DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb an Iranian nuclear facility that is still under construction and buried deep beneath a mountain, as tensions between the two countries continue to escalate over the Strait of Hormuz.
The facility in question sits beneath a mountain called Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La — known in English as “Pickaxe Mountain” — located on the southern edge of Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment complex. While Natanz itself was struck by the United States during Operation Midnight Hammer in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in 2025, Pickaxe Mountain was left untouched, and Iran has continued excavation work there.
What exactly has been placed inside the mountain remains unknown. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has never been granted access to the site. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump acknowledged the possibility that Iran may have moved centrifuges into the facility — potentially at a depth that could withstand even the most powerful weapons in the U.S. military’s inventory.
“We’ll be hitting that area … probably pretty soon. And there’s not a thing they can do about it,” Trump told journalists.
The Pickaxe Mountain project is being built alongside Natanz, roughly 225 kilometers — about 140 miles — south of Tehran, Iran’s capital. Natanz has drawn international concern for two decades due to its mix of above-ground and underground nuclear facilities. After multiple sabotage attacks on Natanz — including one believed to have been carried out by Israel that destroyed a centrifuge manufacturing site — Iranian officials began construction at Pickaxe Mountain.
The facility is protected by anti-aircraft weapons, perimeter fencing, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. It covers approximately 2.7 square kilometers — roughly one square mile — across Iran’s dry Central Plateau and has several entrances that are visible in satellite imagery.
In 2023, experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies analyzed the site and estimated Iran was likely building at a depth of between 80 and 100 meters — roughly 260 to 328 feet. Digging has continued since then, and some analysts now believe the facility could go even deeper underground.
Based on the scale of construction, experts believe the underground facility will likely be used both to enrich uranium and to manufacture centrifuges. Centrifuges are tube-shaped machines arranged in large groups that spin uranium gas at high speed to enrich it. Having multiple sets of centrifuges operating beneath the mountain would allow Iran to enrich uranium under significant protection.
The threat posed by such deeply buried facilities was part of the reason the U.S. developed the GBU-57 bomb, which the American military says can penetrate at least 60 meters — around 200 feet — of earth before exploding. U.S. officials have reportedly discussed using two of these bombs in sequence to maximize destruction. Even so, it is unclear whether that approach would be enough to destroy a site as deep as Pickaxe Mountain.
On Tuesday, while speaking alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Trump initially tried to shift focus away from Pickaxe Mountain by pointing to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Before the 2025 strikes, Iran had enriched uranium to nearly 60% purity — close to weapons-grade levels. Since the strikes, Iran is not known to have restarted enrichment, and its existing stockpile is believed to remain at the bombed enrichment facilities.
“We follow the material, that’s where the action is,” Trump said.
Despite that, Trump made clear that Pickaxe Mountain remains a potential target as the back-and-forth military exchanges between the U.S. and Iran continue.
“Normally I wouldn’t say that,” the president added. “If I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that, but we’ll be hitting that area pretty soon. And very heavily.”
Iran has claimed that areas near its only nuclear power plant, located at Bushehr, have already been attacked during the conflict, though no damage was reported to the Russian-operated reactor there. Tehran also said U.S. forces struck the cleared land where it plans to build the Darkhovin nuclear plant, though the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency stated there was no nuclear material at that location the last time it was inspected. Iran has since warned it will take unspecified “required actions” in response to the Darkhovin strike.
The only nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates — a four-reactor facility at Barakah — has also reportedly been targeted during the conflict.
In 2025, U.S. forces bombed three Iranian nuclear sites: Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz — all of which had been used for uranium enrichment.
Both Israel and the United States have stated their goal is to permanently prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has consistently maintained its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The IAEA and Western governments do not believe Iran has had an active military nuclear program since 2003. Israel has long been considered the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East.
Even before the recent conflicts, Iranian officials had increasingly raised the possibility of pursuing a nuclear weapon. The late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who was killed on February 28 in the opening moments of the war — had issued a verbal religious ruling stating that nuclear weapons were un-Islamic. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who now serves as Iran’s Supreme Leader, has not made any public statement about his position on nuclear weapons.
To construct a usable nuclear weapon, Iran would first need to enrich uranium to 90% purity, then build an actual bomb, and likely miniaturize it to fit on a ballistic missile. That entire process would take months or even years and would carry a significant risk of being detected by Israeli or American intelligence along the way.
