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Iran must never be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. This is a refrain that Trump keeps returning to when asked why he started a war with Iran. But the facts show that Iran has not given up its desire to obtain nuclear weapons. In fact, satellite images show that he has redoubled his efforts and accelerated them. The Iranians are building new, larger, and harder- to-destroy facilities that can be used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels to protect it from American bombs. And the pace of their construction has accelerated since Trump began his war. Join us for an aerial view of one of the most important sites, Mount Kirka, and try to figure out what the Iranians are building and what it means for
the future of their nuclear program in this episode of Photo Evidence. This is Mount Kirka in Isfahan Province in central Iran. The mountain rises approximately 1600 meters above sea level and is composed of solid granite. Granite is a dense, superhard rock, exactly the kind of material needed around a deeply buried object. And somewhere inside this mountain, Iran is building a huge network of tunnels. But we notice that there is some activity going on Mount Kirk. I would advise Iran not to play with fire, because we will have to hit them very hard. We have no choice, right? It is estimated that the complex is located
approximately 80-100 meters underground. The deeper an object is buried under a mass of solid rock, the harder it is to retrieve it with conventional weapons. This is not the first time Iran has used mountains to protect vulnerable parts of its nuclear program. Just 2 km from here is Natanz, one of the most important sites in Iran's nuclear program. It was here that Iran used thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium. Centrifuges are essentially machines that increase the concentration of the uranium isotope needed to sustain a nuclear reaction. Iran has been enriching uranium to increasingly higher levels: from 3-5%, used for civilian purposes such as fuel, to levels
close to weapons-grade. As of May 2025, Iran had accumulated over 400 kg of uranium enriched to 60%. A level relatively close to the approximately 90% typically associated with weapons-grade uranium needed to make a nuclear bomb. Natanz is one of two major enrichment facilities that form the basis of Iran's nuclear program. The other is Fordow, about 125 km to the northwest, near the city of Qom. Fordow is much smaller than Natanz, but it is also built deep inside a mountain and was used to enrich uranium to 60 %. So, these two objects perform related but separate roles. Natanz is a large industrial complex for uranium enrichment, while Fordow combines uranium enrichment with the protection of a deep underground facility. But Natanz played another
important role in this story. Until 2020, it also housed a large factory for the production and assembly of centrifuges themselves-the machines that Iran uses to enrich uranium. This was not a small production at all. The plant was designed to assemble about 6,000 advanced centrifuges per year, and the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank known as ISIS, estimates its total area at less than 4,000 square meters. And, unlike the enrichment halls at Fordow, the centrifuge manufacturing plant at Natanz was above ground. Then, in July 2020, this facility was destroyed by an explosion.
Iran said it was sabotage, and many suspected Israel of responsibility, although Israel has not publicly admitted involvement in the attack. Iran's response was a promise to build something much more difficult to attack. Ali Akbar Salehi, then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announced that Iran would build a new centrifuge manufacturing plant inside a mountain near Natanz. He described it as more modern, spacious, and complex than the facility that was destroyed. If this is the same facility Salehi was talking about, we should see the construction of a massive underground complex, and that's exactly what has begun to emerge.
ISIS estimates that Pickaxe may have an area of about 5,200 square meters, which is larger than the area of the destroyed centrifuge plant in Natanz. More recent analysis suggests that this space could potentially accommodate both centrifuge assembly workshops and an enrichment plant capable of producing weapons-grade uranium. This makes Pickaxe more than just a replacement building. This is an underground complex with the potential capacity to house a significant portion of Iran's nuclear program. And by December 2020, satellite images showed the first signs of these excavations.
New paths and access roads began to be laid on the slopes, laying routes to the future four separate entrances to the mountain. A large mound of freshly dug earth and crushed rock appeared on the eastern side. These are the so-called rock dumps. Material that is brought from inside a mountain to the surface. Another dump is visible on the west side. Together, they are some of the earliest visible evidence that Iran is conducting deep excavations inside the mountain itself. We see the physical response to the destruction at Natanz taking shape. The object that was once located on the surface is being replaced by something much more difficult to reach-deep in the bowels of the mountain, behind tens of meters of rock.
Over the next five years, these excavations became increasingly large-scale. But there was a reason why Iran went to such lengths to hide this facility. In 2025, we saw what Iran was trying to protect him from. In June of that year, Israel and the United States attacked Iran's nuclear infrastructure. One of the main targets was Fordow, the uranium enrichment plant we saw earlier, hidden in a mountain near Qom. It was the United States that deployed B-2 bombers with GBU-57 MOP bombs- huge anti-bunker shells designed to destroy fortified underground facilities. Satellite images taken afterwards give us a clear idea of what this attack looked like from above. You can see six distinct holes in the mountain, probably where American
anti-bunker bombs hit. The ground around these impact sites has been torn up, and everything is covered in dust. In the satellite image, we don't see what happened to the object hundreds of feet below, but we do see the scale of the attack and the weapon's impact points on the mountain. A mountain may be extremely difficult to penetrate, but the facility must still be connected to the surface through tunnels, ventilation, and entrances. At Fordow, the US focused its strikes on a ventilation shaft leading to an underground centrifuge workshop. The US also used the double- strike tactic, where the second bomb is directed along the path cleared by the previous one. This is the main lesson that Fordow teaches to Pix.
Fordow was already designed to protect Iran's nuclear program underground. However, in 2025, the United States used its most powerful conventional anti-bunker weapon against him. Iran already knew the cost of keeping sensitive nuclear infrastructure underground. But the attack on Fordow showed that even a deeply captured objective could be attacked. This gives construction on Pixie a new meaning. If the replacement promised to Salehi was to be harder to destroy, then the depth of the facility, the surrounding granite, and the protection of the entrances become crucial. The "Pix" is located inside a mountain of extremely hard, dense rock, and the
main complex is estimated to be tens of meters deep. The rock complicates excavation, but once completed, it serves as a significant physical barrier to what is being built inside. Attacks on nuclear infrastructure have demonstrated the vulnerability of existing facilities. Construction on Pix continued and increasingly focused on creating a deeply defended complex. Then, on February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel started a war with Iran. From this moment on, we are observing construction and fortification at a time when Iran is actually at war with the US and Israel. This fortification is especially noticeable at points where the underground complex comes to the surface. If Iran is building "Pickaxe " to protect sensitive nuclear
infrastructure, as Elahi suggested, then one of the first places we should expect this protection is at the entrances. No matter how deep you bury an object, you still need a way in and out. These entrances are potentially some of the most vulnerable places . We have already seen why this is important in the example of Fordow. In 2025, the US attacked Fordow from the air, using bunker-busting bombs to reach a facility hidden inside a mountain. The attack proved that even a deeply buried facility has vulnerabilities, including tunnels and entrances where the underground complex connects to the surface. On "Pickaxe" we are now seeing Iran making increasing efforts to protect these entrances.
This is the eastern pair of tunnel entrances in September 2025. These are what are called portals. A portal is simply the point where a tunnel reaches the surface. In this case, these are not entrances to a mine or a road tunnel. These are ground access points to a facility buried deep inside the mountain. Everything that enters or exits this underground complex must pass through one of these points. But there is another important detail here. The entrances to the "Pickaxe " do not go straight uphill. They are designed with a bend in the tunnel. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) claims that such a configuration could help prevent a missile from hitting a tunnel directly and weaken the blast wave reaching an
underground facility. This makes portals especially important. If you are building a facility at a depth of more than 100 meters, the mountain itself provides tremendous protection. But you still need a way in, which means that entrances are one of the few places where an underground facility must connect to the outside world. In September 2025, these entrances are relatively open. Here you can see the mouths of the tunnels to which the roads lead. , but the approaches have not yet been seriously fortified. Then, 5 months later, the US and Israel started a war with Iran. When we returned to the same entrance in July 2026, after more than 4 months of war, the situation had changed.
The first thing to pay attention to is what is happening around the upper portal. The earth was raised and strengthened. There was substantial new construction around the entrance with additional material piled up near the driveway. We are no longer just looking at a hole in the mountainside. The entrance itself is transformed into a protected infrastructure facility. And the same thing happened down here. Access to the lower portal was also expanded and strengthened. So, why do this? Well, there are several obvious practical reasons.
It is necessary to protect the entrance from the elements and from huge loads when moving heavy equipment to and from the facility. But the time and place of this construction are also of great importance. The whole point of placing a facility underground is to put as much rock as possible between critical infrastructure and any threat from the surface. The portal is where such protection inevitably ends. The tunnel must pass through the mountain somewhere. This makes the entrance a natural vulnerable point. An attacker doesn't necessarily have to reach the underground facility itself if they can damage the tunnel to it, block the entrance, or collapse the exit to the surface, which is why what we
see around these portals matters. We see no ordinary bunker door. We see the beginning of a tunnel system leading to a facility deep inside the mountain. The more massive the entrance and approaches to it become, the more physical protection appears between the outside world and the tunnel beyond. Next we move on to August. Strengthening continues. This marks the original entrance to the underground facility, and this is an expanded and reinforced entrance with a new portal built around it. So, we see two access points within one portal complex, not two separate objects. Having multiple access points can make a large underground facility more practical and resilient, providing separate paths for people and equipment to move around, and
potentially creating a backup if one entrance is damaged or blocked. Downstairs, near the lower entrance, the appearance has also changed. It was covered with sand and gravel. This may seem like a trivial thing, but it matters when you look at the object as a whole. These passages are no longer open tunnel entrances. They are being reinforced to provide a more secure path to the underground facility. Look at the sequence of events. The entrances, which were relatively open in September 2025, were significantly expanded by July 2026 and even more so by August 2026. The pictures show that the facility is gradually being fortified against attacks. If portals show us where an underground facility meets the outside world, then dump sites give us another
way to peer down the mountain. We don't see the tunnels themselves, but we see what comes out of them. When engineers dig a tunnel through solid rock, all of this material must be brought to the surface. This is what CSIS defines as a dumping ground. Essentially, it is a place where mined rock and soil are dumped after they have been removed from the mountain. Every meter of tunnel dug through solid rock creates material that needs to go somewhere. But a secure facility with centrifuges needs space, and dumps give us an indirect way to see how that space is being freed up. To build a large complex inside a mountain, Iran would first need to remove a huge amount of rock to create tunnels, chambers, and halls that would later house the equipment. And in the
early stages of the Pickaxe project, the images show just that. Look at the size of this waste dump site on the east side of the mountain in 2025. A huge amount of excavated soil has accumulated here along the access roads leading to the tunnel entrances. There is another significant area for dumps on the west side of the mountain. Together, these zones give us an indirect idea of the extent of the excavations under the mountain. Now compare this to the images from August 2026. Let's start from the east side. Instead of simply expanding, part of the dump area was leveled. It appears that some of the extracted rock was removed or redistributed.
This does not mean that work has stopped, but it does indicate that the surface is no longer used solely for the accumulation of material from the mountain. A large accumulation of excavated rock was leveled. This is where the analysis becomes particularly interesting. CSIS estimates that the leveling and removal of rock corresponds to the transition from the so-called excavation phase, creating an underground space, to the construction phase, arranging the facility within that space. In other words, the mountain must first be opened up to create tunnels and chambers. Then these spaces need to be transformed into a functioning facility. This means erecting the interior structures, installing electricity and ventilation, bringing in equipment,
and creating the infrastructure to operate what is being built inside. So, the changing appearance of the dump sites gives us another key to understanding the evolution of the Pickaxe project. We cannot use the mounds to recreate an exact underground plan, but they are above-ground evidence of the excavation work required to create this space. Early images show how the mountain was being opened up to create an underground complex. Now that the dumps are being leveled and redistributed, evidence suggests that the project is moving towards building on the created space. And that brings us back to what Iran says it is building here-a replacement for the centrifuge facility destroyed at its hands. So, we're not just seeing rock being removed
from the mountain, we're seeing the construction of a facility that Iran says will replace a significant portion of their centrifuge enrichment program, as well as the construction and strengthening of the infrastructure around it. If the Pickaxe project moves into active construction, we need to see evidence of the infrastructure needed to turn these empty tunnels into a functioning facility. And there are signs that this is exactly what is happening in the center of the complex, where a large construction site is located. In earlier images, this area was relatively undeveloped. But by July 2026, the picture had changed. The number of vehicles and machinery around the town has increased significantly, and the road network has been built to ensure
traffic throughout the area. A The nature of its use indicates constant two-way traffic, indicating that it is not just an occasional access road. The access road to the dump area was reinforced and the area around the unloading area was leveled. This is consistent with what we saw earlier. Material obtained during excavation is moved and redistributed as the surface of the site is reorganized. By August, construction of the town itself looks mostly complete: the buildings are ready, and areas for equipment and material storage have been set up around them. Further south is a facility that looks like a concrete batching plant, in fact a small
concrete production facility that serves this construction site. Putting all this together, we see much more than just tunneling. We see the supporting infrastructure of a large-scale construction project. Equipment, warehouses, transportation routes and facilities for the production of building materials. But there is another way to assess the scale of this activity. This is synthetic aperture radar, or SAR. Unlike conventional satellite imagery, SAR uses radar to detect changes in how surfaces reflect the signal back to the satellite. This is particularly useful here as we can track changes across the entire road network, not just at one
entrance or one construction site. Brighter amber areas correspond to stronger radar reflections. These are typically surfaces such as compacted roads, bare soil, concrete, and other areas where the surface has been disturbed or altered. So instead of looking at the landscape in natural colors, we see physical changes on the surface of the site. Here you can see the road network running through the entire complex, tunnel entrances, and areas with stronger signal reflection around construction sites. CSIS went further by analyzing SAR images of Parchin over a 6- year period. The analysis showed that traffic intensity at the site peaked in 2026, with increased activity throughout the complex compared to previous years.
Synthetic aperture radar gives us further evidence that the activity we are observing in parts of Parchin is part of a much larger construction operation. Now we can ask whether this construction corresponds to what Iran says it is building here. Iran's stated goal was to create a new underground facility for the production and assembly of advanced centrifuges. Such a facility requires more than just underground space. He needs large halls where he can assemble centrifuges, as well as concrete structures, roads, power supply, ventilation, warehouses, and other infrastructure to support the work. Excavation is underway in the mountain to create a large protected
underground space. So the surface evidence is consistent with the creation of exactly the type of deep- sea centrifuge facility that Iran promised to build after the destruction of the Natanz plant. We know what this facility was intended for. The evidence we have seen gives us strong reasons to argue for what the Pickaxe is being developed for. This is a deep underground facility for Iran's advanced centrifuge program with the space and infrastructure capable of supporting uranium enrichment. The question remains whether In July 2026, Israeli intelligence reportedly estimated that Iran had moved thousands of centrifuges to Pickaxe. If this is true, then this is a significant step forward, going beyond simply building a facility. While the
satellite imagery cannot independently confirm this claim, it adds to a broader body of evidence that Pickaxe is becoming an important part of Iran's nuclear program. So what does all this tell us? This is the same facility that Iran promised to build after the destruction of the centrifuge assembly plant in Natanz. The scale of the excavation already exceeds the size of the object it was supposed to replace. The analysis suggests that this space could potentially accommodate an enrichment plant. In addition, there is an intelligence assessment from July 2026 that Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges uphill. The evidence we have reviewed suggests that Iran is developing the Pickaxe as a deeply
embedded part of its nuclear infrastructure. A facility designed to protect centrifuge-related facilities from the type of attack that destroyed its ground-based facilities. It seems that Iran is not simply rebuilding what it lost at Natanz. He rebuilds it inside the mountain behind tens of meters of granite, with entrances that have been gradually strengthened and a complex that becomes increasingly difficult to reach from the surface. For the US, this creates a much bigger problem. The Pickaxe may be out of reach of conventional bunker-busting bombs. And even if it is eventually hit, Iran has already proven that it can move its nuclear network further out
of reach of its enemies.
