IRAN has enough lethal uranium to make 12 devastating nuclear bombs in less half a year, an ex-UN weapons inspector has warned.

The terrifying warning comes amid rising fears of a third world war, as hotbeds of conflict tied to Iran erupt all around the globe.

Former UN inspector David Albright, based in Iraq, thinks Iran could be mass producing the lethal uranium in just weeks.

Tehran already knows how to build nuclear weapons with the right materials, and it’s not the first time fears have been raised about their plans to do so.

Modern nuclear weapons need uranium which has been enriched by up to 90 per cent – and International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) inspectors think Iran could start doing this very soon.

Britain’s defence secretary Grant Shapps has also warned the world that Iran has enriched uranium already at a staggering 83.7 per cent.

Ex-IAEA expert Albright said:  “The unfortunate reality is that Iran already knows how to build nuclear weapons, although there are some unfinished tasks related to the actual construction of them.

“Iran can quickly make enough weapon-grade uranium for many nuclear weapons, something it could not do in 2003.

“Today, it would need only about a week to produce enough for its first nuclear weapon.

“It could have enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for 12.”

In a report for the US-based Institute for Science and International Security, Albright said Iran had already mastered enrichment and missile technology, two of the three pillars to building a successful nuclear weapon.

While Iranian scientists are still working out how to weaponise the uranium in order to make the weapons – they are some stretch of the way there.

It’s not the first time fears have been raised about Iran’s access or production of nuclear weapons.

The danger with the Middle East is with Iran’s nuclear weapon. We understand they are pretty close to creating a nuclear weapon. Once they do that the balance in the region changes.

Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

In 2022 its Supreme Leader boasted about how the country could “produce a nuclear bomb” after Biden finished a four-day trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia where he vowed to stop Iran from “acquiring a nuclear weapon”.

Now that the world is at it’s “most dangerous and volatile moment” in history, the risk seems even greater.

Iran’s terror proxies – including Hezbollah and the Houthis – have gone up against Israel, the US and UK repeatedly since the October 7 attacks and the Israel-Hamas war.

And Tehran’s funding and wide-reaching influence has proven a deadly background force time and again.

Ex-British tank commander Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Sun Iran is “the great axis of evil in all this”.

“They are behind everything that is going on,” he added.

“The danger with the Middle East is with Iran’s nuclear weapon. We understand they are pretty close to creating a nuclear weapon.

“Once they do that the balance in the region changes.”

Nuclear weapon production

This pillar of creating a nuke includes building the highly explosive nuclear trigger system.

It sets off the chain of reactions that results in a nuke’s devastating moment of impact.

Albright said: “Weaponisation is the pole that needs more work.

“It involves theoretical calculations and simulations; development, testing, and construction of the other components of the nuclear weapon.

“The conversion of weapon-grade uranium into metallic components, the integration of all the components into a nuclear weapon and the preparation for mounting the weapons on aircraft or missiles or for use in a full-scale underground test.”