US President Donald Trump said the US could strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain “soon”, the latest in a series of threats against the heavily fortified underground facility next to the bombed Natanz enrichment facility.
Just hours after he made that threat, an Iranian oil tanker was attacked by four U.S. missiles off the coast of Kharg Island, according to Iranian news agency Khabar Khuri. Kharg Island is a major base for Iranian oil exports, handling approximately 90% of the oil.
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President Trump made the Pickaxe Mountain threat to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, saying the U.S. knows “everyone who travels by pickaxe” and all of Iran.
His remarks echoed a similar threat he made on The Hugh Hewitt Show in mid-July, saying, “We’re going to destroy Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to get ready…We’re probably going to take a shot at Pickaxe relatively soon.”
This latest threat comes more than six months after the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28, amid mixed messages about war from the Trump administration.
On Friday, President Trump sought to downplay the Iran war by calling it “small potatoes,” but at a White House press conference a day earlier, Vice President J.D. Vance suggested the conflict had subsided and appeared to dismiss an alleged U.S. attack on a wedding in southern Iran as “sometimes things happen.”
At a White House briefing this week, Vance said the conflict with Iran “cannot be described as a war,” insisting that “there is no active shooting going on right now.”
However, the United States and Iran have exchanged attacks this week, including an American strike near Iranian oil infrastructure on Kharg Island.
Meanwhile, negotiations related to Iran’s nuclear program have remained stalled since a 60-day deadline for negotiations expired in mid-August without an agreement.
Iran says it is not conducting any work at the Natanz nuclear facility.
Khatam al-Anbiya Central Command warned that bombing the nearby mountains would restart war across the region, at a time when the Trump administration wants to contain the war before crucial midterm elections.
So why has Pickaxe Mountain once again become the latest focus of President Trump’s threats?
What is Pickaxe Mountain?
The site, known in Iran as Queh Qoran Ghaz La, is located in Isfahan province, about 220 kilometers (140 miles) south of the capital Tehran and just 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Natanz enrichment plant.
According to a US intelligence report, the facility was excavated deep into the mountain, hundreds of meters below solid granite, to protect it from powerful bombs designed to penetrate the bunker.
The main chambers are thought to be at least 100 meters (330 feet) underground.
Some Western analysts have speculated that the mountain may have been used to build an undeclared enrichment plant and prevent attacks on known Iranian facilities.
The Institute for Science and International Security, which is tracking the site by satellite, assessed the site as still under construction and not yet operational.
However, Iran has always maintained that it is developing only a nuclear power program and has no plans to build nuclear weapons.
Why is Pickaxe Mountain important?
Because it’s unharmed.
Pickaxe Mountain was abandoned when the US attacked Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan in June 2025 at the end of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, almost completely escaping the current war. The Institute for Science and International Security records only the destruction of vehicles on a nearby pile of loot.
Analysts see the tunnels as Tehran’s most obvious place to rebuild, as enrichment halls at Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing base and other facilities were damaged in the war, for component production, assembly and uranium enrichment.
The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Israel had notified U.S. government intelligence that thousands of centrifuges were moved into the facility late last year, but the U.S. has not confirmed this claim.
Mr. Trump is less alarmed than Israel.
A centrifuge only makes sense if there is uranium to pass through it. Machines enrich uranium gas, but without its supply nothing can be produced.
How much damage did Iran’s nuclear facilities suffer?
By most estimates, it’s a significant amount.
The European Council on Foreign Relations estimates that the 2025 strike likely destroyed many of the approximately 18,000 centrifuges operating at the time at Iran’s Natanz and Fordow facilities, several centrifuge production sites, and Ardakan, Iran’s only yellowcake flour mill. Yellowcake is a powdered uranium concentrate obtained from crushed uranium ore.
Nearly 4,000 additional centrifuges were installed, but they were not in operation at the time. However, they may have survived the attack.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed further damage to the entrance building of the Natanz underground enrichment plant in March 2026, but no additional impacts to the plant itself were detected.
The Institute for Science and International Security reported in June that tunnel entrances to all three main sites remained blocked, there was no evidence of enrichment, and the centrifuge program still appeared to have been destroyed.
Didn’t President Trump say that Iran’s nuclear facilities have already been destroyed?
yes. After the June 2025 attack, President Trump said the three sites were “completely and completely destroyed.”
But just days later, a leaked preliminary assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that the facility was significantly damaged but not destroyed, and estimated that the attack would have set back Iran’s nuclear program within six months.
The situation today remains uncertain.
Iran is currently believed to have around 440 kg (970 lb) of 60% enriched uranium. Producing nuclear weapons requires 90 percent enriched uranium.
No inspectors were present at the bombing site, and Trump’s framework changed from “destruction” to a promise to strike at sites where Iran “even has nuclear considerations.”
What do we know about Iran’s nuclear program?
fewer than at any point in the past 20 years.
Just before the US and Israel attacked Iran in June 2025, the IAEA verified a total of about 10 tonnes of enriched uranium, including a stockpile of 440 kg enriched to 60%.
In theory, this amount of enriched uranium, if enriched to 90 percent, would be enough to make more than 10 nuclear warheads, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told Al Jazeera in early March. However, it is unclear where this inventory is located.
Iran suspended cooperation with the agency after the airstrike, and the IAEA says it currently has no way to report on the size, location or composition of its stockpile, but it believes much of the 60 percent material is packed in tunnels in Isfahan.
On Friday, President Trump reiterated that the United States had prevented Iran from developing nuclear weapons, claiming that American intervention had protected Israel and the entire Middle East.
The Iranian government insists the plan is peaceful and has dismissed the US government’s focus on Pickaxe Mountain as a fabricated pretext to attack Pickaxe Mountain.
