Trump Warns of Imminent US Strike on Iran's Pickaxe Mountain

President Donald Trump says Washington could strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain very soon. This latest warning comes as part of an escalating series of threats against the heavily fortified underground site next to the bombed-out Natanz enrichment complex. The threat arrived just hours after a US missile attack on an Iranian oil tanker off Kharg Island, according to news outlet Khabar Fouri. That island is the main hub for Iran's oil exports and handles about 90 percent of the volume.

Trump made his statement while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. He told them that US intelligence knows everybody moving at Pickaxe Mountain and across Iran generally. His words echo a similar threat he issued back in mid-July on the Hugh Hewitt Show. At that time, he stated clearly: We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain.

Tell the Iranians to be ready... We will probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon." This latest threat arrives more than six months into the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28, even as mixed messages swirl from the Trump administration about the conflict. On Friday, Trump sought to downplay the fighting in Iran, calling it "small potatoes". A day earlier, at a White House news briefing, Vice President JD Vance appeared to suggest the situation had cooled and shrugged off an alleged US strike on a wedding in southern Iran with "sometimes things happen". At a White House briefing this week, Vance said of the conflict with Iran that he "wouldn't call it a war" and claimed there was "no active shooting right now". But the US and Iran have exchanged attacks this week, including a US hit close to Iran's oil infrastructure on Kharg Island. Meanwhile, talks related to Iran's nuclear programme have remained in limbo since a 60-day negotiating window expired in mid-August without a deal. Iran says it is not undertaking any work at the Natanz nuclear site. Its Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters has warned that bombing the nearby mountain would amount to a renewal of war across the region, at a time when the Trump administration would prefer to keep the war contained before pivotal mid-term elections.

So why has Pickaxe Mountain become the latest focus of Trump's threats – again? Known in Iran as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, the site sits roughly 220km (140 miles) south of the capital Tehran, in Isfahan province, and just 2km (1.2 miles) from the Natanz enrichment plant. US intelligence reports indicate that the facility has been excavated deep inside the mountain, beneath hundreds of metres of solid granite rock, to protect it from powerful bombs designed to penetrate bunkers. The main chambers are thought to lie at least 100 metres (330ft) underground. Some Western analysts have speculated that the mountain was intended to house an undeclared enrichment plant, a hedge against attacks on Iran's known facilities. The Institute for Science and International Security, which tracks the site by satellite, has assessed that it is still under construction and not yet operational. However, Iran has always maintained that it is developing a nuclear power programme only, and does not have plans to build a nuclear weapon.

Pickaxe Mountain matters because it is intact. Pickaxe Mountain was left alone during the US's June 2025 strikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan at the end of the 12-day Israel war on Iran, and has escaped the current war almost entirely; the Institute for Science and International Security has recorded only the destruction of a vehicle on a nearby spoil pile. With Iran's centrifuge manufacturing base and enrichment halls at other sites damaged in the war, analysts see the tunnels as the most obvious place for Tehran to rebuild: For component production, assembly or enrichment of uranium. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Israel had passed Washington intelligence suggesting thousands of centrifuges had been moved inside the facility late last year, a claim the US has not confirmed. Trump has been less alarmist than Israel. Centrifuges only matter if there is uranium to put through them; the machines concentrate uranium gas, and without a supply of it they cannot produce anything. According to most estimates, a considerable amount of damage has been done to Iran's nuclear sites. The European Council on Foreign Relations estimates that the 2025 strikes likely destroyed many of the roughly 18,000 centrifuges then operating at Iran's Natanz and Fordow facilities, along with several centrifuge production sites and Ardakan, Iran's only yellowcake milling plant.

Yellowcake serves as powdered uranium concentrate pulled directly from milled ore. Nearly 4,000 extra centrifuges were installed but sat idle at that moment. They might have survived the strikes. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed further damage to entrance buildings at Natanz's underground enrichment plant in March 2026. No additional impact was detected on the plant itself. The Institute for Science and International Security reported in June that tunnel entrances at all three main sites remain sealed. There is no evidence of any enrichment taking place right now. The centrifuge programme still appears to have been destroyed.

Didn't Trump say Iran's nuclear sites had already been destroyed? Yes. After the June 2025 attacks, he stated the three sites were completely and totally obliterated. However, just days later a leaked preliminary US Defence Intelligence Agency assessment concluded the sites were significantly damaged but not destroyed. That report estimated the strikes set Iran's nuclear programme back by less than six months. The situation today remains unclear.

Iran is currently believed to be holding about 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent. A 90-percent threshold of enriched uranium is needed to produce a nuclear weapon. No inspector has entered the bombed sites yet. Trump's framing has shifted from obliteration to a promise to hit any site where Iran is even thinking about nuclear weapons.

What do we know about Iran's nuclear programme? Less than at any point in two decades. Just before the US-Israel attacks on Iran in June 2025, the IAEA verified about 10 tonnes of enriched uranium in total. This included the 440kg stockpile enriched to 60 percent. In theory this amount of enriched uranium could produce more than 10 nuclear warheads if enriched to 90 percent. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Al Jazeera in early March about this potential yield. It is unclear where this stock may be located now.

Iran suspended cooperation with the agency after the strikes occurred. The IAEA now says it has no way to report on the size, location or composition of that stockpile. Officials believe much of the 60-percent material is bottled up in tunnels at Isfahan. On Friday Trump claimed again that the US had prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He argued Washington's intervention protected Israel and the wider Middle East. Tehran insists the programme is peaceful. They have dismissed Washington's focus on Pickaxe Mountain as a manufactured pretext for attacking them.