Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site emerges as major US strike challenge CSIS data

A suspected Iranian nuclear facility buried beneath a granite mountain has seen a sharp increase in construction activity this year, according to satellite imagery analysed over six years by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The Pickaxe Mountain site, near Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex about 140 miles south of Tehran, is viewed by intelligence agencies as a potential location for protecting or rebuilding elements of Iran’s nuclear program. CSIS, as quoted by CNN, described “a clear surge in construction activity” in 2026.

Israeli intelligence has reportedly suggested that Iran may move centrifuges to the facility. CSIS said the site is likely intended for one of three purposes: centrifuge assembly, uranium enrichment or other nuclear-weapons-related work, including uranium metal conversion. The imagery, however, cannot independently establish whether centrifuges have been moved there.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike the site. “We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” he told reporters last week, adding, “we know everybody that’s moving" there.

The facility’s location deep inside granite could make it difficult to destroy with conventional weapons, including the Pentagon’s Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-buster bomb.

Evidence also suggests the United States has been examining ways to attack deeply buried targets. Four days before Operation Epic Fury began, a Pentagon agency responsible for countering weapons of mass destruction approved an emergency $1.2 million contract to repair a subterranean test facility at White Sands Missile Range for a “live-fire test designed to validate classified capabilities against rapidly emerging threats.”

Satellite imagery shows excavation at the site began between February 16 and 18 and continued into mid-March. The location, operated by the Defence Threat Reduction Agency and U.S. Strategic Command, is also carved into granite. Three sources told CNN the testing was connected to the Iran war and aimed at developing ways to strike deeply buried facilities.

The U.S. military maintains operational plans for striking Pickaxe Mountain, but it remains unclear whether existing weapons could penetrate deeply enough to destroy the facility.

By Tamilla Hasanova