Why is Fordow, the nuclear facility bombed by Trump, so important to Iran?

The Fordow nuclear facility, which was bombed by the United States on Saturday, has been considered one of the most important and fortified in Iran's nuclear program.

The facility, located near the city of Qom, lies at a depth of between 80 and 90 meters underground, inside a mountainous formation, according to reports.

Since the start of its preemptive war against the Iranian regime to curb its dangerous nuclear program just over a week ago,this nuclear plant has been one of Israel's main targetsdue to its use to enrich uranium to levels of 60% or more, very close to that needed to produce nuclear weapons (90%).

Its location and the fact that it had been protected with thick layers ofconcreteand aircraft defense systems, made bombing this facility with conventional bombing extremely difficult.

It could only be hit by special bombs.

Prior to the bombings executed by the United States, it was commented that only the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) -also known as the mother of all bombs-, which only the U.S. Army possesses, could damage the site in question. However, the Trump Administration used the powerful GBU-57A/B "bunker buster" bomb, defined as a massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) weighing 13,600 kg.

The facility housed about 2,000 centrifuges, most of them advanced IR-6 type, capable of enriching uranium at a much higher rate, the Israeli newspaper Ynet reported.

The Natanz nuclear facility, which suffered severe damage during Israel's Operation Rising Lion against Iran, was another major facility used by the Iranian theocratic regime to enrich uranium. It, along with the one in Isfahan, were also bombed by the United States.

The existence of the Natanz facility was revealed in 2009 and generated great concern in the international community.

"Mountains like this are a potential place to find uranium and also to build bunkers, as I have seen in China. To dig into them and build facilities and structures, tools based on diamonds or other hard materials capable of penetrating the rock are used," Professor Itzik Makovsky of the Strauss School of Marine Geosciences at the University of Haifa in Israel told Ynet.