The Intel Lab @TheIntelLab

Update on passive defense measures at Pickaxe Mountain: @vantortech imagery from September 11, 2026, shows that the earthen mound roadblocks are still in place, blocking ground vehicle access to the Western tunnel portals. The week-long restricted access reinforces the assessment that the facility is not currently used for operations, but that it does contain valuable equipment and/or materials. The clearly visible roadblocks mean a return to regular access and activity at the Western tunnel entrances should easily be detected by U.S. intelligence and visible on commercially available imagery. Together with the previously blocked Eastern tunnel entrances, the new roadblocks effectively established a status quo inside the facility starting in early August.  Earthen mounds were also placed over one western tunnel portal and over a nearby cluster of portals first built in 2007 that have been expanded and rebuilt in recent years. The added soil increases overburden and helps harden the entrances against aerial bombardment.

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New Imagery Update: Iran is Rapidly Reconstructing Taleghan 2 @vantortech satellite imagery from September 13, 2026, shows that Iran is rapidly moving forward with the reconstruction of the Taleghan 2 facility located at the Parchin military complex.  Iran has erected a tarp above the destroyed hardened buried facility, hiding the reconstruction activity that is occurring underneath from satellite view or aerial reconnaissance.  Significant activity can be seen throughout the construction site.  Construction vehicles, including dump trucks, bulldozers, concrete pump trucks and concrete mixers, and cranes, are actively working to rebuild the facility.  Repair and rehabilitation work began in June 2026, first with Iran repairing and placing concrete caps over the penetration holes caused by the multiple bunker buster weapons dropped on the facility.  Iran has also built a new concrete apron reinforcement on the right side of the facility, the one on the left side that we noted in our July 2026 update now appears complete.  This will provide additional blast protection from an aerial attack.  Link to our full report here: isis-online.org/isis-reports/i…

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NEW 🚨: The IAEA and Syria have achieved major breakthroughs this summer in bringing Syria back into compliance with its safeguards obligations over its undeclared nuclear reactor, a fuel fabrication plant, and stored uranium metal fuel and scrap. The secret Al Kibar reactor at the Dair Alzour site was nearing completion when bombed by Israel in 2007, bringing to an end a major nuclear weapons effort based on plutonium that Syria was steadily advancing with the assistance of North Korea. Yet, despite the significant progress on Syria coming into compliance, which is to be commended, Syria has not yet come clean about its nuclear weapons ambitions under the old regime. The recent breakthroughs follow years of denials by the previous Syrian government that the site contained a nuclear reactor. With a new government, these breakthroughs became possible. The IAEA stated in its September 1, 2026, NPT Safeguards Implementation report on Syria that it has been able to clarify and resolve the Agency’s questions concerning the outstanding safeguards issues previously reported to the Board. However, the report does not state that the IAEA has received from Syria a complete nuclear declaration or that verification activities are finished. Information absent in the report includes: The planned scope, location, and schedule of the facility to separate plutonium from fuel that was to be irradiated in the reactor. This activity is referred to as “reprocessing” in the IAEA report; North Korea’s cooperation in building the reactor and providing associated technologies and facilities needed to operate the reactor, make the fuel, and separate plutonium; Any discussion about nuclear weaponization Syria may have conducted, with or without North Korean assistance. Moreover, the new information reflects what has been reported by the IAEA and others, such as the U.S. and Israeli governments, Süddeutsche Zeitung (on uranium conversion), and the Institute, about Syria’s undeclared nuclear activities. The new revelations provide confirmation and new details of certain activities and facilities, but they do not provide any surprises or fill in the missing information about the entire scope of the reactor and reprocessing project and Syria’s cooperation with North Korea. As such, the recent breakthroughs should be celebrated, but they do not yet achieve the transparency achieved in prior such cases, such as in South Africa, Taiwan, and Iraq in the 1990s. The IAEA should seek additional information from Syria with the aim to ensure the Agency has received and verified a complete declaration of Syria’s previously undeclared nuclear efforts. The report contains several bulleted findings of the new information on the ongoing issue of Syria’s NPT safeguards compliance contained in IAEA report on Syria and provides context for this information. Our report also contains several recommendations: The IAEA Board should adopt a resolution commending Syria’s new government’s effort but require the IAEA to ensure Syria’s nuclear declaration is complete. Syria should resolve additional questions on the context and framework under which the secret plutonium production reactor was built, i.e., on its role within a secret nuclear weapons program and other nuclear weapons relevant activities that took place. The uranium metal fuel should be removed for safety and security reasons. Key, single-use equipment related to uranium conversion and fuel manufacturing, as well as plutonium separation, should be located and rendered unusable or removed as well. The report can be found here: isis-online.org/isis-reports/i…

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Recent high resolution Vantor and Airbus satellite imagery from July and August 2026 shows the establishment and ongoing construction of dozens of large lattice towers surrounding the Shahed (Geran) production facilities and other buildings involved in supplying drone production.  The defensive system consists of two layers of towers: an inner perimeter consisting of shorter towers directly surrounding the key production facilities, and an outer perimeter consisting of taller towers surrounding the wider area.   The tall red-and-white towers are evenly spaced and surround the buildings, suggesting that they are part of a passive defensive structure, possibly to hold a metal wire mesh of cables to enclose the facilities.  This will make it more difficult for cruise missiles and explosive laden drones to target the production complex.    Alabuga began erecting the towers sometime after May 18, 2026, based on available satellite imagery.  Imagery from early July 2026 shows the inner perimeter surrounding the main production facilities completed.  By late July, Alabuga had made significant progress also on the outer security perimeter consisting of larger towers.  This outer security perimeter includes the Alabuga-Fiber production facilities, an important source of carbon fiber used in Shahed drone production.  An image from early August showed that several additional towers were also constructed then.  Cranes and staging areas assembling the towers can be seen around the site.   This likely passive defensive measure adds additional layers of security to the Alabuga SEZ. Surrounding Alabuga are several air-defense positions, each consisting of a position for a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle and manned lattice towers where weapons and electronic warfare systems can be stationed. The construction of the new passive defensive structures comes at a time when Ukraine is increasingly targeting facilities across Russia using large swarms of long-range strike drones and domestically produced FP-5 cruise missiles. This effort further highlights the importance of the Shahed drone production facilities at Alabuga to Russia’s war effort. link: isis-online.org/isis-reports/n… Author: @SFnuclear and the Good ISIS Team

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NEW: Probable Uranium Storage Facility Identified at the Natanz Nuclear Complex The Institute has identified a separately enclosed, partially below-ground, bunkered building at the Natanz Nuclear Complex that was likely intended to serve as uranium hexafluoride (UF6) storage facility to support large-scale uranium enrichment at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant.  The bunkered structure was constructed between 2010 and 2017, with the bulk of construction occurring between 2015 and 2017.  Given Iran’s focus on enriching its low enriched uranium to highly enriched uranium and decision to store large amounts of the HEU at locations other than Natanz, it is unclear how the building was used before the June 2025 war.  It is also unclear what role it has had since.  The building has ample room to store a significant number of UF6 30B, 48 X, and 48 Y cylinders, far more storage than is required for the amount of UF6 Iran produced. The floor space is more than enough to house Iran’s pre-June 2025 inventory of uranium enriched to less than 5 percent, as well as depleted uranium that has resulted from pre-JCPOA and post-2018 enrichment.  The building has ample room to store a significant number of UF6 30B, 48 X, and 48 Y cylinders, far more storage than is required for the amount of UF6 Iran produced.  At 1500 square meters, with a conservative half to two-thirds of the amount used for storage and the other half to one-third for clearance, operations, and handling, the facility could dedicate 750 - 1000 square meters to the storage of UF6 cylinders.  To put this into perspective, the storage of current enriched uranium stocks and depleted uranium tails is estimated to take up at most about 150 square meters.  This represents about 10 percent of the total estimated floor space, or up to 20 percent of the total available storage floor space.  The floor space lines up better with planned enrichment scenarios.  For example, the available space matches the storage requirement for the annual product plus accumulated tails for 10 years of operation at 100,000 kgU swu/yr, if cylinders are stored in a single layer. There has not been any observable activity at this facility in imagery dating back to June 2025.  Read the full report linked below for a full understanding and breakdown of the possible storage capabilities of this bunkered facility. Link: isis-online.org/isis-reports/p…

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As per the recent news concerning "hidden nuclear stocks in Syria at Site 99 that are leftover from Al Kibar reactor project," (@DAVIDHALBRIGHT1) the Institute has identified a possible contender for the location of where the nuclear material may be held. Available evidence points towards the Tal Qartal "Project 99/CERS" underground missile complex, which was heavily damaged in an Israeli airstrike carried out in September 2023 (with four probable underground tunnel entrance buildings destroyed in a second attack in December 2024).  The latest imagery of the site, from July 17, 2026, only shows that the debris from the destroyed buildings had been removed, with no other activity visible at that time. We will be waiting for further information from the IAEA to confirm that this is the location and that nuclear material was successfully removed from Syria.

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Watching the #US-#Iran strike-no-strike cycle, two comfortable readings are on offer: a hidden masterplan, or pure improvisation. One implies someone's in control, the other implies it's all noise. Reality is usually the uncomfortable middle: coherent instincts, incoherent execution, real consequences.

there are no guardrails to restore trust. it's about Google compromising the tool and destroying trust in its product, on top of satellite image providers enhancing resolution by using ML, blurring/manipulating images to hide sensitive places, shifting coordinates, etc.. already

Dr Heidy Khlaaf (هايدي خلاف) @HeidyKhlaaf

2 months ago

There is no such thing as stronger guardrails. Even if you prevent specific uses, tampering of satellite imagery in any capacity can and will be used for event barraging and misinformation campaigns against OSINT, which targeting systems (including those by Palantir) build on.

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Darkhovin #Nuclear PP chosen site in #Iran is seeing new earthworks activity during the last month. In April 2022, #AEOI's current chief Mohammad Eslami stated "This year we started another project to build a completely Iranian nuclear power plant with a capacity of 360 MWe."

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"When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk." Tuco, prominent #US PhD in #Iran/Farsi anthropologic studies.

Recent satellite imagery from late June 2026, of the Natanz Nuclear Complex and the nearby Pickaxe Mountain facility, Fordow, and Esfahan, were provided to the Institute by @vantortech.  At Natanz, little activity can be seen. The access points to the below ground enrichment halls have not been repaired. The personnel entrances remain destroyed and vehicle entrances remain severely damaged. A single vehicle can be seen on the road outside of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), which was destroyed in June 2025, but was covered by Iran after.  The HVAC chillers remain displaced throughout the complex and the primary and backup power systems remain destroyed.  At Pickaxe Mountain, vehicle activity can be seen on the roads leading to the open set of Western tunnel portals, indicating that construction inside the tunnel complex, as well hardening of the tunnel entrance, are ongoing. The MOU signed between the United States and Iran requires that Iran maintain the status quo which should prohibit construction at any nuclear related facility, including Pickaxe Mountain.  As first reported by the Institute in early May (see: x.com/TheGoodISIS/st… ), the Eastern set of tunnel portals remain partially backfilled with dirt, making them inaccessible to ground vehicles. This was likely done to prevent rapid ingress and egress to the tunnel entrances.   At Fordow, as earlier reported by the Institute, between May 10 and May 18th, Iran added passive defensive measures in the form of earthen/rocky mounds and other objects on the roads leading to the tunnel entrances. The alternate placings of the piles/objects are very precise, which creates a series of chicanes, indicating they are not intended as obstructions, but rather to prevent rapid ingress and egress by any vehicle towards the tunnels. The June 21 Vantor image shows that the objects along the road remain there. The tunnel portals also remain backfilled with dirt. As of June 29, 2026, there is no observed activity at Esfahan. The tunnel portals remain backfilled with dirt.  The Institute will continue to monitor these sites for any developments.  Read more about the recent activity at the sites here:  isis-online.org/isis-reports/c…,  and here: isis-online.org/isis-reports/r…   Analysis by @DAVIDHALBRIGHT1, @SarahBurkhard, and @SFnuclear

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Inst for Science @TheGoodISIS

5 months ago

IRAN NUCLEAR UPDATE: Possible NEW Passive Defensive Measures Noted at Pickaxe Mountain Based upon newly available satellite imagery of the Pickaxe Mountain underground complex, just south of the Natanz Nuclear Complex, it appears that as early as April 22nd, the two eastern

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Aged well...

The Intel Lab @TheIntelLab

6 months ago

The single biggest recurring failure in Western foreign policy: Mirror Imaging. Assuming the other side thinks like you do, values what you value, and will respond to incentives the way you would. When the #US says "deal," they mean a transactional exchange with measurable

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@TreyYingst @mdubowitz A true legend !

Time to remember that for some, war is nothing but a game where political survival is the objective, and human lives are treated as expendable pieces on the board. #IranWar #Nuclear #OperationEpicFury #OperationLionsRoar

The single biggest recurring failure in Western foreign policy: Mirror Imaging. Assuming the other side thinks like you do, values what you value, and will respond to incentives the way you would. When the #US says "deal," they mean a transactional exchange with measurable deliverables. When the #IRGC hears "deal," they hear capitulation dressed in diplomatic language. Those two words don't occupy the same conceptual space. Witkoff and Kushner walk in thinking they're closing a real estate negotiation. #Iran side walks in thinking they're defending a civilizational position. Please someone get to the West a Duolingo course in post 1979 Farsi language...

@Natsecjeff

And this is unbeatable !

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