After U.S. strikes, Iran increases work at mysterious underground site
Satellite imagery indicates Iran is continuing construction of a deeply buried military site at “Pickaxe Mountain,” just south of the Natanz nuclear facility hit by Israeli and U.S. strikes in June, Washington Post says.
Iran has increased construction at a mysterious underground site in the months since the U.S. and Israel pummeled its main nuclear facilities, suggesting Tehran has not entirely ceased work on its suspected weapons program and may be cautiously rebuilding, according to a Washington Post review of satellite imagery and independent analysis.
The ongoing work is at a site known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or Pickaxe Mountain, where since 2020, Iranian engineers have been tunneling deep into the Zagros mountain range — about a mile south of the nuclear complex at Natanz, which was a target of U.S. bombing strikes on June 22.
(Photo from Maxar)
The purpose of Pickaxe Mountain remains unclear. International nuclear inspectors have never visited and Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tehran rebuffed his questions about the site earlier this year.
Analysts who have monitored its construction estimate the halls under Pickaxe Mountain may be even deeper — between 260 and 330 feet — than those at Iran’s Fordow facility, which U.S. warplanes struck with massive earth-penetrating bombs. The site’s aboveground footprint sprawls over roughly a square mile of mountainside, with a pair of tunnel entrances on both the east and west side.
Construction on the tunnels began in December of the same year according to an analyst at the satellite firm, Maxar. But its dimensions and depth have generated suspicions among analysts that it is intended for other purposes, either as a new covert uranium enrichment facility or a secure storage site for Iran’s stockpiles of near-weapons grade uranium.
“The administration will continue to monitor any attempt by Iran to rebuild its nuclear program. As President Trump has said, he will never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” said a White House official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Recent satellite imagery also captured the presence of heavy equipment and construction vehicles.
“The presence of dump trucks, trailers, and other heavy equipment … indicates continued construction and expansion of the underground facility,” said Joseph Rodgers, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which issued a report last month noting the activity at Pickaxe Mountain.
Since the end of June, 4,000 feet of the western edge of the security wall has been erected, bringing its full enclosure closer to completion, and a road has been graded parallel to the perimeter.
(Photo from Maxar)
