Iran's Nuclear Program and Mountain Facility

The Iranian nuclear program is once again in the spotlight.

In recent weeks, one site has made headlines, increasingly occupying the global

intelligence community.

Not Fordow and not Natanz, but the Pickaxe Mountain.

A massive underground facility built south of Natanz, and according to estimates,

it may be the most important strategic asset of the Iranian nuclear program.

We follow the material, that's where the action is, and…

we'll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily.

To understand why everyone is talking about it now,

we must understand what exactly the Iranians built inside this mountain.

As part of a comprehensive investigation

conducted by intelligence analyst Ronen Solomon for Channel 14 News,

it turns out to be an unusual and fortified facility,

even compared to what we already knew of the Iranian nuclear program.

The complex is located about two kilometers south of the Natanz enrichment facility.

According to intelligence estimates,

it was excavated at a depth of about 80 to 140 meters, inside a mountain range,

deeper than the site at Fordow,

And it has an extensive system of tunnels, underground halls, and several entrances.

If we compare Fordow to Mount Makhosh,

it turns out that the site at Mount Makhosh is the next generation.

Much more protected, much more complex and larger, and much deeper underground.

This is what the timeline of the project at Mount Makhosh looks like.

2007, the first works at Mount Makhosh get underway.

Already then, as revealed by satellite imagery analysis,

Iran begins digging a tunnel system unknown to the world.

2011, significant progress in excavating the complex is documented for the

first time.

2015, ahead of the visit by IAEA inspectors under the nuclear deal,

Iran pours cement and seals the entrance of the first tunnel.

According to satellite imagery analysis,

the goal is to hide the work carried out there during the agreement period.

2018, the United States withdraws from the nuclear deal.

I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran

nuclear deal. Israel exposes the Iranian nuclear archive.

We are going to show you Iran's secret nuclear files.

2019, Iran reopens the sealed entrance of the tunnel and resumes work in the

first compound.

2020, the explosion at the centrifuge assembly plant in Natanz,

which was attributed to Israel at the time, was a turning point.

Instead of just restoring what was destroyed, the Iranians learn

lessons and decide to move the nuclear program's facilities deep underground.

From 2022 until today,

parallel to the resumption of work in the first compound of Mount Kolang,

Iran is expanding the site and building a new,

larger underground compound that includes two new entrances.

Today, there are actually two separate projects operating in Mount Kolang,

built during different periods, and alongside them, three underground entrances.

Although work on Mount Kolang already began in 2007,

Iran only declared the project more than a decade later.

Despite the information gathered about the site on Mount Kolang,

it is still unclear what is really happening there underground.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy

Agency received no information about it and were not even allowed to visit it.

It was recently reported that the Iranians have already moved thousands

of centrifuges to Mount Makush, and possibly also stockpiles of the enriched

uranium they produced.

If the assessments are correct,

Mount Makush is not just a storage facility,

but an active and central site in the Iranian nuclear program, and there is

no doubt that dramatic military or diplomatic action will be required to

neutralize it.