Donald Trump said on November 9 that the US was "locked and loaded" if circumstances changed, after repeatedly threatening Pickaxe Mountain. The warning keeps the focus on a bomb found question around the site near Natanz nuclear complex in central Iran, where the interior and contents remain publicly unverified.
Trump also said in October that the US could destroy Pickaxe Mountain quickly. He said he wanted to keep the war at "status quo," a line that left the threat in place without announcing any strike or inspection.
Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz
Pickaxe Mountain is the English nickname for Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, a 1,600m peak about one mile south of Natanz nuclear complex. Experts believe the mountain hosts a nuclear facility, and the complex is thought to sit between 80m and 100m underground, far deeper than the better-known site at Natanz.
The location became part of Iran's nuclear story after a blast on July 2, 2020 damaged a workshop at Natanz nuclear complex that was used for assembling centrifuges. In September 2020, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the workshop’s replacement would be built "in the heart" of Pickaxe Mountain.
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization
That decision, at least on paper, linked Pickaxe Mountain directly to replacement nuclear work. Newspaper reports citing Israeli intelligence assessments claim that Iran moved centrifuges and related equipment into its tunnels, but analysts have not been able to confirm that centrifuges have been moved there.
Satellite photographs show continued construction and reinforced entrances. The mountain is composed of dense granite, which helps explain why any strike threat is treated as more than routine rhetoric: the site is built to resist observation and, potentially, attack.
Center for Strategic and International Studies assessed in September that activity at Pickaxe Mountain increased during 2026, but the site's interior layout and contents remain publicly unverified because international inspectors have never been given access. That leaves Trump’s threat and the suspicion around Pickaxe Mountain in the same place, while the question of what is actually inside the mountain stays open.
The next move is not a strike order but the unresolved fact pattern around the site itself: whether the tunnels hold centrifuges, whether anything has been moved deeper inside, and how far the US is willing to carry its warning beyond words.
