The U.S. military did not use bunker-busting bombs against the Isfahan site because the laboratories are housed in structures built too deep into the ground and therefore inaccessible to the explosive force of the bombs.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said, according to CNN, citing three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them. The broadcaster stressed that it was the first known explanation for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. Doubts have mounted over the past week about the extent of damage to Isfahan and other sites following US strikes on three of the country's nuclear facilities.

U.S. officials believe that underground facilities in Isfahan house nearly 60 percent of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, which Iran would need to produce a nuclear weapon. U.S. B2 bombers have dropped more than a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites, while Isfahan has been hit only by Tomahawk missiles launched from a U.S. submarine.

(Online Union)

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