Pickaxe mountain site: Deeper than Fordow, Trump’s new target could be hardest to hit

After resuming the war with Iran, US President Donald Trump on Monday hinted at the next target in the conflict: the Pickaxe Mountain facility near Natanz.

"Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right near the front door. We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready," said Trump.

But destroying the Pickaxe facility may be easier said than done. The site is buried deep inside a mountain —deeper than the Fordow facility— and beyond the reach of most conventional weapons.

Follow our live coverage of the US-Iran war here

The fact that the US military was unable to completely destroy Iran's nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz during the 12-Day War —even though they are not believed to be as deep as Pickaxe— suggests Trump may once again have set an objective that could prove difficult to achieve.

More from World

As shown in the satellite image below, the Pickaxe facility is located near the main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Built inside the Zagros Mountains, it is estimated by analysts to be around 100 metres underground.

The real complexity of the mission is rooted in three hard realities. First, the facility is located hundreds of feet below the surface. Second, the material above it is not soft earth or even a reinforced roof but an entire mountain. Third, identifying the precise location of the infrastructure to be targeted would be extremely difficult.

A satellite view shows an overview of the Natanz nuclear facility and Pickaxe Mountain, near Natanz, Iran, on June 30, 2026. (Photo: Vantor/Handout via Reuters)

The closest comparison to the Pickaxe site is the Fordow facility, located around 150 kilometres to the north-west. Last year, the US military dropped six GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) 'bunker-buster' bombs but the site survived.

As Firstpost previously reported, available evidence does not indicate that Fordow suffered catastrophic damage.

If the US military could not destroy Fordow, how can it destroy a site that is potentially deeper and better protected?

How US can still strike Pickaxe — and where it went wrong in Fordow mission

Successfully striking Pickaxe is not impossible. But it would be extremely expensive and time-consuming.

In an earlier interview with Firstpost, underground warfare specialist Daphne Richemond Barak explained how such a mission could be carried out.

Barak pointed to the 'hammering the nail' method that Israel used to strike the underground facility where former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was staying in Beirut in 2024.

"Israel launched missiles on top of each other. It was like hammering a nail repeatedly into the earth until it would break through the concrete and reinforced covering. To reach the spot where Nasrallah was in Beirut, Israel hammered in 80 tons of explosives within 10 seconds. In the case of Fordow, they would need to do the same except with massive bunker-buster bombs," Barak told Firstpost.

For context, each bunker-buster bomb weighs around 14 tonnes. The US military would likely need to drop several —perhaps dozens— of these bombs almost directly on top of one another in rapid succession to penetrate the mountain, shatter the protective layers above the facility, tear into the structure hundreds of feet below ground, and then detonate within the target area.

But does Trump have the patience to pursue such a mission?

The success of any operation against Pickaxe could depend on the answer to that question.

Throughout the ongoing US-Israeli war against Iran, Trump has applied what critics describe as an underwhelming level of force against key targets and, as a result, has failed to achieve the desired objectives. For example, the US military dropped only six bombs on the Fordow facility last year. The attack caused significant damage, but fell well short of the obliteration that Trump had sought.

A satellite view shows vehicles at an entrance to Pickaxe Mountain tunnels, of the of the Natanz nuclear facility, near Natanz, Iran, on June 21, 2026. (Photo: Vantor/Handout via Reuters)

Despite signs that Trump could launch an invasion of the Kharg Island or an even more audacious attack on nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow, to seize the highly enriched uranium and dismantle the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, Trump decided against such an operation, dealing a crushing blow to one of the main objectives of the war: crushing the Iranian nuclear programme.