Ahmedabad Times

Specialists say Iran may use Pickaxe Mountain for its nuclear programme

Specialists say that the underground rubble of ‘nuclear mud’, often known as the Pickaxe Mountain, is buried so deep that it could stay past the attain of probably the most highly effective bunker-buster bombs with the USA.

As per the report by the New York Occasions, consultants consider that the nuclear rubble doesn’t trigger any fast risk and a nuclear facility is but to be accomplished. However sooner or later, the Pickaxe Mountain may present Iran with a venue to facilitate its nuclear enterprise.

Little is understood about Pickaxe Mountain, regionally known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La. Iran has been fortifying an underground advanced close to considered one of its nuclear amenities, in keeping with new satellite tv for pc pictures launched in February 2026. The pictures, first analysed by the Institute for Science and Worldwide Safety (ISIS), a US-based suppose tank, present tunnel entrances being strengthened at Mount Kolang Gaz La – also called Pickaxe Mountain, as per a report by the BBC.

‘Pickaxe Mountain is deeper and greater and extra fortified than Fordo’

In June 2025, US President Trump ordered strikes on three underground nuclear amenities in Iran the place centrifuges have been getting used to supply extremely enriched uranium.

Throughout the 50-days lengthy struggle between the US and Iran, allies of the White Home recommended US President Trump ship troops on floor and rain down your entire facility with explosives or dismantle it with chemical contaminants, stories the New York Occasions.

One of many websites focused by Operation Midnight Hammer in June was Iran’s mountainside uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, which the USA struck with 30,000-pound bombs often known as Huge Ordnance Penetrators designed particularly for that mission.

In accordance with the Institute for Science and Worldwide Safety, specially-designed bombs often known as Huge Ordnance Penetrators won’t have the ability to attain Pickaxe Mountain’s inside chambers, that are buried about 2,000 ft deeper below granite than Fordo, states the NYT.

“Pickaxe Mountain is deeper and greater and extra fortified than Fordo,” mentioned Blaise Misztal, the vice chairman for coverage on the Jewish Institute for Nationwide Safety of America, or JINSA, a Washington analysis group. “Which may be a spot the place they’re planning to dash to weapons-grade enrichment.”

Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceable

When building started in 2020, Iran mentioned the location could be used to construct centrifuges, which spin uranium at excessive speeds to make it extra pure, changing a facility believed to have been destroyed by Israeli sabotage.

Nevertheless, Iran has not allowed the Worldwide Atomic Power Company to examine the location, main consultants to suspect it might be used to complement uranium to weapons-grade ranges for nuclear bombs, states the New York Occasions.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is peaceable and is designed to satisfy vitality wants. The Republic has been denying allegations of utilizing extremely enriched uranium to supply nuclear weapons.

Some consultants concern that Iran could have already got stashed a few of its stockpile of 970 kilos of extremely enriched uranium at Pickaxe Mountain.