The Trump administration is mulling a ground operation to retrieve Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, according to a media report published on Monday.
The highly enriched uranium is believed to be sitting in a storage facility deep underground, according to military officials who spoke to CNN.
The officials said that US President Donald Trump's move to seize the uranium stockpile would require a significant number of US ground troops, not just a special forces operation.
Much of the uranium is believed to be at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site, and retrieving the material would align with Trump's edict of completely eliminating Iran’s nuclear capability, which was one of the president’s stated aims of the war.
Military experts said that if the Trump administration went ahead with an operation to retrieve the uranium, it could mark the first major commitment of US ground forces to the war.
If that plan is executed, it would be a military escalation that would put a large number of troops in danger, as it would require a complex mission to safely recover and transport a large amount of highly radioactive material.
The uranium at the Isfahan facility is accessible to the Iranians, who have been working to clear the debris from damage to its aboveground facilities caused by US military air strikes in June last year.
US intelligence agencies believe the Iranians have access to the underground tunnels where the uranium was hidden. Officials believe that 200 kilogrammes of uranium is probably still at the Isfahan site, with additional radioactive material also believed to be stored at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.
Iran has claimed that it uses the uranium only for peaceful energy purposes. But experts said enriching the material above a certain threshold — around 90 percent — means it can be used to create nuclear weapons.
Iran’s uranium is currently enriched at around 60 percent, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Trump has repeatedly said that Iran can never be allowed to have a nuclear weapons programme.
"One thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon," the president said last month.
