What to know about Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, home to an underground nuclear site threatened by

DUBAI: U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly issued threats to bomb an under-construction Iranian nuclear site buried deep under a mountain as the two nations exchange blows over the Strait of Hormuz.

The site, known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or “Pickaxe Mountain,” lies on the south side of Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site, which was bombed by the United States during Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025’s 12-day war between Iran and Israel. But Pickaxe Mountain has remained untouched as Iran continues to dig at the site.We’ll be hitting that area … probably pretty soon. And there’s not a thing they can do about it,” Trump said.

Here’s what to know about Pickaxe Mountain and the status of Iran’s nuclear program.

Pickaxe Mountain site was built after earlier attacks on Iran

The new project at Pickaxe Mountain is being constructed next to Natanz, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) south of Tehran, Iran’s capital. Natanz, a mix of above- and underground facilities, has been a point of international concern since its existence became known two decades ago. Repeated sabotage attacks on Natanz, one likely carried out by Israel that destroyed a manufacturing site for centrifuges, led Iranian officials to start work on the Pickaxe Mountain site.

Protected by anti-aircraft batteries, fencing and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, the facility sprawls across 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) in the country’s arid Central Plateau. It has multiple entrances visible from satellite images.Centrifuges, tube-shaped devices arranged in large cascades of dozens of machines, rapidly spin uranium gas to enrich it. Additional cascades spinning would allow Iran to quickly enrich uranium under the mountain’s protection.

Such underground facilities led the U.S. to create the GBU-57 bomb, which can plow through at least 60 meters (200 feet) of earth before detonating, according to the American military. U.S. officials reportedly have discussed using two such bombs in succession to ensure a site is destroyed. It is not clear that such a one-two

In 2023, an Associated Press story on Pickaxe Mountain included analysis from experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies that suggested Iran is likely 80 meters (260 feet) and 100 meters (328 feet). Digging has continued at the site in the time since, with some experts suggesting it could be even deeper underground.