Iran’s Pickaxe mountain tests limits of Trump’s military options
A secretive Pentagon innovation agency has hastened to test munitions that may penetrate deeper than the GBU-57 bombs dropped on Iran’s two main enrichment facilities.
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Wednesday again raised the prospect of US military strikes on Iran’s remaining nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain, threatening further escalation as the two sides have settled into an uneasy stalemate.
“We notice there's a little activity at Pickaxe,” Trump said at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas. “I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard,” he added.
The comment marked the US president’s second warning to Iran in less than a week about the subterranean site, which lies just over a mile (2 kilometers) south of Tehran’s main enrichment facility at Natanz.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to renew US military strikes on Iran if its government attempts to recover or rebuild nuclear infrastructure damaged in waves of US and Israeli aerial attacks that aimed to destroy the country’s major enrichment facilities in 2025.
