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New satellite images show activity at 'Pickaxe Mountain,' an underground site in the Zagros Mountains where IAEA inspectors have not been allowed to visit, even as Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow show little movement after last year’s US strikes “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it will not seek or develop nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.” These are two clauses in the memorandum of understanding signed by Iran and the United States, but new satellite images of a secret site are raising questions over whether Tehran truly intends...

The one thing we can always trust about Iran is that we can't trust Iran. Any agreement they make, they won't keep. Any promise they make, they will break. Any time they claim they are telling the truth, they are lying. These are constants.So, when satellite photos reveal some new and suspicious construction deep in the rugged Zagros Mountains, it raises some questions.One of the leading American institutes devoted to research on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program sounded the alarm this week over the regime's uninspected underground site in the Zagros Mountains. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...

On Day 37 of Operation Epic Fury, U.S. special forces carried out a daring rescue mission after an F-15E Strike Eagle Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) was shot down deep inside Iran. The operation unfolded in the harsh terrain of the Zagros Mountains near Dehdasht, pushing elite units to their limits. This high-stakes combat search and rescue (CSAR) mission brought together Night Stalkers flying Little Birds, Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs), DEVGRU operators, A-10 Warthogs, MQ-9 Reapers, and the highly secretive 427th Special Operations Squadron’s C-295W. Facing intense enemy fire, they fought through a major firefight to reach and extract the downed...

Fox News reported on April 6th, citing CENTCOM sources, that US B-2 Spirit stealth bombers struck and obliterated an underground IRGC headquarters near Tehran using Massive Ordnance Penetrators during the same operational window in which SEAL Team 6 was extracting the downed F-15E weapons systems officer from the Zagros Mountains. The 30,000-pound bunker busters, the largest conventional weapons in the American arsenal, were dropped on a buried command node while hundreds of special operations troops were simultaneously fighting their way out of Iran with a wounded colonel. The rescue and the decapitation strike ran concurrently. The operators saving one American...

The US rescued a missing F-15E airman deep inside Iran with an incredibly complex and daring mission that involved SEAL Team 6, a CIA ruse, a hastily constructed forward air strip in hostile territory, and patrols of friendly aircraft that gave the Air Force colonel cover. A life-or-death race between US and Iranian forces to find the “seriously injured” weapons officer outside Isfahan over two days culminated in the crew member’s extraction by America’s most elite commandos and a firefight with local militias that were hunting for him, according to a report in the New York Times. The unnamed officer,...

Traces of a monumental building thought to be at least 5,000 years old have been discovered at the Kani Shaie archaeological site, which is located in the foothills of the Zagros Mountains in northern Iraq, according to a statement released by the University of Coimbra. Researchers from the University of Coimbra, the University of Algarve, the University of Cambridge, and the Slemani Antiquities and Heritage Directorate think that the building may have been used as a temple. They note that it was decorated with wall cones, which are typically found in monumental architecture in Uruk, an early Sumerian metropolis in...

Archaeologists excavating the site of Rabana-Merquly, suggest that the mountain fortress could be the lost city of Natounia.Rabana-Merquly is located on the flanks of Mt. Piramagrun in the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. The fortress consists of nearly 4km of fortifications, in addition to two smaller settlements, for which Rabana-Merquly is named.Rabana-Merquly is located on the eastern border of Adiabene, which was governed by the kings of a local dynasty dependent on the Parthians. It may have been used, among other things, to conduct trade with the pastoral tribes in the back country, maintain diplomatic relations, or exert military pressure.Within...

An international team of researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Harvard University has discovered that waves of migration from Anatolia and the Zagros mountains (today's Turkey and Iran) to the Levant helped develop the Chalcolithic culture that existed in Israel's Upper Galilee region some 6,500 years ago. The study is one of the largest ancient DNA studies ever conducted in Israel and for the first time sheds light on the origins of the Chalcolithic culture in the Levant, approximately 6,000-7,000 years ago... The team unearthed dozens of burials in the natural stalactite cave that is 17...

Since assuming office in 2009, President Barack Obama has consistently held that the United States would carry out airstrikes to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. This position is supported by the vast majority of U.S. policy makers, lawmakers and the political elite, regardless of political affiliation. Nonetheless, it is also generally agreed that airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities would only have a limited impact on preventing Iran from acquiring the bomb. To be sure, a concerted airstrike effort against Iran would delay its ability to build a nuclear arsenal by several years. Nonetheless, Iran would be able to...

A Monument to an American's Selflessness in Iran by Davar Iran Ardalan Weekend Edition Saturday, June 7, 2008 · Imagine finding out that a nomadic tribe has named a mountain after your grandmother. My mother and I learned just that when a relative phoned to say the storied Bakhtiari tribe had so honored my grandmother, Helen Jeffreys Bakhtiar, to commemorate her public health work there in the 1950s. It's quite a legacy for a woman born in Weiser, Idaho, at the beginning of the 20th century. Located in the central Zagros Mountains of Iran, near the ancient city of Isfahan,...