Trump Vows to Bomb Iran's Pickaxe Mountain Nuclear Site
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- Pickaxe Mountain (Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La), an under-construction facility near Iran's Natanz site about 225km south of Tehran, has never been bombed by the US or Israel and remains beyond the reach of the GBU-57 bunker-buster, which penetrates only about 60m of earth, according to experts who estimate the site is 80-100m deep or more.
- Trump said on Tuesday the US would bomb Pickaxe Mountain "pretty soon" and "very heavily," acknowledging Iran may have moved centrifuges there, while Iran denied on July 22 that any nuclear activity exists at the site, calling US focus a "fabricated pretext for aggression."
- Construction at Pickaxe Mountain began in 2020 after sabotage damaged Natanz; Iran's then-nuclear chief said it would house a "more modern, larger and more comprehensive hall" for advanced centrifuges, and the 2.7 sq km compound now has multiple entrances visible from satellite imagery.
- The IAEA has never gained access to Pickaxe Mountain, leaving it unclear what has been placed there; Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% is believed to still sit at bombed enrichment sites, with no known restart of enrichment since the 2025 strikes.
- Think-tank ISIS said Pickaxe Mountain "would be more suitable for ground forces to attack or sabotage," though it noted vulnerabilities "may also exist that can be exploited by deep earth penetrating weapons," and US officials reportedly discussed using two GBU-57 bombs in succession to ensure destruction.
- Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (killed Feb 28 in the opening moments of the 2025 war), has not issued any statement on his views regarding the atomic bomb, breaking from his father's verbal fatwa declaring nuclear weapons un-Islamic.
Why it matters: The IAEA has never inspected Pickaxe Mountain, and Iran denies any nuclear activity exists there — yet Trump is threatening strikes on a facility whose contents and depth remain unverified, with experts saying the 80-100m (or deeper) site may exceed the GBU-57's 60m penetration limit, making destruction uncertain even with multiple bombs.
