As the head of Iran’s atomic agency vows to achieve nuclear goals despite potential bombings, intelligence reports reveal thousands of uranium centrifuges have been moved deep beneath Pickaxe Mountain. <\/p>\n
“Even if they bomb us a thousand times, we can achieve our goals. We have fulfilled what we promised and will certainly fulfill our promises with even greater firmness,” said Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, on Tuesday, July 21, as cited by the ISNA agency.<\/p>\n
Eslami called the country’s nuclear program the legacy of the late supreme spiritual and political leader Ali Khamenei. He spoke during a ceremony commemorating Ali Khamenei, who died in February on the first day of the US and Israeli war with Iran.<\/p>\n
Israeli intelligence services believe that late last autumn, Iran transferred thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges to tunnels deep inside the mountains, which may strengthen fears that Tehran wants to resume its nuclear program, the basis of which is intensive uranium enrichment. Israel informed the US that the centrifuges were moved to an underground facility beneath Mount Kolang, called “Pickaxe Mountain” by the Americans.<\/p>\n
In mid-July, US President Donald Trump stated that Washington is ready to attack this target. “Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice, big, fat shot right through the front door,” Trump said. The facility has been under observation by the United States and Israel for years, located near one of Iran’s main nuclear plants as an underground replacement for a centrifuge factory severely damaged by a 2020 explosion likely caused by sabotage, Israel Hayom reported.<\/p>\n
According to the Institute for Science and International Security, a research organization specializing in nuclear issues and non-proliferation, continuous work has been carried out at the site over the past 15 months, including tunnel reinforcement and the construction of a security zone. Experts estimate that the underground complex is located at a depth of about 90-140 meters under solid rock and has enough space to house several facilities related to the nuclear program.<\/p>\n
Pickaxe Mountain was not attacked during the current conflict or last year’s 12-day war. However, officials have long feared that Iran could use the tunnels to store or produce nuclear equipment and to establish a small uranium enrichment facility capable of producing fissile materials.<\/p>\n
The presence of centrifuges at the Pickaxe Mountain facility does not necessarily mean Iran is creating a uranium enrichment plant there. Following the June 2025 bombings, Tehran may have moved surviving centrifuges to this location to reduce the risk of their destruction.<\/p>\n
An Israeli military official interviewed by Israel Hayom expressed concern that airstrikes during the recent war did not sufficiently destroy nuclear-related facilities, stating that much remains to be done, including in the area of Pickaxe Mountain.<\/p>\n
The Iranian nuclear program has become one of the causes of the war underway since February. According to the US, Iran aimed to build an atomic weapon; Tehran systematically denied this while simultaneously enriching uranium to a level for which no civilian applications exist and which would allow for the rapid production of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As the head of Iran’s atomic agency vows to achieve nuclear goals despite potential bombings, intelligence reports reveal thousands of uranium centrifuges have been moved deep beneath Pickaxe Mountain. Defiant Stance from Iran’s Atomic Energy Head “Even if they bomb us a thousand times, we can achieve our goals. We have fulfilled what we promised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-and-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15048\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}