On July 22 (local time), after US President Donald Trump announced that he could soon attack Iran's Pickaxe submarine nuclear facility, many experts and research organizations gave new assessments of the role of this site in Tehran's nuclear program.
Notably, Mr. David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and President of the Institute of International Science and Security (ISIS), said that Iran is sending signals that it may seek to restore its nuclear weapons development capabilities.
According to Mr. Albright, the Pickaxe facility was previously assessed as not containing items of sufficient value to become a military target. However, that assessment may have changed.
Mr. Trump may not want Iran to continue to possess a nuclear facility built deep underground, in the context that Tehran seems to be seeking to rebuild its nuclear weapons development capabilities," Albright wrote on X.
Pickaxe Mountain is located south of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The project was started in 2020 after a centrifuge assembly facility in Natanz was destroyed.
According to ISIS estimates, this complex is built at a depth of about 100m under the mountain, capable of withstanding many types of bunker-penetrating bombs today.
Meanwhile, satellite image analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows that construction activities at Pickaxe have been accelerated since the US conducted airstrikes on 3 Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, including Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.
CSIS said Iran has built more security walls around the area along with many tunnels in the west, east and south.
However, both ISIS and CSIS believe that there is currently no public evidence that Pickaxe has been in operation or is being used as a large-scale uranium enrichment facility.
On the US side, President Donald Trump declared that Washington could soon attack this area and affirmed that Iran "can't do anything to prevent it".
In response, Iran's Khatam Al-Anbiya Command warned that if the US launches an attack on Pickaxe, Tehran will consider this an act of expanding the conflict and will respond to the interests of the US and its allies in the region.
