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With 4 Hidden Tunnels and 100 Meter Depth, Is Pickaxe Mountain Iran's Nuclear Plan B?
Jun 26, 2025 04:28 pm
By
infodivyadelhi


Divya Delhi: Pickaxe Mountain in central Isfahan province has an unpleasant name and purpose. The area, officially known as Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, south of Fordow and minutes from Natanz, has become a source of worldwide nuclear worry. Despite US President Donald Trump's assertion that American stealth aircraft "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program with a weekend airstrike, experts and intelligence assessments suggest Tehran may have transferred its most crucial items into this mountain fortress. Pickaxe Mountain is 145 kilometers south of Fordow and minutes from the Natanz nuclear complex, two of three critical targets struck by US B-2 stealth jets with 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs. Instead of two tunnel openings like Fordow, Pickaxe has at least four—two on the eastern and two on the western slopes—each six meters wide and eight meters tall. Pickaxe is stronger than its predecessors due to its depth. The Telegraph reports that analysts estimate the underground complex is being built more than 100 meters below ground, significantly deeper than Fordow's 60–90 meters. This suggests that even America's most powerful non-nuclear bombs may not kill it. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, stated that the Kolang Gaz Lā or ‘Pickaxe’ mountain underground complex is designed to provide the clerical regime with a nuclear weapons site that is difficult to destroy with conventional bombs, according to The Telegraph.