Iran has deliberately collapsed tunnels and planted explosive mines at the entrances to its buried cache of near bomb-grade uranium, complicating both a potential U.S. military operation to seize the material and ongoing negotiations to remove it under a diplomatic deal, CNN reported Saturday, citing five sources familiar with U.S. intelligence.

Getting to the roughly half-ton of highly enriched uranium is now far more difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming than it already was just a month ago, when President Donald Trump was publicly signaling that he might order U.S. forces to seize it.

The added fortifications could complicate a proposed U.S.-Iran deal that Washington says would require Tehran to turn over its enriched uranium for destruction and removal from the country.

The international community believes most of the stockpile is held in collapsed tunnels at the Isfahan nuclear complex in central Iran, with some additional material at other sites. Sources told CNN the uranium is dispersed across multiple Iranian nuclear sites, mainly the Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow complexes, stored deep within tunnels.

Even Iran itself would now need heavy excavation equipment and de-mining operations to access the stockpile.

Scott Roecker, a former senior U.S. nuclear material removal official, warned the Iranian moves could give Tehran a way to undermine any verification regime. “In this scenario, I would worry that Iran would claim that some portion of the HEU was irretrievable,” Roecker said. “We wouldn’t have full confidence that Iran couldn’t retain access to it at some point in the future.”

In mid-May, the U.S. military had prepared plans for a possible ground operation inside Iran to seize the material, but Trump paused the plan after warnings it could trigger severe Iranian retaliation, prolong the war, disrupt the global economy, and cause significant U.S. casualties.

The briefings were considered so sensitive that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine cut short a meeting with senior NATO officials in Brussels and flew back to CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida, on May 19 to receive them in person.

Trump has repeatedly stated that securing the enriched uranium is a priority in ongoing negotiations to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed. According to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Friday, the two sides are moving closer to a deal that would require Iran to turn its enriched uranium over to the United States, with the material to be destroyed on site and then removed from the country. But U.S. and Iranian officials have offered conflicting accounts of the tentative agreement, and its precise terms remain unclear.

Removing the uranium from the country would likely require a specialized mobile uranium facility organized under the National Nuclear Security Administration at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Top U.S. negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff visited the laboratory earlier this month. Trump told reporters earlier this month that even under favorable conditions, removal would take at least two weeks to complete.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)