President Trump reissued one of his most pointed threats yet against Iran, telling reporters the United States may have to blow up Pickaxe Mountain, the deeply buried facility Tehran has been carving into the earth beside its Natanz enrichment complex. Known in Iran as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, the site remains the one major nuclear-linked facility that has escaped every round of US and Israeli strikes since 2025, even as bombing campaigns leveled other parts of Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Satellite imagery reviewed by analysts continues to show active tunnel construction and a growing spoil pile at the mountain, fueling suspicion that Iran may be quietly relocating enriched uranium or centrifuges into the fortified interior. Buried under hundreds of meters of solid granite and shielded by anti-aircraft batteries and Revolutionary Guard units, the facility was specifically engineered to survive the kind of bunker-busting strikes that have already hit Natanz and Fordow.

Trump's September 22 comments extend a warning he has repeated for months, having previously told reporters the US would hit the area pretty soon and very heavily if Iran kept digging. Nuclear experts have noted the pointed irony that American and Israeli forces deliberately spared Pickaxe Mountain during earlier strikes, a restraint some analysts say suggests deep intelligence penetration into what exactly sits inside the mountain and when it might become operational. The renewed threat is landing amid a broader spike in US-Iran tensions, with both sides continuing to trade blows and the International Atomic Energy Agency locked out of Iran and unable to verify what remains of the country's nuclear program. Online reaction to Trump's latest remarks has been intense, with many users debating whether striking the site would actually neutralize the threat or simply push Iran's nuclear ambitions further underground, literally and figuratively.