Inside Pickaxe Mountain: Iran's Nuclear Bunker That Has Trump on Edge

Tensions between the United States (US) and Iran have flared up again after President Donald Trump threatened to attack Pickaxe Mountain, an underground nuclear facility near the Natanz uranium enrichment complex. Despite its long-standing notoriety, little information is known about the facility, which is believed to be buried almost 100 metres inside the mountain. Trump stressed that his administration remains committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He even stated that the US military would ‘hit that area in the near future, and very hard’. However, Trump also acknowledged that US intelligence had not detected activity at the site. ‘They are not performing well with their nuclear situation. Every time we hear about it, we blow it up. We may give Pickaxe a chance in the relatively near future,’ he said. Pickaxe Mountain, known in Iran as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, is located about 220 kilometres south of Tehran and only about 2 kilometres from the Natanz nuclear facility. Construction of the underground complex began in 2020 following a sabotage incident that damaged the Natanz facility. At the time, former head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said his country was building a ‘more modern, larger, and more comprehensive facility in the heart of the mountain near Natanz’ to produce advanced centrifuges. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said Iran had indeed communicated plans to move some of its nuclear activities underground. ‘This is part of their quite systematic intention to place their most sensitive facilities underground,’ Grossi said. Based on satellite imagery analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), the complex has two pairs of tunnel entrances and has recently been fitted with security walls. As US and Israeli attacks have intensified, one of the tunnel accesses has been reinforced and partially closed to hinder vehicle entry. Foreign Policy Research Institute researcher Sam Lair assessed that reinforcing the tunnel entrance would make the facility more difficult to destroy using bunker-buster bombs, indicating that Iran continues to strengthen its defences despite rising threats. The ISIS report also noted that the Pickaxe Mountain facility is likely not yet fully operational as construction is ongoing. Nevertheless, the institute assessed that Iran could potentially use the complex as a smaller-scale centrifuge assembly site to support its nuclear programme once construction is complete. Experts consider the deeply buried facility extremely difficult to destroy through air strikes, even with the most advanced US bunker-buster bombs. Consequently, ISIS assessed that ground operations or sabotage might be more effective, although air strikes with earth-penetrating weapons could still exploit certain weak points. There is currently no indication that Trump will deploy ground troops to Iran. However, the latest threat against Pickaxe Mountain underscores that the facility remains a key strategic target amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme.