“Hey guys, it’s May 20th, 2026 and somewhere under a hillside outside of Istan, Iran in a tunnel complex that was penetrated by bombs during the most intensive US air campaign since Iraq has sealed cylinders of highly enriched uranium. Some of these sites also targeted in June of 2025 during Operation Midnight Hammer.”
“It sounds like enough uranium, according to the IAEA and the US government, to build 11 nuclear weapons. So, nobody outside of Iran knows exactly where they are. The IAEA said that they lost access February 28th. The inspectors are gone. Iran permanent cooperation the morning the war started and has not let a single inspector back in.”
“The AY’s own director general called it ‘a profound safeguard emergency.’ It’s a very political way to put it. Yes. Basically red alert and of course Iran at this point what’s going to be their number one focus as much leverage as they can get. So straight up hormones and if they were able nuclear weapon because obviously at this point they see the regime is in danger of fracturing and they want every piece of leverage they can get.”
“And then this week Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel went on CBS. He looked at the camera and he said this: ‘The war isn’t over because the enriched uranium needs to be taken out of Iran. Trump has said to me, I want to go in there and I think it can be done physically.'”
“Let me ask you something before we get into this. What happens when the most dangerous material on Earth goes missing in a country that just fought a war, expelled every inspector, and told the world to stay out? Because that is not a hypothetical. That is the exact situation playing out right now in real time as of May 2026. And the answer Washington appears to be moving toward is not a diplomatic cable. It is Delta Force, the 160th special operations aviation regiment, Navy Seals, pair of rescue men, Department of Energy nuclear handling experts, and a surveillance aircraft that can literally smell radiation from the sky.”
“All of that pointed at a hillside complex outside is Fvahan, Iran. And the question every intelligence analyst, every former special operations commander, and every nuclear policy expert is asking out loud right now is whether this operation is actually going to happen and whether the men going in would survive long enough to bring that uranium home.”
“That was with this quote: ‘Well, we’ll get that at some point. Whatever we want, we have it surveiled. If anybody got near the place, we will.'”
“Well, so now sitting president of the United States publicly told the world that there’s an option to send forces in to get the uranium. Now, at this point, we’re technically in a ceasefire, but to physically retrieve nuclear material that’s buried under hundreds of feet of rock and has been struck by those GB57s in Operation Midnight Hammer and then other strikes just as of the last few months during Operation Epic Fury. And you can bet that Iran is already wargaming what this operation would look like because their own military spokesperson already talked about it and warned about it.”
“So today we’re breaking down where the uranium is, how much has likely survived, how a Delta Force tunnel breach actually works, and how SEAL teams could be teamed up with this PAR rescue. So many different special forces, and also what the WC 135R nuclear sniffer is doing right now in the Sencom Theater. Literally a jet that can sniff radiation. And then we’ll talk about the targeting chain, how it would all work together with the special ops forces teamed up with air power to actually make this happen.”
“But first, the negotiating table looks like it just burned down again. Here’s exactly what every side said this week and what it means for the mission on the table. Because we know President Trump just posted on Truth Social over the last 24 hours that he decided to hold off on the strikes due to the fact that there were going to be some negotiations that involved Gulf partner nations, but it looks like that’s entirely burning down at this point. And instead, Iran is being a little koi with their uranium as they like to do. They speak out of this side of the mouth and say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to negotiate.’ And then they tap you along while they’re doing whatever it is behind the scenes.”
“Hm. Could they be trying to hide some of this uranium? H. No. Iran would never to that.”
“But basically, it’s like Iran hit enough uranium for 11 nukes and the US military said noted, ‘We’ve got the address.’ But let’s get the operational picture because the story of where that uranium is and how it got there is an entirely new ball game in this conflict.”
“So, we know that in June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer, six B2 Spirit stealth bombers dropped 12 30,000 lib builders. GB57 massive ordinance penetrators on Fordo. When you need something big, bring in the Max Ordinate penetrator. It’s pretty much going to make everybody on the globe feel a little bit insecure, if you know what I mean. And then the GB57s were dropped on Natans as well. Two of those said to have been dropped on the tons.”
“USS Georgia and Ohio guided class missile submarines launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at IstAfon surface infrastructure and Washington declared the nuclear program obliterated with nuclear dust now trapped underground in those deeply buried facilities. But here’s what the satellite imagery showed afterwards. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the French newspaper Leyond obtained highresolution imagery of the Isopon underground complex taken June 9th, 2025, the day before the US strikes went what they saw was wild.”
“Large trucks looked to be loaded with 18 containers parked at the south tunnel entrance. The timing, load size, and the location could point to one conclusion. Iran moved a significant portion of its highly enriched uranium underground before the first bomb fell to a potentially different site and different location.”
“But here’s the critical technical distinction that changes everything. Fordo received GB57 bunker busters, most powerful conventional weapon in the US arsenal. The big swinging, you know what, at this point, designed specifically to penetrate hardened underground facilities. But Istan received Tomahawk cruise missiles. Tomahawks hit surface infrastructure. They don’t penetrate deep tunnel complexes built into hillsides. The tunnel network at Istapon wasn’t touched, at least not on the level that it was touched at other sites.”
“If you fast forward to February 28th, 2026, Operation Epic Fury begins. Over the next 38 days, US forces conducted more than about 1,400 strikes. Insane. Destroying 161 Iranian vessels, eliminating more than 90% of Iran’s 8,000 naval mines and setting Iran’s defense industry backed by 90%.”
“And that was from Admiral Brad Cooper. That’s what he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it will take Iran, quote, ‘A generation to rebuild its navy.'”
“So conventional forces in Iran completely crushed. But the uranium still unaccounted for necessarily as far as we know. And then in early April, satellite imagery confirmed Iran’s next move. Makeshift roadblocks. Dirt embankments were installed outside of all three tunnel entrances at the Estafon underground complex. Iran wasn’t bearing the problem. Looks like Iran was fortifying it in certain ways, or at least potentially preparing for an invasion that was going to go in and take that uranium.”
“But intelligent sources have since assessed this. There’s a very narrow access point through which the uranium could potentially be retrieved. The Washington Post confirmed that US military has briefed President Trump on a plan involving flying excavation equipment into Iran and constructing a runway inside Iranian territory for cargo planes to extract the material.”
“A mission of a type that’s never been attempted before. But there’s been a test run with the F-15E WISO being scooped up by Delta Force Navy Seals Pereescue potentially crushing up to 200 of Iran’s commandos, if you can call them that, their best of the best supposedly tried to get that Wiso at the same time that those US forces were going in to get him as well. And it’s pretty clear that the Iranian commandos were just left holding a pair of American flag underwear, which pretty much tells you how that operation went down.”
“Meanwhile, here’s what’s going on on the ground in Iran, causing even more tensions. On May 18th, it was confirmed that since the war began, Iranian authorities have arrested more than 6,500 people for espionage, collaboration, anti-government activity, sneezing in the wrong way. I mean, at this point, it’s just insane. It looks like 567 of them were connected to opposition groups from what Iran is saying. Iran’s judiciary has publicly reported 29 executions since February 28th. The UN says 4,000 people have been arrested on national security charges, subjected in many cases to forced disappearances, torture, coerced televised confessions.”
“And so what we’re seeing the new Supreme Leader Majaba command taking over from his dad installed basically by the IRGC. It looks like the more hardline people are, the more hardline they are to the outside world and to their own population. That’s what’s actually keeping them in power in Iran. So, it looks like the hardliners are seizing control and seizing power in Iran. And now they’re cracking down. So, it’s kind of like a you know what measuring contest with extremism where they’re like, ‘Hey, police chief, how many did you arrest today?’ The Ayatollah is basically keeping tabs on everybody, making sure that the extremism stays alive.”
“That seems to be what we’re seeing right now because we know Sunzu says, ‘Know your enemy. Know yourself. Give your enemy offramps. Give them the ability to save face.’ But specifically, what does this enemy have as they go more and more hardline? Well, what Iran still has around the Istan complex is significant. So, it looks like their IADS integrated air defense system was decimated, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not going to go to guerrilla warfare tactics. It means they’re going to go to guerrilla warfare tactics. So, what that would look like are surfacetoair missile systems highly focused around any of their nuclear sites. Trying to get aircraft in there will be more challenging than getting it into other places because it’s said that Iran has electrooptical targeting systems that they maybe have gotten advancements from from China.”
“China’s like, ‘No, no, we didn’t send weapons. These were cameras. These aren’t weapons. They’re cameras.'”
“And then Iran’s like, ‘Kachink puts it right onto a surfacetoe air shoulder fired missile.’ That’s the types of threats that you would face going into those target areas.”
“Now, we know that roughly 60% of IRGC’s naval asymmetric force has survived. And that means their asymmetric force on land has survived as well because the hard military force is relatively easy to crush for the US military. But when it comes to the asymmetric force, that can be an entirely different ballgame. It looks like there are a lot of IRGC ground forces that are intact and actively positioned around nuclear facility perimeters. Again, they’re going to huddle into the things that they see as their last domino, which is the nuclear facilities and the straight of Hormuz.”
“Iranian military spokesperson Brigadier General Akarea told IRNA this week exactly what the threat picture looks like. He said, ‘We considered it possible that they might intend to steal through infiltration operations or Helorn operations.’ So, it looks like Iran has war gamed helicopter insertions, which is one of the things that could be used. That’s not the only thing that could be used. There’s lots of other options beside that. But Iran is definitely studying that operation in April where the F-15E WizO was rescued. They’re going to look at that and they’re going to see how the US goes in. So the US has to adapt.”
“And then the Iran rhetoric went even higher with what looks like and sounds like General Salami at this point or one of his cohorts. General Salami, why you always got to sandwich us in between all this rhetoric? Why you got to put us in the middle between two delicious pieces of sourdough and make everything sound so intense? General Salami, can you please tone down the rhetoric?”
“Meanwhile, General Salami is like, ‘No, and I will slice you incredibly thin if you say that one more time.'”
“But Iran threatened that they’ll push enrichment to 90% weapons grade purity if the strikes start again. That was Iran’s public announcement. They’re basically saying that they will build nuclear weapons if the strikes start again. The IAEA confirmed that Iran’s 60% enriched stockpile stands at roughly 440 kilow as of the last inspection before all that access was terminated. 60% enrichment to 90% weapons grade. Enrichment is a short technical step with a relatively short timeline because remember Tron fortified a tunnel and they called it deterrence. The Nightstalker Special Aviation Unit just called it a landing zone.”
“So this is a multi-layer ISR inner toout complex mission that would entail advanced drones. The advanced drones would be the first ones intelligent surveillance and reconnaissance to detect everything going on around that site. That means fury drones, AI expats if we can get them into theater teamed up with RQ4 Global Hawks. And then the WC135R, the Constant Phoenix. The Constant Phoenix is one of three aircraft in the entire US Air Force inventory built for one purpose, detecting radioactive material in the atmosphere. It carries a directional gamma sensor system, and that guides crews towards radioactive plumes, a radiation monitoring and analysis system that detects radiation contact in real time. And it’s already been confirmed and spotted to be deployed in places like Aluded, Qatar, and Diego Garcia. Both locations consistent with active nuclear monitoring over the SNCOM theater. So, this thing being there shows that something huge could go down here at any moment. And these are going to talk directly to special operations forces and they’re going to team up with F-35’s F-15E. Global Hawks will be up above. There will be an entire strike package up above talking directly to the F-35 mission commander or the F-15E mission commander. Who’s ever in charge of the air stack will have direct access to that RQ4 Global Hawk that will talk directly to these special operations teams that will do a complex insert and do whatever it takes to get to the objective, get the uranium and get it out as fast as possible.”
“And the US military would lean on that very heavily while all this was going down. Lots of different sites around the objective would be struck and then ultimately that uranium would make its way out of Iran in a way that only Delta Force and the Nightstalkers aviation unit could think of.”
“So at this point there would be a multiaceted campaign to crush all the different systems that would be trying to take down these assets that would go in for this engagement. And the 4D chess situation here is just knowing that the US special operations aviation regiment, the Nightstalkers, they execute helicopter insert missions, but there’s also options for aircraft insert missions with special aviation units from the air force as well. Same airframes that inserted operators into Pakistan for Neptune spear going after Osama bin Laden. Same operators inserting aircraft into Iran to get that weapon systems officer. At this point, these special aviation brigades are something that you really can’t discount. Even though Iran wants to discount it, these bring a true 4D chess scenario to Iran that would be ultimately their worst nightmare, and it would take away one of their biggest bargaining positions, which is that enriched uranium.”
“Here is where the story actually begins. Go back to June 2025. Six B2 Spirit stealth bombers fly out of the United States, penetrate Iranian airspace without being touched, and drop 12 GBU57 massive ordinance. Penetrators, 30,000 pounds each on the Ford and Natan’s nuclear facilities. Before those strikes, US and Israeli operations had already been targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure with Operation Midnight Hammer representing the opening blow of what became the 2025 to 2026 Iran war. The Tomahawk cruise missiles from the USS Georgia and USS Ohio hit ISvahan’s surface infrastructure. Washington declared the Iranian nuclear program obliterated.”
“And then the satellite imagery started coming back and the picture was far more complicated than anyone had advertised publicly. The bulletin of atomic scientists and French investigative reporters obtained highresolution imagery of the Isvahan underground complex taken the day before the US strikes in June 2025. What that imagery showed was striking. Large trucks at at least 18 containers were parked at the south tunnel entrance. The loading pattern, the timing, the sheer size of the operation, all of it pointed to one conclusion. Iran had moved a significant portion of its highly enriched uranium out of the primary strike zones in deeper underground before the first bomb fell.”
“And here is the critical technical detail that changes everything about this story. Fordo received GBU57 bunker busters, weapons designed specifically to penetrate hardened underground facilities built into mountains. His Fvahan received Tomahawk cruise missiles. Tomahawks destroy surface infrastructure. The majority of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely still at the Isvahan nuclear complex, according to the IAEA director general, a facility that was hit by air strikes in the 12-day war in 2025, but faced comparatively less intense attacks in 2026. The tunnel network running through the hillside at Isfahan was not touched at the depth that would have been required to destroy what was stored inside it.”
“Then February 28th, 2026 arrives. The United States and Israel launched large-scale strikes on Iran, marking the start of the 2026 Iran war, including the assassination of Supreme Leader Kam and key political figures. What followed was called Operation Epic Fury. And over the next 38 days, US forces conducted more than thousand 400 individual strikes. Iran’s navy was effectively eliminated. Admiral Brad Cooper told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would take Iran a generation to rebuild its naval capabilities. Iran’s air defense network was shredded. Its defense industry output was knocked back by an estimated 90%. Conventional Iranian military power, the kind that shows up on a radar screen or a targeting satellite, was decisively broken.”
“But the uranium was still there. Unconfirmed, unaccounted for, sealed under hundreds of feet of rock and collapsed concrete in a tunnel system that was never designed to be opened from the outside by a hostile force. According to data from the IAEA, Iran possessed about 440.9 kg, roughly 970 lb, of uranium enriched to approximately 60% purity prior to the 2025 and 2026 strikes. 60% enrichment sits just below weapons grade. The gap between 60% and 90% the threshold for a functional nuclear weapon is a short technical step and the IAEA knows it. In December 2024, the UN nuclear watchdog reported enrichment to levels approaching weapons grade and found an unprecedented stockpile of highly enriched uranium without a credible civilian purpose, giving Iran the capacity to produce enough fistle material for multiple bombs on short notice.”
“When IAEA Director General Rafael Grossce described losing inspector access on February 28th, 2026, he called it ‘a profound safeguards emergency.’ That is the most alarming language the agency uses. And since that day, not a single inspector has been allowed back inside Iranian nuclear facilities. Early satellite imagery from April 2026 confirmed what US intelligence had been tracking. Iran was installing makeshift roadblocks and dirt embankments around all three tunnel entrances at the Esvahan underground complex. Iran was not burying the problem. Iran was fortifying it, preparing by every measurable indicator for a ground assault that it fully expected might be coming.”
“An Iranian military spokesperson confirmed publicly that Iranian forces were on full readiness to protect sites where the uranium is stored, stating that commanders had considered the possibility of infiltration operations or helicopter-born insertion attempts by US forces. Iran had already wargamed this. They watched what happened in early April when Delta Force, Navy Seals, pair of rescue men, and the 160th Soar went in to recover the crew of a downed F-15E Strike Eagle. That operation involved hundreds of US troops and dozens of aircraft. Ultimately rescuing both crew members while Iranian forces suffered casualties. Iran studied every detail of how that operation moved, how the aircraft entered, how the ground teams inserted, and how the extraction worked. They are adapting, and they know what a helicopter insertion looks like from the American playbook.”
“So now you have 970 pounds of near weapons grade uranium sitting in a collapsed fortified tunnel complex in Iran, guarded by IRGC ground forces surrounded by shoulder fired surfaceto-air systems and watched by a regime that is publicly stated it will push enrichment to full weaponsgrade purity the moment hostilities resume. And the question on every decision maker’s desk in Washington right now is not whether this material is dangerous. The question is what it would actually take to go in and get it because that plan exists. It has been briefed to the president and the people who would execute it are already in the theater.”
“Now that you understand where the uranium is and how it got there, let me walk you through what the actual retrieval operation would look like. Because this is where the story goes from complicated to historically unprecedented. The Washington Post confirmed through two people directly familiar with the matter that the US military has given the president a plan to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium in Iran. That would involve flying an excavation equipment and constructing a runway for cargo planes to extract the radioactive material. Read that sentence again slowly. Flying an excavation equipment, building a runway inside Iranian territory while IRGC ground forces are actively positioned around the perimeter of the facility.”
“Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Mick Mullroy, who is also a retired CIA paramilitary officer and Marine, looked at this plan and said without hesitation that this would be one of, if not the largest most complicated special operations in history and described it as a major risk to the force. That is not a political statement. That is a professional military assessment from someone who has planned and executed operations exactly like this.”
“So let us build the operational picture layer by layer. The way the targeting chain would actually work before a single operator touches Iranian soil, the intelligence collection architecture has to be airtight. That means a layered ISR package working from the outside in RQ4 global hawks operating at high altitude. Persistent wide area surveillance covering the entire isfahan region. AI enabled fusion systems correlating radar signals intelligence and electrooptical feeds in real time. Swarms of smaller persistence drones building pattern of life data on IRGC troop movements, vehicle rotations, and guard timing cycles around the tunnel complex.”
“And then there is the aircraft that most people have never heard of, but which may be the single most strategically important platform in this entire operation, the WC135R Constant Phoenix. The WC135R remains the only airborne platform globally dedicated to atmospheric collection missions designed to detect radioactive debris and is equipped with a directional gamma sensor system that guides crews toward radioactive plumes while monitoring radiation in real time. This aircraft exists for one purpose. It finds nuclear material. The US Air Force rarely acknowledges deployments of the constant Phoenix, making it significant when it does. And the aircraft was confirmed deployed to the Sententcom area of responsibility as recently as December 2024. When that aircraft is overhead and painting a radiation signature through collapsed concrete and mountain rock, it is telling the operators on the ground exactly where the cylinders are. That is not a small capability. That is the difference between a mission that succeeds in ours and one that drags into days under fire.”
“Once the ISR architecture is locked in, the force composition for the ground phase is what makes this operation unlike anything attempted since operation Neptune Spear in 2011 and arguably more complex. The operation might involve elements of every unit in the Joint Special Operations Command, including Delta Force, Devgrrew, and all of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, plus a substantial conventional force to coordinate the surrounding area. The 160th Soore, the Nightstalkers, would provide the rotary wing insertion package. MH60 Blackhawks and MH47 Chinuks flying NAP of the Earth at low altitude to avoid residual radar coverage. Fixed wing special operations aircraft from the Air Force’s own specialized units. The same MC30J platforms used in the April 2026 F15E rescue operation would carry the excavation teams and the heavy equipment. F-35s and F-15E would hold in a strike package overhead, talking directly to mission commanders on the ground with real-time feeds from the Global Hawks, triangulating every threat within a 50-mi radius.”
“The tunnel breaching phase is where it gets genuinely dangerous at a level that has no clean parallel in modern special operations history. Delta Force and Navy Seal teams would conduct tunnel breaching operations using cutting tools, blow torches, and specialized equipment to penetrate collapsed structures and access underground chambers, navigating confined spaces, unstable debris, and potential defensive measures, including booby traps or decoys. And that is before you factor in the radiation environment. The recovery of the uranium would require coordination between military personnel and civilian nuclear experts from the US Department of Energy with teams trained in radiological handling, identifying and securing material expected to be stored in sealed cylinders, operating in protective suits with strict decontamination protocols.”
“Every minute those operators spend inside that tunnel system, IRGC ground forces are attempting to reach them from the surface perimeter. The air package overhead is suppressing them, but Iran’s remaining asymmetric capabilities are significant. Roughly 60% of the IRGC’s asymmetric naval force survived Operation Epic Fury, according to US assessments, and its land-based asymmetric units are largely intact. That means shoulder fired manpad systems. Electrooptical targeting technology that Iran reportedly received technical advancement on from China. Improvised obstacle networks, vehicle-born threats, and human wave pressure against the perimeter.”
“Netanyahu told CBS’s 60 Minutes on May 10th, 2026 that when asked how the uranium could be removed, his answer was direct. ‘You go in and you take it out,’ calling the removal of enriched uranium a terrifically important mission.”
“And then Trump himself in a separate interview on the same weekend confirmed it from Washington. Trump alluded to sending US troops into Iran to retrieve the highly enriched uranium with the Israeli government actively pushing Trump to order a special forces operation. Though Israeli officials acknowledged Trump was weighing the significant operational risks, what you are watching right now is coordinated public messaging between Washington and Jerusalem. Both leaders in the same 24-hour window speaking publicly about a mission that the Pentagon has already briefed, planned, and placed operational assets in position to execute. That does not happen by accident. That is deliberate signaling to Thrron that the military option is real. It is resourced and the clock on diplomacy is shortening by the day.”
“And the diplomatic track as of this week in May 2026 is not looking promising. Iranian state television reported that Thran rejected the US proposal as amounting to surrender insisting on war reparations, full Iranian sovereignty over the straight of Hormuz, an end to sanctions and the release of seized Iranian assets.”
“Trump responded on social media and capital letters that Iran’s position was ‘totally unacceptable.’ Iran’s foreign ministry has stated that the uranium will under no circumstances be transferred anywhere. While the head of Iran’s atomic energy organization has said Iran will not accept limits on its nuclear enrichment program. Two sides diametrically opposed with 970 pounds of near weapons grade material sitting between.”
