Donald Trump wants the world to know that Pickaxe Mountain is in his crosshairs. Speaking from the Oval Office, he warned that the U.S. is preparing to hit the secretive Iranian nuclear complex "pretty soon," brushing off doubts with characteristic swagger. "There's not a thing they can do about it," he told reporters.
It sounds straightforward enough. You spot a facility, load up a heavy bomber, drop a massive ordnance penetrator, and walk away. But behind the headline threats lies a far tougher engineering and intelligence reality.
Pickaxe Mountain isn't just another warehouse or a surface-level bunker. Known in Persian as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, this compound sits roughly 1.5 kilometers south of the heavily targeted Natanz enrichment complex in Isfahan province. It was dug directly into solid mountain rock specifically so it couldn't be destroyed by conventional airstrikes.
Before anyone talks about taking out Pickaxe Mountain, they need to reckon with why it exists, how deep it really goes, and why even America's most powerful bunker-busting bombs might struggle to finish the job.
The Underground Fortifications at Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La
If you look at satellite imagery from the arid Central Plateau in Iran, you won't see massive industrial smokestacks or sprawling glass complexes at Pickaxe Mountain. You see two paved access roads winding up a mountain that rises over 1,600 meters above sea level. You see fortified tunnel portals, heavy security fencing connected to the Natanz perimeter, and anti-aircraft batteries guarding the ridges.
The main site, officially named the Shahid Alimohammadi facility, spans roughly one square kilometer. But what matters is what happens under the bedrock.
According to estimates by the Institute for Science and International Security, the main halls inside Pickaxe Mountain sit anywhere between 80 and 145 meters underground. Some military analysts think the deepest halls push even further into the mountain core.
To put that in perspective, compare it to Fordow—the famously fortified underground enrichment plant near Qom. Fordow's halls sit under roughly 80 to 90 meters of rock. Pickaxe Mountain is significantly deeper, covered by a taller mountain peak, and carved into denser granite and soil.
Iran didn't build this by accident. They built it because their main above-ground facilities kept getting blown up.
How Natanz Sabotage Built a Harder Target
To understand why Pickaxe Mountain exists, you have to rewind to July 2020.
A mysterious explosion completely leveled a newly built, above-ground centrifuge assembly hall at Natanz. Israel was widely believed to be behind the sabotage operation. The attack dealt a massive blow to Iran's ability to assemble advanced centrifuges like the IR-4 and IR-6 models, which spin uranium gas at blistering speeds to raise its purity.
Tehran didn't throw in the towel. Instead, Ali Akbar Salehi, then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, went on state television and made a clear declaration: Iran would rebuild the hall, but this time, in the "heart of the mountain near Natanz".
Excavation started almost immediately. Earth-moving equipment began carving four separate tunnel entrances into the south face of the mountain ridge. Iranian engineers poured massive layers of reinforced concrete around the tunnel portals, then buried them under meters of compacted soil and rock to absorb kinetic blasts.
By 2022, satellite imagery confirmed that subterranean halls covering thousands of square meters had been excavated. While Western intelligence agencies watched the main Natanz enrichment halls get pummeled by strikes and cyberattacks over subsequent years, construction at Pickaxe Mountain quietly churned on.
When previous bombing campaigns targeted Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz, Pickaxe Mountain was left virtually untouched. That left Tehran with an intact, hardened fallback option.
The Bunker Buster Problem and Bedrock Physics
This brings us to the core technical problem for U.S. defense planners. How do you destroy something buried under 100 meters of solid mountain?
The U.S. military relies on the GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a 30,000-pound precision-guided bunker buster carried by B-2 stealth bombers. The GBU-57 was designed specifically to target deep underground installations like Fordow.
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| ESTIMATED BURIAL DEPTHS |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Fordow Facility: ~80 - 90 meters underground |
| GBU-57 Max Penetration: ~60 meters through earth/rock |
| Pickaxe Mountain (Kuh-e Kolang): ~80 - 145+ meters under bedrock |
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The air force claims the GBU-57 can penetrate about 60 meters of earth and rock before its warhead detonates. You notice the math problem immediately. Sixty meters of penetration capacity doesn't reach a hall buried 100 to 145 meters deep.
To bypass this limit, tactics call for dropping two or more GBU-57 bombs on the exact same GPS coordinates in rapid succession. The first bomb blasts a deep crater into the rock, and the second bomb flies into that crater to drill even deeper before detonating.
In theory, it works. In practice, hitting an under-bedrock bunker beneath a 1,600-meter mountain peak isn't a simple calculation.
- Granite geology deflects kinetic energy differently than soft soil or limestone.
- Multiple layers of reinforced concrete inside tunnel headers can choke the blast wave.
- Heavy debris from an initial blast can fill in the crater, buffering the impact of a second strike.
Even if a strike fails to crush the deep underground halls, military planners argue that hitting the tunnel entrances, power supplies, and ventilation shafts could seal the complex, trapping whatever is inside. But sealing an entrance isn't the same as destroying the infrastructure inside. Digging out a collapsed portal takes weeks, not years.
Following the Material versus Blowing Up Tunnels
There's another crucial nuance that often gets lost in high-stakes rhetoric. Is Pickaxe Mountain an active uranium enrichment plant, or is it an empty shell waiting for equipment?
When asked whether Iran had already moved centrifuges into the mountain, Trump admitted the uncertainty himself. "Well, I think that they may have. We don't have it on record," he noted during an Oval Office briefing. Later, he added a key strategic detail: "We follow the material, that's where the action is".
That phrase reveals the central dilemma.
If Iran hasn't moved highly enriched nuclear material or operational centrifuge cascades into Pickaxe Mountain, striking the site accomplishes little beyond destroying concrete and rock. Recent intelligence reports from Israeli sources claim Iran transferred thousands of centrifuge components into the mountain tunnels. Yet satellite tracking shows the actual stockpiles of 60% enriched uranium remain largely stored at previously targeted storage sites like Isfahan.
Striking empty or partially fitted tunnels carries massive geopolitical costs. It risks triggering retaliatory strikes across the Strait of Hormuz—a bottleneck carrying nearly 20% of global oil shipments—without actually wiping out Iran's nuclear material.
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| THE STRATEGIC TRADE-OFF |
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| Target Empty Tunnels: Destroys rock & concrete; risks escalation |
| without destroying actual nuclear material |
| Target Stored Material: Destroys active stock, but leaves deep |
| fortified halls intact for future use |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
What the Nuclear Watchdog Cannot See
The biggest wild card isn't the thickness of the mountain rock—it's the total lack of international visibility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has never set foot inside Pickaxe Mountain. Under the terms of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, Iran was required to provide design details for any new nuclear construction long before feeding nuclear material into machines. But after the U.S. pulled out of the agreement and subsequent strikes damaged Iranian sites, Tehran severely restricted IAEA inspector access.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has repeatedly urged Iran to allow inspectors into the facility. Iran's official response has remained consistent: Pickaxe Mountain is simply a replacement manufacturing workshop for centrifuges, not a nuclear enrichment site containing active uranium gas.
Because design plans weren't turned over, Western intelligence agencies rely almost entirely on satellite imagery, seismic monitoring, and signals intelligence.
We know construction crews continued backfilling soil near the eastern tunnel portals. We know security fences were extended to link the mountain to the Natanz nuclear perimeter. But whether those underground halls house empty assembly lines or running cascades of advanced centrifuges remains an educated guess.
What Comes Next
Blowing up Pickaxe Mountain is a lot easier said on television than done in the skies over Isfahan. A successful military operation would require precise, multi-wave strikes using heavy strategic bombers, perfect intelligence on subterranean hall placement, and a willingness to handle the economic fallout across global energy markets.
Keep these practical reality checks in mind when following updates on Pickaxe Mountain:
- Watch the IAEA reports first. The real indicator of escalation isn't just political threats—it's whether Iran formally declares nuclear material at Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La or blocks inspector access entirely.
- Track B-2 bomber deployments. Any serious strike on a facility this deep requires US Air Force B-2 Spirit bombers operating out of Diego Garcia or Whiteman Air Force Base, equipped with GBU-57 MOPs.
- Differentiate material from infrastructure. Remember that destroying tunnel entrances is temporary. Unless the physical uranium stockpile or active centrifuge halls are neutralized, the facility can be re-excavated.
