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ISIS: Iran has enough uranium for 5 bombs

29 May 2012 07:48 (UTC +04:00)

According to Reuters, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a think-tank which tracks Iran’s nuclear program closely, based the analysis on data in the latest report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which was issued on Friday. Friday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based U.N. body, showed Iran was pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment work in defiance of U.N. resolutions calling on it to suspend the activity. It said Iran had produced almost 6.2 tons of uranium enriched to a level of 3.5 percent since it began the work in 2007 - some of which has subsequently been further processed into higher-grade material. This is nearly 750 kg more than in the previous IAEA report issued in February, and ISIS said Iran’s monthly production had risen by roughly a third.

Friday’s IAEA report also said environmental samples taken in February at Iran’s Fordow facility - buried deep beneath rock and soil to protect it from air strikes - showed the presence of particles with enrichment levels of up to 27 percent.
It alarmed a suspicious West since such enhanced enrichment accomplishes much of the technical leap towards 90 percent - or weapons-grade - uranium.