Fresh satellite imagery indicates that Iran has strengthened defenses around the tunnel entrances at Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily buried nuclear-linked facility that President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to target. The findings emerged as Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-backed Security Council resolution seeking to maintain international oversight of sanctions on Tehran.
The Institute for Science and International Security said Thursday that imagery collected on Sept. 11 showed earthen barriers still blocking roads to the western tunnel portals near Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex. Continued restrictions on access support the institute’s view that Pickaxe Mountain is not being used for routine operations, although valuable equipment or materials may still be stored inside.
Researchers also observed fresh soil piled over one western tunnel entrance and a nearby group of portals originally constructed in 2007. According to the institute, the added earth provides another layer of protection and could make the entrances more resistant to airstrikes.
The assessment was released roughly a week after Trump issued his latest public warning about the site.
“We notice there’s a little activity at Pickaxe,” Trump told reporters last week. “I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard.”
Trump has repeatedly kept open the possibility of a U.S. attack. In a July 28 interview with “Fox & Friends” promoted by the White House, he said the United States was monitoring Pickaxe Mountain closely and knew “exactly what’s going on.” If diplomacy failed, he added, Washington could “take out Pickaxe.”
Located about two kilometers from Natanz, Pickaxe Mountain contains several tunnel entrances leading to a deeply buried underground complex. Iran began construction in 2020 after sabotage damaged an advanced centrifuge assembly facility at Natanz. Iranian officials later said the new underground site was intended to support advanced centrifuge production. Analysts estimate that some sections may lie at least 100 meters below the mountain. Tehran has denied that nuclear activity is taking place there.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that some analysts believe the opportunity for an uncomplicated strike on Pickaxe Mountain may have already disappeared.
“The window to strike Pickaxe Mountain, according to some, has already expired because the regime has dug an underground nuclear facility several times deeper than Fordow,” Ben Taleblu said. Still, he argued that the United States has military alternatives if penetrating and destroying the complex proves impractical.
“Washington can do what it’s traditionally been able to do with sites that are underground, hardened and fortified, and that’s to bury their entrances and raise the political cost to the Islamic Republic of being able to dig out,” he said.
“While there may not be the perfect munition just yet, Uncle Sam always has a bigger bomb,” Ben Taleblu added. “And in the meantime, what they can do is show that they mean business by burying the entrances.”
The imagery from Pickaxe Mountain was released as analysts also reported fresh reconstruction activity at another Iranian site of concern.
In a separate report Thursday, the institute said Iran was “rapidly moving forward” with rebuilding Taleghan 2 at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran. Vantor Technologies imagery captured Sept. 13 showed a tarp covering the destroyed hardened structure, apparently shielding construction from satellite and aerial surveillance. Dump trucks, bulldozers, concrete equipment and cranes were operating around the facility.
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The institute said Iran had also installed new concrete reinforcement that could offer greater protection from air attacks. Israel struck Taleghan 2 in October 2024 and again in March 2026, after Iran had rebuilt and fortified the facility. The institute said Tehran’s intentions for the site remain unclear.
The reported construction activity coincided with a separate diplomatic clash over Iran at the United Nations.
Russia and China on Thursday blocked a U.S.-drafted Security Council resolution that would have extended the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1737 Iran Sanctions Committee through September 2027. The proposal won 11 votes in support, while Pakistan and Somalia abstained.
The panel examines alleged violations of sanctions and evaluates how restrictions are being enforced. At the center of the dispute is whether UN sanctions suspended under the 2015 nuclear agreement were legally reinstated through the so-called “snapback” mechanism. Most Security Council members say the sanctions and monitoring bodies were restored. Russia and China dispute both the legal basis and the procedure behind that conclusion.
One day before the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said in New York that Washington considers the sanctions legally active.
“The snapback sanctions… occurred, the United States and this U.N. Security Council followed appropriate procedures for that to occur,” Waltz said Wednesday at a news conference attended by Fox News Digital. “Those sanctions are in place and we expect those who are a party to fully enforce those sanctions.”
Waltz also defended the expert panel’s role, saying sanctioned companies and individuals can try to circumvent restrictions by adopting new names or restructuring their corporate entities.
“The president has been clear, and the world community has been clear with resolution after resolution, that the Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Waltz said.
Thursday also brought fresh U.N. scrutiny of both Washington and Tehran. An independent U.N. fact-finding mission said it had reasonable grounds to believe two U.S. strikes on civilian sites in Iran in February constituted war crimes, while separately concluding that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their crackdown on anti-government protests. The mission is investigative rather than judicial, and its findings do not themselves constitute criminal judgments.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Iran U.N. mission for comments but didn’t receive them in time for publication.
