Why is Trump threatening to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain again, now?

United States President Donald Trump notes Washington may strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain "very soon", in just the latest in a series of threats he has produced against the heavily fortified underground site located next to the bombed-out Natanz enrichment complex.

Key points

• Iran is at present believed to be holding concerning 440kg (970lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent.
• Just hours after he created that threat, an Iranian oil tanker off Kharg Island was struck by four US missiles, according to Iranian news outlet Khabar Fouri.
• When he stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show: We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain, his remarks echoed a similar threat he created back in mid-July.
• After the June 2025 attacks, Trump remarked the three sites had been "completely and totally obliterated".
• The main chambers are thought to lie at least 100 metres (330ft) underground.

Just hours after he created that threat, an Iranian oil tanker off Kharg Island was struck by four US missiles, according to Iranian news outlet Khabar Fouri. Kharg Island is the main hub for Iran's oil exports, handling regarding 90 percent.

Trump created the threat against Pickaxe Mountain as he was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, saying the US knows "everybody that's moving at Pickaxe" and throughout Iran.

When he stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show: "We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain, his remarks echoed a similar threat he created back in mid-July. Tell the Iranians to be ready. We'll probably offer Pickaxe a shot relatively shortly."

Meanwhile, the latest threat comes more than six months into the war that the US and Israel introduced on Iran on February 28, against the backdrop of mixed messages regarding the war from the Trump administration.

While a day earlier, at a White House news briefing, Vice President JD Vance appeared to suggest the conflict had cooled and to shrug off an alleged US strike on a wedding in southern Iran with "sometimes things happen", on Friday, Trump sought to downplay the war in Iran, calling it "small potatoes".

At a White House briefing this week, Vance remarked of the conflict with Iran that he "wouldn't call it a war" and maintained 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, discussions related to Iran's nuclear programme have remained in limbo since a 60-day negotiating window expired in mid-August without a agreement.

Iran notes it is not undertaking any work at the Natanz nuclear site.

Its Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters has cautioned that bombing the nearby mountain would amount to a renewal of war throughout 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? What is Pickaxe Mountain?

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.

In practice, 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.

Notably, the Institute for Science and International Security. It tracks the site by satellite, has assessed that it is still under construction and not yet operational.

Nevertheless, Iran has always maintained that it is developing a nuclear power programme only, and does not have aims to build a nuclear weapon. Why does Pickaxe Mountain matter? Since 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.

For context, the Wall Street Journal documented 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. How much damage has been done to Iran's nuclear sites? According to most estimates, a considerable amount.

In practice, the European Council on Foreign Relations estimates that the 2025 strikes probable destroyed numerous of the roughly 18, 000 centrifuges then operating at Iran's Natanz and Fordow facilities, along with a number of centrifuge production sites and Ardakan, Iran's only yellowcake milling plant. Yellowcake is powdered uranium concentrate obtained from milled uranium ore.

Almost 4, 000 further centrifuges were installed but idle at the time; nevertheless, they may have survived the strikes.

Although it detected no extra impact on the plant itself, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed further damage to the entrance buildings of Natanz's underground enrichment plant in March 2026.

For context, the Institute for Science and International Security documented in June that tunnel entrances at all three main sites remain sealed, that there is no evidence of any enrichment taking place, and that 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, Trump remarked the three sites had been "completely and totally obliterated".

Nevertheless, just days afterwards, a leaked preliminary US Defence Intelligence Agency assessment concluded that the sites had been significantly damaged but not destroyed, estimating that the strikes had set Iran's nuclear programme back by less than six months. The situation today remains unclear.

Iran is at present believed to be holding concerning 440kg (970lb) 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, and Trump's framing has shifted from "obliteration" to a promise to hit any site where Iran is "even thinking about nuclear". What do we know regarding 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 regarding 10 tonnes of enriched uranium in total, including the 440kg stockpile enriched to 60 percent.

In theory, this amount of enriched uranium – should it be enriched to 90 percent – is enough to produce more than 10 nuclear warheads, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi informed Al Jazeera in early March. It is unclear where this stock may be, nevertheless.

Though it believes much of the 60-percent material is bottled up in tunnels at Isfahan, iran suspended cooperation with the agency after the strikes, and the IAEA now notes it has no way to report on the size, location or composition of that stockpile.

On Friday, Trump asserted again that the US had prevented Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, arguing that Washington's intervention had protected Israel and the wider Middle East.

Tehran insists the programme is peaceful, and has dismissed Washington's focus on Pickaxe Mountain as a manufactured pretext for attacking it.

Taken together, the developments around why is Trump threatening to strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain again, now? Point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.