Donald Trump said the U.S. will strike Pickaxe Mountain Iran “probably pretty soon,” putting a target on an underground Iranian nuclear site while three explosive-laden drones were shot down near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil. The statement came Tuesday as U.S. military actions and drone activity kept the regional fight moving on two fronts at once.
Trump also said Tuesday the U.S. will target any Iranian nuclear site. He did not give a date for the Pickaxe Mountain strike, but his language made the threat immediate rather than theoretical, with the timing tied to the same day U.S. forces were dealing with drones near the consulate in Iraq.
Erbil drones and U.S. strikes
Three explosive-laden drones were shot down near the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. That puts a U.S. diplomatic post inside the same security picture as the military exchange already under way, with U.S. Central Command having carried out its latest wave of strikes against Iranian military targets at 9 p.m. ET on Monday, July 20.
U.S. Central Command also said two U.S. service members in Jordan were killed last week during an Iran-linked attack, and a third U.S. troop was killed in Iraq on Saturday. Those deaths give Trump’s warning a sharper edge: the threat to Pickaxe Mountain was not delivered in a vacuum, but after a stretch of attacks that already reached U.S. personnel in Jordan and Iraq.
Hegseth at Senate Appropriations Committee
War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the U.S. military has the capability to strike Iran’s underground Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility. At the Senate Appropriations Committee, Dick Durbin pressed Hegseth to explain the $37.5 billion estimate for the war in Iran, and Hegseth said the figure includes current operational costs and projected expenses through Sept. 30.
“Through now for certain aspects of it, but also military pay, O&M and other anticipated costs through Sept. 30, Senator,” Hegseth said. He also said, “Some of that number captures additional O&M, military pay and other costs that would be anticipated through the fiscal year,” and, “So some of that anticipates what costs would be going out in the future as well.”
Pickaxe Mountain and the next move
Pickaxe Mountain is now the site at the center of the U.S. threat, described as an underground Iranian nuclear facility that Trump said could be struck soon. That leaves the practical question on the U.S. side, not the Iranian side: whether the warning is meant to force movement now, or whether U.S. forces are already preparing for action after the latest drones were intercepted near Erbil.
For readers watching the region from Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon, the immediate takeaway is that the next move depends on U.S. decision-making, not on another public deadline. Trump has already said the strike would happen “probably pretty soon,” and Hegseth has said the military has the capability to carry it out.
