trump said ahead of his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month. “I know exactly what’s going on at Pickaxe. It’s not a big problem.”
“We took out their nuclear sites, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal,” Trump continued. “If we don’t make a deal, we’ll take it out very easily.”
Trump had issued an even more explicit warning the previous week after reports that Israeli intelligence believed Iran had transferred thousands of advanced centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain.
“Any site where they’re even thinking about nuclear, we’ll be hitting it very, very powerfully,” Trump said.
That confidence extends beyond Pickaxe. The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Trump has told senior aides in recent weeks that Iran is unlikely to be capable of rebuilding its nuclear program during his presidency following the destruction of its three primary nuclear sites last year. Trump has argued in recent meetings that U.S. intelligence would likely detect attempts by Tehran to rebuild the facilities or secretly develop a nuclear weapon and that the prospect of renewed American strikes would provide a continuing deterrent, according to the report.
Cohen’s extraordinary Fordow disclosure underscores the intelligence capabilities behind those threats — revealing that even one of Iran’s most deeply buried and heavily protected nuclear installations had apparently been penetrated repeatedly by Israeli intelligence years before American bombers ultimately struck it.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
Read the full article here