US bulks up ‘bunker buster’ to combat Iran threat

JTA — US officials told Israel that the United States has new weapons capable of destroying Iran’s underground nuclear site in Fordo, an American daily reported.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday quoted diplomats as saying that US officials had shown video footage to their Israeli counterparts of an earlier version of a bunker buster bomb in action and explained the advanced features which have been added.

The video displays the bomb hitting the ground near its target and setting off a massive underground explosion, sources told the Journal.

The Journal quoted unnamed US officials as saying the improved Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, will serve to convince Israel to hold off on unilaterally attacking Iran and give Washington more time to diplomatically neutralize the suspected Iranian nuclear threat.

The MOP bomb weighs 30,000 pounds and has been improved with “adjusted fuses to maximize its burrowing power, upgraded guidance systems to improve its precision and high-tech equipment intended to allow it to evade Iranian air defenses in order to reach and destroy the Fordow nuclear enrichment complex,” according to the Journal.