Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, suspected of housing an underground nuclear facility (Reuters)
Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, suspected of housing an underground nuclear facility (Reuters)

A US think tank has found that construction activity surged this year at Pickaxe Mountain, a site suspected of housing an underground nuclear facility. Donald Trump has repeatedly singled out the mountain as a potential target for attack.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) posted an analysis on its website Wednesday (local time). It was written by Joseph Rodgers, deputy director of the think tank's nuclear issues project, and colleagues. The analysis found that road-related construction activity at Pickaxe Mountain was observed more frequently this year than in previous years. The report noted a clear jump in construction consistent with heightening and reinforcing entrances leading to underground facilities, paving internal road networks and reinforcing areas around entrances. It also cited flattening and removal of excavated soil as part of this activity.

CSIS reached its conclusions after analyzing various images of Pickaxe Mountain and the nearby Natanz nuclear facility dating back to 2020. The research drew on six years of synthetic aperture radar change-detection data, Sentinel-2 optical change-detection data, Airbus very-high-resolution imagery from July 9, and Satellogic imagery from Aug. 9.

"Clear signs of three-phase activity were visible at five key points of interest and the roads connecting them, suggesting a shift from an excavation phase to internal construction and then external reinforcement," the report said. It went on to say that "sustained construction activity, the absence of enhanced internal security posture, and the lack of vehicles or equipment unrelated to construction suggest that, even if the facility's purpose is enrichment, the underground site does not yet have the capability to conduct enrichment work."

Still, the report took a cautious stance, saying such circumstantial evidence alone cannot confirm or refute Israeli intelligence assertions. Israeli intelligence has claimed that Iran moved centrifuges — used to enrich uranium, a key ingredient for nuclear weapons — to Pickaxe Mountain.

The report suggested Iran may be building a centrifuge assembly facility at Pickaxe Mountain and that the site could also house uranium enrichment facilities. Iran reportedly holds 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which could be further enriched to produce nuclear weapons.

Another possibility raised in the report is that Iran could be shifting additional nuclear weapons-related research and activity from the nearby Natanz nuclear facility to Pickaxe Mountain. "While open-source material alone is insufficient to fully determine what is happening at Pickaxe Mountain, it is suspicious that Iran is building a facility just 2 kilometers from Natanz," the report said.

Pickaxe Mountain has long been suspected as a site where Iran has been relocating nuclear facilities from Natanz. Iran announced in 2020 that it was breaking ground on an underground centrifuge assembly facility near Natanz and has since refused inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike Pickaxe Mountain this year. On July 21, he said the site would be struck "very hard, and soon." On Friday, he said, "If something's going on there, we'll be able to hit it fast."

CSIS assessed that the underground facility at Pickaxe Mountain would be difficult to destroy with the massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bombs the United States currently possesses for airdrop use. The mountain, the think tank said, is a deeply buried granite fortress. It would be hard to destroy even with the United States' most powerful non-nuclear munitions, such as the GBU-57 bunker buster. "Military strikes could degrade or temporarily disable the facility, but continuing to bomb Iran's nuclear infrastructure indefinitely is not sustainable, which underscores the need for a verifiable diplomatic solution," the report said.

With that apparently in mind, the US military is reportedly developing a next-generation penetrator bomb capable of striking targets buried even deeper underground. CNN reported that the military "is working to develop a 'next-generation penetrator weapon' that would replace the current MOP and be able to strike more deeply buried targets," adding that "a prototype development contract was signed last September, and the Air Force solicited industry proposals for the new weapon in June."


kate01@heraldcorp.com