From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 27:
Hidden in the mountains of Iran, there is a stockpile of canisters that could determine the future of the war.
The large steel tanks are filled with 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for a nuclear bomb.
It has been described as the "crown jewels" of Iran's nuclear program.
For years, the regime in Tehran has spent billions of dollars amassing the material and concealing it in a sophisticated tunnel network underneath a remote mountain range.
When the US and Israel attacked Iran last June, with the sole purpose of dismantling its nuclear arsenal, US President Donald Trump said the mission was a great success.
But the enriched uranium survived.
Debate over how close Iran is to a warhead
With Israel and the United States at war again with Iran, both countries have vowed to destroy Tehran's nuclear capabilities.But experts say that cannot be achieved unless they find and secure control of the enriched uranium.
David Albright is a world authority on nuclear weapons and the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security.
He said that if the US and Israel were unable to seize the material, Iran could race towards developing a destructive nuclear weapon.
"It wouldn't take long, even with a very small clandestine enrichment program, to turn it into weapon-grade uranium," he told the ABC.
"Israel's been going to great trouble to destroy the parts of the Iranian program that deal with making the nuclear weapons themselves.
Mr Albright explained that the material is "60 per cent enriched", which is considered the strategic step before the uranium becomes nuclear grade.
"If you have 60 per cent in enriched uranium, in terms of enrichment effort, you're 99 per cent of the way to 90 per cent, so at 60 per cent it wouldn't take long, even with a very small clandestine enrichment program, to turn it into weapon-grade uranium," he told the ABC....
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