Report: Israel May Not Wait For US To Attack Fordow, Could Go Alone

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Four independent sources told Reuters that, in the absence of American intervention, Israel is likely to attack the nuclear facility at Fordow alone, and the likelihood of this is increasing every day. Two of the sources noted that the air superiority that Israel has achieved would help in this, but such an operation would still be dangerous.

It was also reported that the Israeli position was clarified in a conversation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir with senior U.S. administration officials.

According to the report, Israel feels that there is limited time to carry out the attack due to the high cost of the war, and one source said that “I don’t think they will wait much longer.” Two of the sources said that Israel may try to cause severe damage to the facility rather than destroy it completely.

In another scenario, according to one of the sources, the Air Force would attack Fordow with a series of bunker-busting munitions, similar to the attack in which Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah was killed, in an attempt to penetrate the underground site. After such an attack, Israel would conduct a raid using special ground forces.

One option includes sending elite Israeli Air Force commandos from Unit 5101, known as Shaldag, which, in Hebrew, means kingfisher, a bird known to be patient and dive deep under water to find its prey.

In September, members of this elite unit surprised the world by entering an underground missile factory used by Iran in Syria.

“There was a site that similarly looked like Fordow,” former Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin told Fox News in an exclusive interview. “Even though smaller, the Syrian facility produced advanced ballistic missiles, precise ballistic missiles using Iranian technology, as well as Iranian money.”

Israel attacked the site from the air a few times but was not able to destroy the site.

Unit 5101 (Shaldag) used the cover of darkness and diversionary airstrikes to enter the secret site, plant explosives and destroy the complex. Like Iran’s Fordow mountain complex south of Tehran, it was 300 feet underground.

“The Air Force took care of all the guards around the perimeter, and Shaldag got in, and the place is gone, destroyed,” Yadlin said with a slight smile.

Yadlin, now retired, served as the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence in 2007, when Israel blew up a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor that the world did not know about. The White House at the time did not want to assist in the strike. Yadlin has seen history change after Israel has acted alone carrying out daring missions like the exploding pagers that killed most of the top commanders of Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah.

In 2008, when it was determined that Israeli F-16s could not reach Iran’s nuclear sites, Yadlin ordered Mossad to come up with another way to take out Iran’s uranium enrichment at Natanz. Two years later, Israeli and American cyber warriors introduced Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm that caused thousands of Natanz centrifuges to spin out of control, setting back Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

The decision to strike Fordow, the crown jewel and heart of Iran’s nuclear program, is different, and Israel prefers the U.S. to use its B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.

“Anybody who wants the war to be over soon, to be finished quickly, have to find a way to deal with Fordow,” Yadlin said. “Those who think that attacking Fordow will escalate the war, in my judgment, it can de-escalate and terminate the war.”

And it could serve as a deterrent to China and Russia, who will see the power and capability of the U.S. military’s unique capability.