Pickaxe Mountain, Natanz: satellite images show tunnels blocked for two months

New satellite images of the underground facility at "Pickaxe Mountain" (Kuh-e Kolang) south of Natanz show that the entrances to the complex's tunnels remain blocked, with no sign of operational activity or major construction. The assessment was published on Friday, 16 October 2026, by the Institute for Science and International Security, a US think tank headed by David Albright.

According to the report, images captured on 7 October by Vantor Technologies show the eastern tunnel entrances covered with earth, and the earth barriers on the access road to the western entrances have not been removed. The report's authors write that this restriction of access has lasted at least two months.

The fate of the Islamic Republic's centrifuges

Pickaxe Mountain has been in the spotlight for months. In July the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an Israeli intelligence assessment, that after the 12-day war of June 2025 the Islamic Republic moved thousands of centrifuges and their components into the mountain's tunnels. The US think tank says the blocked entrances are consistent with that report and that valuable equipment or material may be stored in the complex; however, satellite images alone do not reveal what is inside the mountain, and the transfer of this equipment has not been independently confirmed.

Options for striking underground facilities

The report's authors consider the most likely way of attacking the complex to be a combination of the methods used in the strikes on Natanz and Fordow in June 2025 and on the Shahid Boroujerdi complex in spring 2026: successive hits with bunker-buster bombs on vulnerable points such as ventilation shafts, collapsing the entrances, and destroying support facilities outside the tunnels. By examining satellite images they have identified the location of one probable ventilation shaft and another possible one.

According to the think tank, the United States might also use the non-nuclear bomb known as the "Mother of All Bombs" (MOAB), which produces a very powerful blast wave, far larger than the one the blast traps at the entrances to the Islamic Republic's tunnels are designed to contain. Donald Trump had earlier ruled out using nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic, but stayed silent on a plan to use this bomb.

In the US think tank's assessment, even after a strike the extent of the damage inside Pickaxe Mountain may remain unknown for a long time.

The Institute for Science and International Security notes that the Islamic Republic has extensive experience in building military tunnels, and that any strike could leave Pickaxe Mountain in a condition similar to Natanz and Isfahan, which have been under monitoring and forced to remain shut for more than a year.