Israel struck the main road between Tehran and Qom city, a regional center for the distribution of petroleum and related products, on Monday, according to footage viewed by The Jerusalem Post.

Earlier, the Israeli air force struck trucks smuggling missiles en route to Tehran from western Iran. 

Qom is located south of Tehran and is a regional center for the distribution of petroleum and related products.

It contains a natural gas pipeline from Bandar Anzali and Tehran and a crude oil pipeline from Tehran that both run through Qom to the Abadan refinery on the Persian Gulf.

The road between Qom and Tehran is a distance of 156 km.

Operation Heavy Roads, involving IDF special op. against Iranian missile production facility in Syria
Operation Heavy Roads, involving IDF special op. against Iranian missile production facility in Syria (credit: IDF)

IDF cannot leave Fordow intact

The Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, which, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, has enriched a huge amount of uranium to the 60% level and has tremendous enrichment capacity, is based in Qom Province and is about 30 km north of Qom city. 

In January, the Post reported that an IDF operation on an underground Iranian facility in Maysaf, Syria, could have lessons that could be applied to a raid on Fordow. 

While various aspects of the raid in Maysaf were easier than a potential raid in Iran, the Post noted that the January operation proved that the IDF could raid a highly guarded underground site in a foreign country, destroy it, and get out without losing any forces.

The report argued that leaving Fordow intact could risk angering Iranians into crossing the nuclear threshold without sufficiently removing their ability to do so.

This is a developing story.

Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.