IRAN’S new electro-optical missiles are a bluff – but the regime’s doomsday Pickaxe Mountain nuclear site is the number one target in Donald Trump’s crosshairs.
Chilling satellite pictures revealed an unprecedented building “surge” at the facility where Tehran is feared to be creating an impenetrable atomic plant under 300ft of solid granite.
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Trump has fired off a warning – threatening to strike the base if Iran continues to fast-track its nuclear bomb aims there.
Experts from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said satellites had revealed more activity at Pickaxe Mountain in 2026 “than at any point in the site’s history”.
Their analysis showed how construction speed shot up over the last year and that Tehran had thrown up a new ring of steel around the fortress.
Brit ex-Army commander Hamish de Bretton-Gordon said Pickaxe Mountain “has always been really the focus and the centre of a lot of the Iranians’ nuclear program”.
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He told The Sun: “There is a lot of activity and work going on at Pickaxe Mountain… that seems to be the basis for his war with Iran.
“If he [Trump] thinks that they are continuing to develop their nuclear program at Pickaxe Mountain… then it would seem logical from what Trump has done so far for the US to attack Pickaxe Mountain again.”
The US president – who has vowed Iran must never have nukes – is now believed to be mulling the biggest bunker buster strikes ever launched to wipe out the huge threat.
Trump – whose war with the regime is escalating again – told the midterm Republican convention: “We notice there’s a little activity at Pickaxe.
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“I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard.”
The recent construction boom is an attempt to transform the site into a safe space for Iran’s elusive nuclear program, CSIS believes.
Trump also threatened to blitz Pickaxe Mountain “very soon” last week and has hinted at attacking the facility numerous times over recent months.
He said on Friday: “We may hit Pickaxe Mountain very soon… if there is anything going on with Pickaxe.”
Israel believes Iran has moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside Pickaxe Mountain.
It is a heavily fortified site that hosts two deeply buried tunnel complexes.
Known in Farsi as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, the facility is situated just 2km south of the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.
The regime is believed to have made the transfer after the 12-day war in June 2025, when US and Israeli strikes pummelled Iran’s three main nuclear sites.
Different satellite images previously revealed tunnels feeding into the mountain leading to a deep-buried operation.
Experts say it could be more secure than any of the facilities struck by the US and Israel before.
Pickaxe Mountain could prove difficult to strike because of how deep the facility is buried as well as the tough granite surrounding it.
De Bretton-Gordon added: “We know that the laboratories where they intend to enrich uranium, where they intend to build their bombs are very, very deep underground.
“If you have these sort of factories that are hewn into rock hundreds of feet below the surface, even the most powerful bunker buster bomb is probably not capable of getting down there.”
Trump has previously left the site untouched while bombing Iran’s other major nuclear bunkers.
But the US is said to be developing a successor to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator – used in Operation Midnight Hammer last year – to hit even deeper targets.
The GBU-57 can penetrate up to 200ft underground before exploding – just out of reach of Pickaxe Mountain’s base.
CSIS analysis revealed that despite the explosion in construction efforts, the site is still “not yet capable of enrichment”.
Tehran also continued work at Pickaxe Mountain during the temporary ceasefire this summer, according to the think tank.
This was against the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
They said: “CSIS imagery analysis confirms that construction activity continued at a high rate during the period covered by the MoU.”
It comes as tit-for-tat strikes escalated in recent days as Washington and Tehran blitzed several targets in the region.
The regime reportedly used electro-optical missiles for the first time in the war.
Iran said it used them to strike two US warships and eight oil tankers on Wednesday, as well as a military base in Jordan, according to The Telegraph.
The air assaults came in response to Washington blitzing five Iranian oil tankers, according to Tehran.
But de Bretton-Gordon said the electro-optical missiles were nothing to write home about.
He said: “There’s nothing terribly new about electro-optical sort of guidance… it’s almost sort of yesterday’s game.”
“Iran is sort of trumpeting it as the latest thing sort of since sliced bread, which it’s not really.”
Trump also said on Wednesday the war would come to a close after midterm elections in November, a prospect de Bretton-Gordon agreed was likely.
But the military expert warned the conflict could blow out of proportion unexpectedly because of the two unpredictable sides.
He said: “When you have the Supreme Leader of Iran and President Trump as the two antagonists, it’s very, very difficult to predict the future.
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“It would seem that Iran has no desire to end this war in a hurry because they’re an autonomous regime, autocratic regime who don’t really care what’s happening to their people.”