Tehran has aggressively intensified measures to lock down its supply of near-weapons-grade uranium over the past several weeks, intentionally cave-in subterranean corridors and rigging facility access points with live landmines, five individuals tracking American intelligence files revealed to CNN on Saturday.
Extracting the estimated 1,000 pounds of highly refined material has become drastically more arduous, perilous, and prolonged compared to its status just one month ago. At that time, President Donald Trump was openly hinting at deploying the American military to confiscate the stockpile.
These fresh defensive obstructions introduce severe hurdles to the Trump administration's envisioned peace treaty with Tehran, which demands the confiscation and neutralization of the uranium. It additionally clouds the question of which country's personnel will shoulder the hazardous task of unearthing the cache.
Iran’s United Nations diplomatic team and the White House did not immediately provide statements regarding the development.
Trump has consistently framed the retrieval of this material as a non-negotiable American objective in active diplomatic tracks meant to halt the conflict and unlock the sealed Strait of Hormuz. A high-ranking government official noted during a Friday press conference that negotiators are gradually narrowing their differences on a pact forcing Tehran to yield its enriched cache to the United States. Under this proposed blueprint, the material would undergo on-site destruction before being transported out of Iranian territory.
Intelligence insiders stress that even Iranian technicians would face immense peril attempting to recover the nuclear stockpile now, according to CNN. Any extraction attempt would mandate heavy-duty digging machinery alongside high-stakes bomb disposal operations.
The engineered chaos also grants Tehran a convenient tool to cloak potential non-compliance.
Global intelligence agencies suspect the vast majority of the inventory is trapped within deliberately caved-in bunkers at the Isfahan atomic hub in central Iran, with residual quantities distributed among scattered alternative complexes.
During the middle of May, the Pentagon finalized a blueprint to forcibly extract the nuclear material, though the plan was ultimately shelved due to an unacceptable risk matrix, as previously reported. In the weeks following that cancellation, Tehran has doubled down on fortifying the subterranean vaults where its highly enriched uranium remains buried.
Trump has previously voiced his awareness of the severe dangers tied to a forced extraction mission. During a May broadcast on Fox News, he doubted that Iranian forces could dig out the subterranean assets without triggering immediate detection by American overhead surveillance.
“We know exactly what’s happening," Trump told Fox host Sean Hannity of the site. “Nobody’s even gotten close to it."
Yet, two intelligence sources quoted by CNN pointed out that the commander-in-chief's habit of publicly broadcasting the uranium as a potential military objective likely provided Tehran with the exact motivation it needed to better protect its assets.
Consequently, even if a formal accord is executed between Washington and Tehran within the coming days, experts anticipate a long cycle of secondary technical talks to iron out the finer points of Iran's nuclear apparatus.
Sucking the uranium out of the country would likely necessitate deploying a specialized, transportable processing platform managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Earlier this month, US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff conducted an on-site visit to that specific laboratory facility.
Even if granted unhindered access, the world's premier nuclear extraction units would require a substantial window to finalize the mission. Trump recently informed members of the press that the physical removal timeline would span a minimum of two weeks.