Fordow is Iran's second pilot fuel enrichment plant (FFEP). It is located deep underground, at about 80 to 90 meters deep, inside a mountain near the city of Qom in northern Iran. According to the IAEA, the facility hosts 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges as well as 1,740 IR-6 centrifuges of Iran's most advanced type.

Since 1985, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a proxy conflict that has greatly affected the geopolitics of the Middle East. The turn from cold peace to open hostility began in the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War.

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the territory of the former Mandatory Palestine.