Will the US seize enriched uranium? Well, they've done it before | The Security Brief

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Donald Trump faces the defining decision of his presidency. How to end this war in Iran with something that looks like victory. But how does he get there? Is there one more big operation that might unlock this negotiation?

[00:00:13]Or are we heading for a dangerous stalemate? The Pentagon says it's putting together plans for a short sharp campaign. A smash and grab raid of Iran's enriched uranium could be one course of action that is now being planned. We will take you through what that might look like. Stay with us. This is the security brief.

[00:00:37]Mikey, a ceasefire buys time. It doesn't buy peace. So one presumes that right now US military planners are looking at every course of action, every scenario to try and force the Iranians to the table. What do you think they might be looking at? From looking at aircraft tracking sites on open source intelligence, that's incredibly active at the moment and it's tracking a lot of US military transport capability that is going to and from bases in the UK.

[00:01:08]Now Axios, they're also reporting from sources inside CENTCOM that they're working up a quote short and powerful option package involving a wave of strikes on Iran. Now these courses of action could involve potentially softening up Kharg Island. We've spoken about that. It's where 90% of the the crude oil comes out of. Potentially targeting any ports that are being used to circumnavigate the the US blockade.

[00:01:33]That would likely be what the TLAM, Tomahawk Land Attack Missile. That's the cruise missile that's launched from submarines and destroyers.

[00:01:39]And then the USA 10 Warthog, that that aircraft has got the wings on that massive Gatling gun with the big engines on it. It's basically like a Yeah, basically like a tank in the sky.

[00:01:49]And I think we could see activity with that aircraft, which we have seen already, but but increased activity over the Hormuz Strait targeting IRGC capability from fast attack crafts, mine laying vessels, drone launch sites, as well as strikes on the more conventional capability like ballistic missiles and anti-shipping missiles.

[00:02:06]Okay. I mean the peace talks are deadlocked on on two fronts, that obviously the stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, but also running alongside that Iran's nuclear ambitions.

[00:02:19]If Iran refuses to give way on the nuclear question, which seems likely, what are the options?

[00:02:26]Yeah, I There's a lot of options there, but they'll be prioritized.

[00:02:30]>> Right. So we know that US special forces are in the region.

[00:02:33]The 160th Nightstalkers that we saw doing the raid on Maduro. That's the Special Operations Aviation Regiment. We know that US Navy SEALs are out there from open source intelligence and likely joined by Delta, although governments don't talk about the locations and activity of special forces. Which part of the country do you think they would be looking at most? Well, we know that most of the 440 kg of enriched uranium is at the Isfahan Nuclear Center, which was part of the targeting set up for Operation Midnight Hammer.

[00:03:04]And whilst not the same, the US has actually taken uranium from another country before. What was that operation? It was called Project Sapphire. Let's just take a look at the map. It was a covert operation carried out in 1994 between the US and Kazakhstan and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The operation was conducted in the east of Kazakhstan at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk. The US removed 600 kg of highly enriched uranium, likely uranium 235, the isotope. And that's enough for around what was estimated to be 20 nuclear bombs. And they were housed in poorly secured warehouses and then relocated to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

[00:03:50]And and just explain to us how that operation was conducted.

[00:03:53]>> So it was a civilian military team. It landed at an airport around 10 km away from the warehouses and they traveled to the plant before sunrise and left after sunset to avoid public notice, but it was under the guise of a humanitarian mission. I honestly had never heard of that operation, but but but it really only goes so far when we're talking about Iran, because the uranium the enriched uranium in Iran quite obviously is not stored in poorly equipped, poorly defended warehouses.

[00:04:23]It's underground.

[00:04:24]It's heavily fortified. It's It's defended by a regime that knows the Americans are coming. So this is quite different. Yeah, Project Sapphire, there were a lot of significant differences, but Project Sapphire is is what we call a permissive environment. So there's no immediate threat, if you like, from local or enemy forces or air defense capability. And any operating any operation potentially targeting Isfahan would be absolutely under the planning assumption of a non-permissive environment. That's military parlance to determine how high the threat is or not.

[00:04:57]Um So you have a hugely complicating factor, as you say, also of the enriched uranium being underground. Um and then an added complexity of it potentially being buried underground.

[00:05:09]And it's also supposed to >> As a result of the bombing, so there's no no way in, no way out.

[00:05:14]>> As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, so they'll they're going to have to look at that. Um and then one of three possible locations. And we did hear Hexaf, the Secretary of Defense yesterday at the hearings, actually said in those hearings that they do have eyes on those facilities 24/7. Right. And and how would I mean, how would you even start to consider that, an operation of that magnitude? Now military parlance, we call this a CONOP, concept of operations. And a CONOP basically concisely concisely expresses what the JFC, the Joint Force Commander, intends to accomplish and how it will be done using all available assets to that Joint Force Commander. Okay. Well, let's get into this a little bit deeper and bring in our newest feature here on the security brief, the Intel Board.

[00:06:01]So as you can see, we we've brought up the map and we're going to focus in greater depth, Mikey, on those areas of the country that will come into focus.

[00:06:09]Yeah, so I want to take the viewers through where Isfahan is first. Here's Isfahan. It's about 450 km east of the Iraqi border, the Iraqi border in red here that runs down into the Persian Gulf. And it's also equidistant from the Iraqi border to Tehran. So again, about 450 km south. Now if we can zoom in, this is now taking us into the what's called the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. What's important about this is it's it's one of three nuclear facilities that were actually targeted by the Iranians in Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025. And if you remember, there were B-2 stealth bombers that launched all the way from the United States on a one-way on a two-way mission to drop the massive ordnance penetrator, that 30,000 lb bomb that could target facilities deep underground, not just Isfahan, but at Fordow and Natanz. And I think what's also important as well is that in order to facilitate that mission, so those B-2 bombers being able to get over the targets without any air defense threat, there will have been surface-to-air missile systems around these facilities.

[00:07:14]And when we zoom out, we can see the terrain that they would have to been softened up in the first place by US air strike assets before those B-2s came in.

[00:07:24]Can we focus on an area of the map that we've talked about in a previous episode where these two US C-130s were destroyed on the ground by the US forces? Yeah, so if you can just stick a pin on the Isfahan Nuclear Facility, please.

[00:07:41]Yeah, that distance is around 40 km.

[00:07:43]You've got this huge ridgeline here.

[00:07:45]This was an airstrip where two US C-130s were landed. And the Pentagon say that they were there to facilitate the F-15E shoot down. So basically the weapon systems operator, the rear crew guy or girl.

[00:08:00]>> is a runway. Yeah, was basically it was under the guise of that rescue.

[00:08:05]This is the bomb damage assessment for the two C-130s that actually were blown up. Now, the US say that the two C-130s when they landed there, they they went into softened ground and they couldn't get out. But when you listen to open source intelligence, there's a lot of chatter online which suggests that those two C-130s, for whatever reason they were there, were hit by incoming fire and that's the reason they couldn't get out and therefore the US destroyed them, likely with air strikes when you look at the video footage, in order to prevent the IRGC getting their hands on any sensitive capability that they had. So in military parlance, we'll come back to the map. What what would the concept of operations be?

[00:08:43]What does the the pre-assault operation on something like Isfahan look like?

[00:08:47]Christian, can you just pin Isfahan Nuclear Facility here for me, please?

[00:08:51]On the map. And then down here, which is where the airstrip is.

[00:08:56]So as we said, that distance there is about 40 km. Um So what the US strategic military planners will have been looking at is this whole entire area. So yes, there's an airstrip down here. Yes, it's proven.

[00:09:11]However, um they will be scouring that area. Remember, um Project Sapphire, Operation Sapphire, that was only 10 km away from the airport that they needed to get the fissile material out of. This is 40 km and there's a huge ridgeline running all the way across here. It's a very inhospitable terrain. So the planners will be looking at likely airstrips. They will likely take helicopters in.

[00:09:34]But also, they'll be looking at what's called an IPB. If you can just draw a box around this area for me.

[00:09:41]They'll be scouring this whole area for opportunity.

[00:09:45]This is called an IPB, Intelligence Preparation of the Battle Space. And there will be a number of individuals involved from intelligence to operations to planning, force protection. And what they'll be doing is they'll be scouring the whole area to look at likely infiltration or exploitation routes.

[00:10:01]They'll be looking at potential air threats. So we've talked about surface-to-air missile systems that would be taken out, but there's also these MANPADS as well that we spoke about in terms of the threat, the the shoulder-launched missile. They can pop up anywhere. So this whole box will be an area of interest when determining any course of action.

[00:10:19]And presumably they'd have to soften that up just the same way as they softened up Isfahan during Midnight Hammer. Yeah, 100%. I mean the heli assault force or whoever whoever they decide to go in and secure, that will need a lot of pre-op work. And that pre-op work will be likely through MQ-9 Reaper drones. We know there's been over 20 shot down over Iran, but they're a critical asset when it comes to the imagery on all of this. So they'll be they'll be scaring that area on what's called pattern of life. Maybe the RQ-170, which is the stealth drone that we saw over Venezuela. They'll be two key assets. And what that imagery and that intelligence will allow them to do is feed that back to the pre-strike packages that will come in and they'll neutralize anything that there might be a threat to the main effort. And you talk about the Reapers, but quite obviously there are other strike assets out there. Yeah, there are. Likely F-15s. We've seen a lot of coverage of those F-15s from Lakenheath operating in theater.

[00:11:13]Um they can go longer distances and they've got a significantly heavier payload.

[00:11:18]And they would be conducting the strikes on the intelligence that those drones that we were talking about had picked up through that intelligence >> The softening up. Exactly, yeah.

[00:11:27]Wouldn't just be F-15s. It could be the F-18 Hornets off the carrier, which do a similar job, air-to-ground. But also in conjunction off the carrier as well using the F-18 Growlers. They they provide the suppression of enemy air defense. An operation like this is not just about air strikes, it's about putting boots on the ground. No, absolutely no way you can even go close to a mission like this without putting boots on the ground.

[00:11:49]So the next bit that we'll talk about is what's called the infil, the infiltration.

[00:11:53]I don't think it's highly likely it would be a C-5 like we saw in Project Sapphire, so the huge aircraft. Likely to be either a C-17, which is significantly smaller, or a Charlie 130. We saw the two that were in on the strip. That's even smaller than a C-17.

[00:12:08]Um but what the C-17 and the C-130s do it it going back to that box where they're looking at options, it gives them greater options when it comes to putting aircraft on the ground and the type of air strips that they can actually >> not the biggest birds, the slightly smaller ones operating in a sort of relay fashion taking it out is how you envisage it. Yeah, so so no, not taking out. Those aircraft would go in and they would put the boots on the ground.

[00:12:33]So we're so we're talking about 82nd we're talking about 82nd Airborne. They would likely be used for force protection, so when Isfahan is secured, and then you're going to have a mix of Navy SEALs, probably Delta Force doing any heli assaults that required.

[00:12:46]So that initial objective of seizing Isfahan would be likely special forces and then force protection of 82nd Airborne that would come in. So you just said once Isfahan is secured, what happens at that point? So you're then going to need to bring in helicopter activity. You're going to want to have air mobility of those forces on the ground. And then obviously the other specialist equipment like bulldozers and rubble clearing machinery. I mean there will be intelligence that the US have to show the state of Isfahan after Operation Midnight Hammer, but they're going to have to go in and they're going to have to recce that. Yeah, and because I'm assuming that one of the secondary objectives here is not only to remove the enriched uranium, it is also to destroy the centrifuges and the equipment that is within those tunnels.

[00:13:32]Yeah, and before that happens, the recce will need to take place. Need to identify the exact location of that 440 kg or if it's split up around three locations. And then a combined assessment of how do you get to the enriched uranium? That could take days if not weeks to try and figure that out with engineers and the nuclear emergency support team.

[00:13:52]So that combination of work between those teams would be critical. Now coming to your point on the secondary objectives, centrifuges, they're absolutely critical to enriching uranium. We know that Iran has thousands under there. What we don't know is how many were destroyed by the strikes on Operation Midnight Hammer. So if you're in military planning then, what would you assume is the extent of an operation like this? How long are you going to have boots on the ground? Yeah, I mean we saw Project Sapphire was four weeks in a permissive environment. In a non-permissive in a non-permissive environment, um we're looking at weeks if not months.

[00:14:28]This this course of action is a completely whole other ballgame.