Podcast on the latest developments on Iran with @DAVIDHALBRIGHT1 👇

A close review of @vantortech satellite imagery from September 11 and 19, 2026, has revealed cables strung between defensive towers constructed at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone surrounding the Shahed/Geran production facilities. The cables strung between towers serve as a passive defense against incoming cruise missiles or long-range strike drones seeking to target the drone production facilities. Drones or cruise missiles will strike the cables, causing them to detonate in the air instead of striking the production facilities directly or force aircraft to come in high and make them more vulnerable to anti aircraft defenses.  More towers are still being constructed.  The Iraqis used this same tactic to protect Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center during the Iran/Iraq war up until the 1981 bombing of the Osirak reactor by Israel.  The Institute first identified these passive defensive towers in our last update, which can be read here: isis-online.org/isis-reports…  Alabuga is also working hard to construct new facilities just south of the main production complex, identified by Dnipro Osint (t.me/DniproOfficial/8178). The facilities cover a large area, consisting of half a dozen or more buildings, with more actively under construction.  This would constitute a large expansion of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. Some of the buildings are in the process of being buried under multiple layers of dirt and reinforced concrete in order to harden them from potential attacks.

Trump's statement on not seeing a lot of activity at Pickaxe mountain is fully in line with our satellite imagery observations. Access to all four tunnel entrances has been severely restricted since the beginning of August. Iran apparently figured better to block the entrances voluntarily than have them blocked by force. The last several weeks show virtually no movement of equipment and little vehicle movement.  Pickaxe Mtn effectively joined the list of nuclear related sites that are not currently operational, not easily accessible, and where resumption of activity would be easily detected. Media outlets and other reporting that recently highlighted high activity at Pickaxe Mountain should also take note of this significant slowdown.

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…

Update on passive defense measures at the nearby Natanz Nuclear Complex: we noticed in an August 21, 2026, image by @vantortech the presence of several passive defensive structures.  Throughout 2026, Iran placed makeshift dirt mounds in several locations at the above ground complex, in key areas that could be used by U.S. or Israeli forces to land vertical takeoff or landing (VTOL) aircraft. Chicane barriers made from dirt can also be seen placed along the road just outside of the security perimeter. These passive defense structures are likely intended to complicate any sort of ground forces raid conducted against the complex.

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.

NEW: Report on August 2026 Russian drone launches reveals new trends, namely dramatic increases of daylight attacks and the use of jet powered drones.   According to @anokhin_i estimates, based on Ukrainian Air Force reporting and supplementary monitoring data, Russia used at least 5,166 Shahed-type UAVs, including decoys.  Of these, an estimated 4,288 UAVs were shot down or suppressed.  August 2026 marked a transition from the more concentrated overnight pattern observed earlier in the year toward sustained day-and-night pressure. Newly, up to 57 to 62 percent of Shahed/Geran drones launched are assessed as jet-powered, compared to just about 10 percent in June.   Faster jet-powered UAVs compress engagement windows for mobile fire groups and many interceptor drones, forcing reliance on faster and more expensive defensive systems. For sanctions and export-control analysis, the central question is whether Russia can sustain this transition. Turbojet engines, flight-control electronics, anti-jamming, inertial navigation, communications hardware, components, materials, and production equipment remain priorities. Chinese substitution, remaining Western dependencies, intermediaries, and sanctions-evasion routes require continued investigation. We’d like to note that since July, the analysis of monthly drone launches has become increasingly difficult because the Ukrainian Air Force is publishing progressively less detailed daily information. In particular, daytime UAV attacks are now often substantial, but separate daytime totals are not always reported; the Air Force no longer regularly states how many of the total UAVs were specifically Shahed/Geran; and, beginning in August, it also increasingly stopped reporting the number of UAV hits, instead giving only the number of affected locations. We would urge the @KpsZSU to return to its original format of reporting and define specific timeframes for daytime and night time launch reporting.   See the key graphics below and read the full report here: isis-online.org/isis-reports…

NEW: Following President Trump's public comments on attacks on the Pickaxe mountain facility, Iran moved to limit ground access to the tunnel site. In August 2026, it added a series of earthen piles across the roads leading to the Western tunnel entrances. They can be seen in imagery dated  August 9, 2026 and are still there as of August 21, 2026. This follows an earlier move to partially backfill the Eastern tunnel entrances to prevent rapid ingress and egress of vehicles and ongoing hardening efforts of all the portals. Whatever internal construction had been underway would have ground to a halt while the road blockades are in place.

The recent CSIS report on Pickaxe mountain missed an important finding in the August 2026 image that contradicts one of its central conclusions. And the lack of citation to our work borders on the comical. The report by Joseph Rodgers @NonproJoe and Douglas Comstock states that activity at Pickaxe Mountain has “shifted from active excavation toward probable internal construction and continued exterior reinforcement.” That may be true and we pointed out both for more than a year. But the contradiction is that their image shows, apparently without noticing it, that Iran has more recently moved to limit access to all entrances to the tunnel facility as if the site is preparing against attack. The authors appear to have missed the multiple new earthen piles blocking the road leading to the main western tunnel portal and one pile blocking the road to the auxiliary western portal. Given that the eastern tunnel portals were already partially backfilled in April 2026, this severely limits ground access to the site. The CSIS report has a serious lack of citation. Readers will be surprised to see that there is not a single direct reference to any ISIS report on the facility, which we have been monitoring since 2020 when construction began. But there is a link to a X post that reposted one of our key findings from a report. We asked for citations to be added last week but have not heard back. Some examples which should be cited so the reader can understand the publication chronology and public analytical record include the identification of the security perimeter; the hardening of tunnel portal entrances; the blocking of the eastern tunnel portal entrances; the hardening and burial of the nearby 2007 tunnel complex; the operational status of the facility; start of internal construction; identification of potential vulnerabilities; and the possible purposes of the facility. See table below. We have a much deeper analysis of the lack of citation in this and earlier CSIS reports which we hope is not necessary to publish. Claiming that they did not know about our published reports or use any of our published reports to produce their report would lead to a more serious charge than we are currently making.

Reaction to the IAEA's Board resolution on Syria: Politicizing the process The new resolution missed an important opportunity to call on Syria to provide a correct and complete nuclear declaration and adopt the Additional Protocol to facilitate the IAEA in drawing a conclusion that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. While everyone wants to celebrate and reward the Syrian regime's change of heart and newfound cooperation, the verification task is far from complete and claims that the case is closed are false. The 2011 resolution specifically called upon Syria to provide a complete declaration.  Paragraph 4 of the resolution reads "4. Calls upon Syria to sign and promptly bring into force and implement in full the Additional Protocol and, pending that, to act in accordance with the Additional Protocol so that the Director General can provide the necessary assurances regarding both the correctness and completeness of Syria’s declarations pursuant to its safeguards agreement;  " The new resolution passed a few days ago, in its own paragraph 4, calls the provisions of the 2011 resolution "terminated". The 2026 resolution cannot exempt Syria from having to provide a correct and complete declaration, which is, as is stated in 2011, a NPT safeguards requirement. And this should be done without delay. Syria's current declaration is incomplete.  Based on reading the most recent IAEA Syria safeguards report, there remain questions over the total amount of uranium received from North Korea, the accomplishments of Syria to build a reprocessing program and the identification of its locations, and the progress and locations of efforts to make the nuclear weapon itself when the reactor was bombed in 2007. In addition, the role of a chief nuclear supplier of undeclared nuclear technology, materials, and components, namely North Korea, is being ignored, a practice that was unacceptable in the case of Iran and Iraq.   As a result, the IAEA has not closed the circle on the nuclear weapons activities of the old regime and lost momentum to get to a better place. iaea.org/sites/default/files… ; iaea.org/sites/default/files…

NEW ANALYSIS: U.S.-Saudi Arabia Cooperation on Enrichment: Framework for a Black Box There is lots to digest in the U.S.-Saudi Arabia nuclear cooperation package of agreements, minute, and unclassified Nonproliferation Assessment. We started with trying to understand how and under what provisions the United States could provide Saudi Arabia with an enrichment facility. Key findings below: - The language appears deliberately structured so that a U.S. designed, built, and operated enrichment facility can be deployed in Saudi Arabia without automatically transferring the centrifuge technology embodied in that facility. Details were not provided, but in such an arrangement the U.S. would be expected to retain control of centrifuge design, production, assembly, maintenance, and physical access. - This is in line with what The Wall Street Journal earlier reported as a secretive “black box” facility, “avoiding the transfer of sensitive enrichment technology” to Saudi Arabia. - The agreement creates the framework to establish a black box centrifuge plant but establishing that facility will require many future agreements between the United States and Saudi Arabia, not just the two-year Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study (JECS). - In terms of proliferation implications, several things need to happen independently, namely restricting access to the centrifuges and centrifuge technology. The public agreement does not yet clearly establish physical access restrictions to the former. It does provide mechanisms to restrict access to much of the latter. Most notably, it categorically excludes the transfer of Restricted Data (RD) and classified information, which covers many areas related to centrifuge design, specification, production, and operation. - A potential loophole is that the agreement explicitly permits transfers of centrifuge sensitive nuclear technology (SNT) under certain circumstances. The agreement allows SNT transfer to support the Joint Enrichment and Conversion Study (JECS) or upon written agreement of the parties. Therefore, the legal architecture of the agreement is not a categorical prohibition on ever transferring or teaching information on enrichment facilities. - The public package is silent on the question of whether Saudi Arabia could pursue its own centrifuge research and development programs while also receiving a U.S.-supplied enrichment plant, including SNT, from the United States. It does say that there is an “understanding that any SNT transferred for purposes of the JECS could not be used by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for other purposes,” but this still needs to be put in writing in a yet-to-be negotiated “exchange of diplomatic notes” and raises questions on verification. - Based on our past research and current AI-assisted searches of open sources, we found little evidence in the publicly visible scientific literature of significant or sustained Saudi Arabian indigenous research on the specialized technologies required for gas-centrifuge enrichment. - This suggests that if Saudi Arabia wants to independently acquire gas centrifuge enrichment capabilities in the near-to-medium term, it will need to launch a major domestic program to do so or obtain such a capability via foreign technology and training. The latter could involve covert assistance from centrifuge suppliers, such as Pakistan, or exploitation of opportunities presented by cooperation with the United States. - Overall, the idea of a black box enrichment plant is attractive. To determine whether this package of agreements and subsequent ones will achieve a secure black box, many questions need to be answered on the extent of Saudi Arabia’s involvement in building, maintaining, and operating the enrichment facility and the risk of proliferation. A list of 21 questions that should be asked by Congress is included in our report: isis-online.org/isis-reports…

We now have a clearer understanding of the timeline and circumstances of IAEA DG Rafael Grossi’s visits to key nuclear related sites in Syria. Footage of his visit to Marj as Sultan appears to be from 2025. At the time, the IAEA reported finding uranium particles pointing to uranium conversion at an unnamed site, which we suspected to be Marj as Sultan. The IAEA ground images, which can be correlated to satellite imagery, confirm this. The 2026 safeguards report makes clear that not only initial uranium conversion activities took place there; it states the full fuel manufacturing process also took place at this site. Footage from Grossi’s visit to the Al Kibar reactor site (Deir el-Zour) is from 2026, when Grossi wrote on X that he was in Syria to visit the site. It can be correlated with excavation activities visible in satellite imagery. Whether footage of the third site, the previously undeclared storage site of uranium metal fuel and scrap, as well as graphite, was included, is unclear. It is listed as a site visited in Grossi’s August 2026 X post. At yesterday’s press conference and as reported by @AP , Grossi described using “difficult and narrow passages” to reach the nuclear material, including having to “tear down walls.” He stated the site had “boxes scattered all over the place.” He confirmed a question on whether the site had been attacked by an airstrike and access involved clearing of rubble with a head nod and a quiet, but distinct “yes.” The confirmation of air strikes narrows the suspect sites to those targeted by Israel after the fall of Assad. A key suspect site is the Tal Qartal "Project 99/CERS" underground missile complex. A “Site 99” was reported by @axios as holding the nuclear material and as having witnessed Israeli bombing of the entrances to prevent access to the material. The area publicly associated with Site 99 is large, but we identified a specific site near Tal Qartal as having been heavily damaged in an Israeli airstrike carried out in September 2023, targeting buildings at the site, and again in a second attack in December 2024, which destroyed four probable underground tunnel entrance buildings. As of July 17, 2026, the debris from the destroyed underground tunnel entrance building appears untouched. Rubble from the other building had been partially cleared. No changes at the site can be identified during August; If this is the site where uranium metal fuel is held, no large scale recovery efforts were being made as yet. We will continue to monitor the site for any observable changes. Another possibility is the Al Qusayr tunnel site, identified as a 3 km long cross-border smuggling tunnel for Hezbollah, which was attacked in the second half of 2024. Even if this is not the site where the uranium was found, it may be one of the additional sites visited by the IAEA to take environmental samples, as it was tied to the Al Kibar site in public reporting. See also: isis-online.org/isis-reports…; isis-online.org/isis-reports…; nitter.net/TheGoodISIS/status/208…; and isis-online.org/isis-reports… Thanks to @StLiechtenstein for asking Grossi important questions and @MilOpsUpdate for posting additional images of Grossi's 2025 visit.

NEW: Video footage from the IAEA visits in Syria shown on The World is One News in August 2026 confirms that Director General Rafael Grossi visited the Marj as Sultan compound in addition to the buried Al Kibar reactor site. The image of him inside a building can be correlated with a secondary building at the compound. The IAEA video narration appears to point to the Marj as Sultan site as the “second location that was previously undeclared," which lines up with the IAEA report identifying the second undeclared location as “a fuel fabrication plant where the nuclear fuel for the reactor at Dair Alzour [aka Al Kibar reactor] was manufactured.” The Institute published a photo in 2013 of the same chemical processing hall that Grossi visited. The image the Institute acquired in 2013 shows the hall as it appeared in about 2005, before operation, and it shows equipment being installed. Prominent is a large metal column with windows described by the source as equipment for the cleaning or purification of solutions, i.e., a scrubber or solvent extraction column. This, and other equipment in other images, is likely part of an integrated chemical processing system to convert yellowcake into uranium tetrafluoride. In last year’s NPT safeguards report, the IAEA had reported on taking environmental samples at a location where many uranium particles were present, and where analysis specifically pointed to the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide. In the most recent safeguards report, the IAEA concluded that the entire fuel manufacturing process took place in Syria. Given that no new site for this was identified by the IAEA, this strongly indicates that the entire multi-step process from uranium ore concentrate to UO3, the reduction to UO2, the fluorination to UF4, and the reduction to uranium metal, as well as the alloying, melting, extruding into fuel rods and cladding with magnesium alloy took place in the various buildings at the Marj as Sultan site. The images from the IAEA visit show that the interior has been completely stripped. It is the responsibility of Syria to explain where the critical and contaminated nuclear fuel production equipment now resides.

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…

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… Author: @SFnuclear and the Good ISIS Team

Another tangible sign that Iran was putting in place, in line with the JCPOA, a capacity to enrich large amounts of enriched uranium in 2030, at which point it would’ve achieved a WGU breakout timeline shorter than existed in June 2025, already a breakout time short enough to be a major cause of the ensuing 12-Day war. The bunkered structure at Natanz was constructed between 2010 and 2017, with the bulk of construction occurring between 2015 and 2017, while the JPA and the JCPOA were in force. It is worth noting, despite the difficulty today of achieving it, that a nuclear deal should end enrichment, with the destruction of enrichment capabilities and a ban on any construction or activity that would facilitate the restart of enrichment.

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…

“He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” Trump said, referring to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. I never expected to hear a President give such a precise estimate. And I have not heard of any President since the collapse of the Agreed Framework giving an estimate of the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. My estimate quoted by VOA this summer was a bit higher: “The median number of nuclear weapons is estimated at about 60 to 70 as of the end of 2025 with a mix of types of nuclear weapons, including pure fission, thermonuclear, and composite core nuclear weapons.”

Part 3 of images on IAEA visit to Al Kibar, aka Deir Ez-Zor. The IAEA has released a great set of images, unfortunately without any annotations or captions. iaea.wistia.com/folders/j9m7…