New satellite imagery reveals a construction surge this year at Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected Iranian nuclear site buried beneath granite, according to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. CNN reported the CSIS analysis exclusively. The findings come as President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike the site, and as the Pentagon works to build bombs capable of reaching it.
Roughly 140 miles south of Tehran, near the Natanz nuclear complex, Pickaxe Mountain has drawn steady attention from intelligence agencies that regard it as a likely place for Iran to shield future nuclear work. A new satellite imagery analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, obtained exclusively by CNN ahead of its publication, found "a clear surge in construction activity" at the site this year.
Construction activity has surged this year at Pickaxe Mountain, a suspected Iranian nuclear site near Natanz, 140 miles south of Tehran, per new CSIS satellite analysis shared with CNN. https://t.co/GGMCVdHvui pic.twitter.com/AK8zhly9ft
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 9, 2026
CSIS analysts believe the underground facility serves a specific purpose. In their assessment, it was "likely" built as a safe haven for Iran's nuclear program.
Israeli intelligence has suggested Iran may be moving centrifuges to the site as part of its uranium enrichment efforts, even as President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike it.
"We may hit Pickaxe very soon," Trump told reporters last week, noting separately that "we know everybody that's moving" at the site. Even the Pentagon's "heaviest non-nuclear" bombs would struggle against the granite mountain, the CSIS team found; the outlet also flagged it as one of several Iranian nuclear facilities believed to lie beyond the reach of current-generation weapons.
Four days before the US launched Operation Epic Fury with Israel in February, CNN found that a program manager at a Pentagon agency combating weapons of mass destruction signed an emergency $1.2 million contract justification to repair a "unique subterranean test facility at White Sands Missile Range" in New Mexico for a "live-fire test designed to validate classified capabilities against rapidly emerging threats."
CNN confirmed the filing through a review of federal contracting records. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's document was uploaded to a database on February 27, the day before the war started. Another database labeled the contract awarded to Pate Construction "rapid test prep." The memo said it needed to be finished within two-to-three weeks because of "a time-sensitive national security directive."
CNN was told by three sources familiar with the matter that the test plans were tied to the Iran war. The goal, they said, was to develop a way to target Iran's deepest-buried underground facilities and, likely, simulate US strikes on specific nuclear sites.
A contract to begin prototype work on a "next generation penetrator" bomb, meant to succeed the current MOP and reach deeper targets, was awarded in September 2025, before the Air Force solicited defense industry sources for the new weapon in June.
CNN identified excavation activity at a remote site at White Sands between February 16 and February 18. DTRA and US Strategic Command jointly operate the site to test how weapons affect deeply buried targets. Federal records show the timing lines up with an emergency contract: Pate Construction submitted its estimate on February 17 and received the deal the next day. Work at the site, known as the Alternate Seismic Hardrock in Situ Test Site, continued into mid-March as a pile of excavation dirt grew, before that activity appeared to halt, the imagery showed. CNN cited an environmental assessment that found the DTRA test site in White Sands is carved into granite. Like Pickaxe Mountain, the location shares that same underlying rock.
A source familiar with the matter told CNN the US military maintains operational strike plans against Pickaxe, part of a target package under consideration this summer as Trump threatened to escalate the conflict with Iran, though it remains unclear whether the plan's use of some of the largest US bombs could penetrate deep enough to destroy whatever Iran may have relocated there.
A source familiar with the matter told CNN that elements within the War Department held a "planning sprint" on the topic. Efforts to develop plans for decisive strikes against underground facilities, the source said, continuing.
