President Donald Trump says U.S. forces could target Iran’s heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex in the near term, warning that Washington is monitoring activity throughout Iran and will strike if Tehran attempts to restore nuclear capabilities destroyed in earlier American and Israeli attacks.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump placed Iran’s deeply buried Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex at the center of Washington’s latest warning to Tehran on Friday, saying the United States is closely watching the site and could attack it if Iran attempts to rebuild its damaged nuclear program there.
“We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
The warning comes as the United States continues military operations aimed at preventing Iran from restoring nuclear and military capabilities damaged in previous strikes. Trump said American surveillance provides detailed information about movement around Pickaxe Mountain and elsewhere across the country.
“We know everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe. We know everybody that’s moving everywhere all over Iran,” Trump said. “And if anything goes bad, we hit them. We hit them hard.”
Trump framed the possible strike around the same objective he has repeatedly cited throughout the confrontation with Tehran: preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump declared. “We’ve stopped them from having” one.
Pickaxe Mountain has attracted increasing attention because of its location near the heavily damaged Natanz uranium-enrichment complex and the extensive underground infrastructure constructed beneath Kolang Gaz La mountain.
The facility contains two tunnel complexes built deep underground. Experts have assessed that portions could be buried more deeply than Iran’s Fordow enrichment complex, which previously represented one of the most difficult Iranian nuclear facilities for military forces to reach.
Trump said Thursday during an interview with Britain’s GB News that U.S. intelligence capabilities give Washington substantial visibility into Iran’s surviving nuclear infrastructure.
“We have cameras on every major area of the first three. And we also have cameras on Pickaxe Mountain,” Trump said, referring to the three major Iranian nuclear sites struck by U.S. forces last year.
“We know everybody that walks in and walks out,” Trump said.
He cited surveillance capabilities that include assets associated with the U.S. Space Force and expressed confidence that Washington can determine what is occurring around the mountain.
Concern surrounding Pickaxe has increased amid reports that Iran may have moved equipment there after previous attacks devastated other parts of its nuclear infrastructure.
Israeli intelligence reportedly believes Tehran transferred thousands of advanced centrifuges into the underground complex last fall. If operational, such equipment could potentially provide Iran with a means of restoring uranium-enrichment capabilities lost in earlier U.S. and Israeli strikes.
Trump has been warning for months that an attempt to make Pickaxe Mountain the foundation of a reconstructed Iranian nuclear program could prompt another American attack.
When asked in July about reports involving the movement of centrifuges, Trump said the United States was continuing to track Iran’s remaining nuclear equipment and material.
“We’ll be hitting that area probably pretty soon,” Trump warned. “There’s not a thing they can do about it.”
He made clear at the time that the threat was not limited to one underground complex.
Trump said the United States would attack “any site where they’re even thinking about nuclear” and would do so “very, very powerfully.”
Days earlier, Trump addressed Pickaxe Mountain during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt and said access to the complex by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors would have to be part of any future agreement with Tehran.
Trump said U.S. surveillance had not identified activity at Pickaxe at that point but warned that the site could nevertheless receive “a nice, big, fat shot right into the front door.”
By the conclusion of the discussion, Trump stated his position more directly.
“We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain.”
The possibility of another attack carries added significance because the United States demonstrated last year that it was willing to use its most powerful conventional bunker-busting weapons against Iran’s underground nuclear infrastructure.
Operation Midnight Hammer struck Iran’s three principal nuclear facilities during the final phase of Israel’s 12-day Operation Rising Lion campaign in June 2025.
Seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers participated in the American operation, dropping 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs against Fordow and Natanz.
Each weapon weighs approximately 30,000 pounds and was specifically developed to attack deeply buried and hardened targets.
A U.S. submarine simultaneously fired more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles against infrastructure at Isfahan.
Fordow presented the most difficult challenge.
The uranium-enrichment complex was constructed roughly 300 feet beneath a mountain near Qom and protected by extensive rock and reinforced concrete.
Its depth required years of specialized U.S. planning and resulted in the first operational employment of the GBU-57.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine later disclosed details about how the attack was conducted.
American planners targeted ventilation shafts leading into the underground facility. Initial weapons were used to penetrate concrete that Iran had placed over the openings before additional massive bunker-busting bombs followed into the mountain.
The Pentagon later assessed that Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been completely obliterated.
The intelligence preparation behind the campaign also involved extensive Israeli efforts.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said last month that Israeli intelligence had “toured” Fordow “many times” while developing its understanding of the underground installation before U.S. forces ultimately attacked it.
Cohen did not specify whether Israeli personnel had physically entered the subterranean complex.
Trump has repeatedly cited the combination of intelligence collection, surveillance and U.S. strike capabilities in arguing that Iran would have difficulty secretly reconstructing its nuclear program.
Pickaxe Mountain has now become the most prominent test of that warning.
The renewed focus on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure comes as Washington is simultaneously conducting military operations involving Iranian capabilities around the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. forces carried out another round of strikes this week after Iran attempted to restore radar and missile systems near the strategically vital waterway and continued threatening shipping in the area.
American forces struck newly installed Iranian radar and missile equipment as well as a capability Trump said was being developed to deploy additional mines.
The attacks followed repeated warnings from the president against renewed Iranian efforts to interfere with commercial shipping through the strait.
“They brought in radar because we knocked it out once. Now we knocked it out twice,” Trump said Friday.
Trump said the United States was no longer detecting activity around the destroyed systems.
The military operations around Hormuz form another part of Washington’s strategy toward Iran alongside the effort to prevent reconstruction of Tehran’s nuclear program.
Vice President JD Vance described those priorities Thursday at the White House, identifying the prevention of an Iranian nuclear weapon as the first objective while also emphasizing the importance of keeping commercial shipping moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Number one, it’s so that Iran never has a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.
The strategic waterway remains critical to international energy markets, making Iranian missile, radar and mine-laying capabilities in the area a separate focus of American military operations.
Trump characterized the broader confrontation Friday as a “military conflict” rather than continuous warfare, saying American forces are conducting strikes intermittently instead of engaging Iran without interruption.
He declined to establish a deadline for when the confrontation would end.
Instead, Trump returned to the nuclear issue as the principal measure by which he evaluates the campaign.
“I can’t tell you, but we’ve already won the big thing,” Trump said. “There’s not going to be a nuclear weapon.”
For Washington, Pickaxe Mountain has consequently emerged as the next major focus of that policy.
The three principal facilities targeted during Operation Midnight Hammer were struck with bunker-busting bombs and cruise missiles in 2025, while U.S. surveillance is now concentrated on whether Iran attempts to establish replacement capabilities elsewhere.
Trump’s latest warning makes clear that Pickaxe Mountain would not be exempt because of the depth or fortification of its underground tunnels.
With Washington claiming it can monitor movement around the complex and reports suggesting advanced centrifuges may have been transferred there, Trump has placed Tehran on notice that any effort to transform Pickaxe into a replacement nuclear center could trigger another direct U.S. strike.
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