IAEA inspectors have not been able to verify the near weapons-grade uranium since June 2025, when Israeli and American strikes greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. The lack of inspections has made it difficult to know exactly where it is located.

President Donald Trump weighs a high-risk military operation to secure nearly 1,000 pounds of enriched uranium at Iranian nuclear sites.

A plan briefed to Trump last week to insert ground forces to remove Iran’s nuclear material would be a very difficult endeavor of a type never before attempted in wartime.

Recovering Iran’s remaining highly enriched uranium stockpile that is believed to be sitting in a storage facility deep underground, an objective the Trump administration has been discussing, would require a significant number of US ground troops beyond a small special operations footprint,

Satellite imagery shows that Iran could have transferred to Isfahan up to 540 kilograms—possibly all—of its highly-enriched uranium inventory before the June strikes last year.

President Trump is considering a military operation to send US soldiers inside Iran to extract nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium from Iran, officials said. Trump is open to the idea of sending the troops into Iran for days or longer to complete the mission,

The ambassador also emphasised that it is a war crime to target Iran’s nuclear plants. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Almost half of ‌Iran's uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons-grade, was stored in a tunnel complex at Isfahan and is probably still there, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday.

Seizing the stockpile would be one of the "most complicated special operations in history," a former defence official tells the BBC.