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Trump doubles down connected Iran atomic weapons promise pinch Pickaxe Mountain threat
President Donald Trump vows to guarantee Iran ne'er acquires a atomic weapon, prompting a chat pinch Mark Wallace, CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran. Wallace highlights nan threat posed by Iran's hidden 'Pickaxe Mountain' atomic facility, which whitethorn incorporate centrifuges and enriched uranium. He emphasizes nan request to neutralize this tract and discusses nan Iranian regime's usage of atomic ambitions arsenic leverage against nan West.
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President Donald Trump is threatening to onslaught Iran’s profoundly buried Pickaxe Mountain atomic installation — a tract nan United States antecedently near untouched while bombing nan country’s different awesome nuclear sites, raising caller questions astir what whitethorn person changed.
Estimated to dishonesty beneath astatine slightest 100 meters of stone adjacent Iran's damaged Natanz atomic enrichment complex, Pickaxe was designed to switch an above-ground works tin of assembling astir 6,000 precocious centrifuges each twelvemonth earlier it was destroyed successful 2020.
Iran said nan replacement would beryllium larger, much modern and built "in nan bosom of nan mountain." Analysts judge nan tunnels could yet clasp a centrifuge assembly line, an enrichment works aliases instrumentality utilized successful definite atomic weaponization activities.
Satellite image Pickaxe Mountain (Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
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Yet the administration has not said whether it has confirmed that centrifuges were moved wrong — aliases why a tract near untouched during earlier attacks now warrants a strike. Military experts besides disagree complete whether airstrikes could destruct Pickaxe’s interior aliases simply seal its entrances temporarily.
The aforesaid extent that could protect Iran’s atomic infrastructure whitethorn spot Pickaxe’s main chambers beyond nan reliable destructive scope of America’s astir powerful accepted bunker-busting weapon. Bombing its exposed entrances could contradict Iran entree without destroying nan installation aliases thing stored inside.
Trump said Tuesday that nan United States would astir apt onslaught nan area "pretty soon" and "very heavily."
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His informing came aft The Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into Pickaxe past fall. Trump said nan transportation "may have" occurred but added that nan United States did not person it "on record."
"Maybe this 1 they person right," Trump said. "But it’s okay. It doesn’t mean thing unless they person nan material."
A outer position shows an overview of nan Natanz atomic installation and Pickaxe Mountain, adjacent Natanz, Iran, June 30, 2026 (Vantor/Handout via Reuters)
"We travel nan material," he added.
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By "the material," Trump was referring to Iran’s enriched uranium, including uranium state that centrifuges tin further enrich to weapons-grade levels.
Before nan June 2025 attacks, nan International Atomic Energy Agency had verified that Iran possessed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, enough, if further enriched, for astir 10 atomic weapons nether nan agency’s modular measurement.
Most of nan stockpile was believed to person been held astatine Isfahan, pinch further worldly astatine Natanz and Fordow. Inspectors person since been incapable to verify its amount, information aliases coming location.
The Institute for Science and International Security assesses that nan worldly remains trapped astatine those 3 sites and does not judge enriched uranium has entered Pickaxe.
The administration has not said whether nan United States independently corroborated nan reported Israeli assessment, whether centrifuges are being stored aliases installed wrong Pickaxe aliases whether atomic worldly has entered nan facility.
Storing centrifuges would not make Pickaxe an operational enrichment plant. The machines would person to beryllium installed successful connected cascades, linked to electrical, ventilation and piping systems and fed uranium gas.
Satellite imagery shows continued building but nary denotation that Pickaxe is operational, according to nan Washington-based institute. Images from February showed Iran adding concrete, stone and reinforced structures complete passageway portals successful an evident effort to harden them against airstrikes.
Analysts besides observed smaller closed-roof vehicles adjacent nan entrances that could bespeak Iran was outfitting nan interior. The imagery could not found what nan vehicles carried.
Spencer Faragasso, a elder investigation chap astatine nan Institute for Science and International Security, said earlier U.S. and Israeli attacks prioritized Iran’s operating enrichment program. Based connected what was understood astir Pickaxe astatine nan time, he said, location was "nothing of priority" wrong that warranted expending valuable deep-penetrating weapons.
"The installation is still nether construction, and it’s improbable that a centrifuge works is operating wrong there," Faragasso told Fox News Digital.
But Faragasso said centrifuges could person entered aboard covered trucks without being detected successful commercialized imagery, making nan reported Israeli intelligence plausible but intolerable for extracurricular analysts to confirm.
The reported transportation could thief explicate Trump’s caller attraction connected Pickaxe, he said. The installation is besides 1 of nan past nuclear-related sites of its size that has not been struck.
Trump did not publically sanction Pickaxe during nan opening months of Operation Epic Fury. It entered his nationalist rhetoric July 13, erstwhile blimpish power big Hugh Hewitt raised nan installation during an interview.
Trump said American surveillance had detected nary activity location but called Pickaxe a imaginable target for a "nice large fat changeable correct into nan beforehand door."
At nan extremity of nan interview, Hewitt urged Trump to "go get Pickaxe Mountain."
"We’re going to return retired Pickaxe Mountain," Trump replied. "Tell nan Iranians to beryllium ready."
The White House could not beryllium reached for remark for this story.
The management has not explained whether nan caller threats bespeak caller intelligence, an effort to deter Iran from activating nan installation aliases a displacement from destroying existing enrichment capacity to preventing Iran from rebuilding.
Whether nan United States could destruct Pickaxe from nan aerial remains disputed.
Nicole Grajewski, an adjunct professor astatine Sciences Po and nonresident clever clever successful nan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program, said it would beryllium "very adjacent to impossible" to destruct nan installation done an aerial run for illustration nan 1 nan United States carried retired against Fordow.
People guidelines connected a span destroyed aft a onslaught successful Hormozgan province, confederate Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/Iranian Students' News Agency via AP)
Pickaxe is deeper and much heavy fortified, she said, and does not person a publically confirmed structural weakness comparable to those exploited there.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Spalding, a erstwhile B-2 operations commander, said planners would first find whether nan ngo required destroying Pickaxe’s interior aliases simply preventing Iran from utilizing it.
"You measure what nan goals are, and past you measure nan costs associated pinch making thing not fresh for usage — aliases destruction," Spalding said.
If destroying nan installation proved infeasible, he said, nan U.S. could alternatively contradict entree and forestall Iran from bringing successful nan unit and instrumentality needed to run it.
The institute has identified 2 imaginable ventilation-shaft locations done outer imagery, including 1 it considers probable. Without soul schematics, however, analysts cannot corroborate their intent aliases relationship to nan main chambers.
Faragasso said nan shafts could supply anemic points for deep-penetrating weapons, though nan results of an onslaught mightiness stay unclear.
"The installation is not invulnerable," he said. "There are options."
"At nan minimum, nan passageway entrances tin beryllium collapsed," Faragasso added, saying a onslaught could besides nonstop damaging daze waves into nan facility.
Grajewski said collapsing nan portals would forestall Iran from moving unit aliases instrumentality successful aliases retired without first undertaking an excavation visible to American and Israeli surveillance. Any effort to reopen Pickaxe could trigger different strike.
But Iran has antecedently excavated entrances to rocket tunnels aft they were attacked, meaning keeping Pickaxe closed could require continued surveillance and repeated subject action.
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Grajewski said a onslaught could supply nan U.S. pinch a "symbolic win" against 1 of Iran’s astir salient remaining nuclear-related accommodation but would not destruct nan broader program.
"It is simply a very high-value facility," she said. "But it’s not nan entirety of nan Iranian atomic program."
