US President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States would attack the Iranian nuclear facility known as Pickaxe Mountain, located near the Natanz enrichment complex in Isfahan province in central Iran. "We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to get ready. Tell them we're coming, and there's nothing they can do about it," Trump said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
It is one of the most mysterious sites associated with Iran's nuclear program. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have never been allowed inside, and the facility is believed to be so deep, and protected by such dense rock, that it could be even more difficult to strike from the air than Fordow.
Pickaxe Mountain, known in Persian as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, is located about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) south of the Natanz enrichment complex in Isfahan province. The compound covers roughly one square kilometer (0.4 square miles) of mountainside in the Zagros range. Iran has built a security fence several kilometers long around the mountain, connecting it to the perimeter fence surrounding the Natanz enrichment complex. Two paved access roads climb the mountain toward an area containing two tunnel entrances. The mountain itself, which is considerably taller than the one above Fordow, rises 1,608 meters (5,276 feet) above sea level.
Hewitt asked Trump whether he would insist that IAEA inspectors be allowed into Pickaxe Mountain's deep tunnels before a new agreement with Iran was signed, to ensure that no "doomsday machine" was being concealed there. "Absolutely," Trump replied. "They don't have it, because we have eyes, with Space Force and everything else. We have a lot of eyes on it. But Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice, big, fat shot right in the front door. I think you may see that. I'm telling them that right now."
The president later added: "We're watching it very closely, and we don't see any activity there. They're not in good shape with their nuclear situation. Every time we hear about something, we blow it up. That's why they don't like talking about it. But we're probably going to give the mountain a shot relatively soon." Trump's claim that the US was not seeing any activity at the site appears to contradict a report published just 10 days earlier by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
According to the institute, which analyzed satellite imagery from late June, vehicles and trucks were seen traveling along roads leading to and around the facility's western entrances. The report said the activity indicated "that work inside the tunnel complex, as well as reinforcement of the tunnel entrance, is continuing." The eastern entrances had previously been partially blocked with soil, apparently to prevent vehicles from entering or leaving quickly.
The institute said the activity violated the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran, which requires Tehran to maintain the status quo of its nuclear program, including a ban on construction or reconstruction at nuclear sites. At the same time, no significant reconstruction has been observed at Iran's three other main nuclear sites, which were attacked and severely damaged during the 12-day war.
At Natanz, access points to the underground enrichment halls have not been repaired. At Fordow and Isfahan, the tunnel entrances remain blocked with soil. More than half of Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% is believed to be hidden at Isfahan.
Unlike the Natanz enrichment facility, which is regarded as the heart of Iran's enrichment program and has repeatedly been targeted over the years in airstrikes, sabotage operations and cyberattacks attributed to Israel, the nearby Pickaxe Mountain facility has never been attacked. It was not targeted during the 12-day war in June 2025 or during the current round of fighting, which began in late February 2026.
Construction at the mountain began after a sabotage operation attributed to Israel on July 2, 2020, when an advanced centrifuge production plant at Natanz exploded. The operation, which caused extensive damage to the facility, was widely attributed to Israel.
Ali Akbar Salehi, then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee that Iran had decided to build a new centrifuge assembly hall "in the heart of the mountain near Natanz," adding that "work has already begun."
According to an assessment published by the Institute for Science and International Security in January 2022, the underground halls are located between 78 and 145 meters (256 to 476 feet) below the mountain's summit, depending on the excavation method and the angle at which the tunnels and halls were carved.
Later estimates by other researchers placed the facility at a depth of about 100 meters (328 feet), although some assessments suggested it could be even deeper. By comparison, Fordow's enrichment halls are buried about 80 to 90 meters (262 to 295 feet) below the summit of the mountain above them.
Fordow was attacked with several GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs aimed at the facility's ventilation infrastructure. The objective was to penetrate deeply enough into the mountain to destroy the enrichment halls themselves, where Iran operated its advanced centrifuges.
Even now, despite US claims that the facility was destroyed, the extent of the damage remains unclear, underscoring the difficulty of destroying heavily fortified underground installations. "Fordow is already viewed as buried so deeply that it would be difficult to destroy in an air attack," Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright wrote in the 2022 report. "The new Natanz site may be even more difficult to destroy."
The West has detailed knowledge of Fordow's internal structure thanks to plans obtained by the Mossad from Iran's nuclear archive in Tehran in 2018. Far less public information is available about the Pickaxe Mountain facility. IAEA inspectors have never been allowed inside, and agency Director General Rafael Grossi has previously acknowledged that Tehran rejected his questions about the site.
