Israel’s former Mossad chief says spies ‘toured’ Iran nuclear site

JERUSALEM - A former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on Aug 11 said its spies had visited Iran’s Fordow nuclear site “many times” in the past in order to better understand the facility.

In June 2025, Israel launched a war against its arch-foe Iran with the stated goal of degrading its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, which it said posed an “existential threat”.

The United States military briefly joined Israel during the 12-day conflict, and used its advanced aircraft to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

“We toured the Fordow nuclear site many times to understand the site,” Yossi Cohen - who led Mossad between 2015 and 2021 - said during a conference of local authorities on Aug 11, according to Israeli media.

He didn’t elaborate on when exactly the visits took place or who made them.

According to Israeli media, Cohen said “the bombing of the site by the Americans was the fulfillment of all my dreams”.

Iran’s nuclear programme has long been a major point of contention between it and the West, including in negotiations aimed at ending the current war that Israel and the US launched against it in February.

Tehran has denied that it is seeking to produce a nuclear bomb.

Cohen, who is close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, played a prominent role during his time in office in achieving US-brokered normalisation deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.

Sudan also signed on to the Abraham Accords, but later descended into war and has never ratified or implemented them.

Cohen was linked to Israel’s killing in 2020 of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, although Israel has not commented on the incident.

After finishing his term at the helm of the agency, he has remained in the public eye, giving frequent interviews to Israeli media and repeatedly hinting at a possible foray into politics, which has not yet occurred. AFP