Trump Says US 'May Have to' Strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, Rules Out Nuclear Weapons and Ground Troops

Seven months after U.S. and Israeli strikes began the war on Iran in February, President Donald Trump put a specific target on the table. In a Thursday night, Oct. 15, interview with Newsmax's Rob Finnerty, he named Pickaxe Mountain.

"Their nuclear is buried under millions of tons of mountain. Now we're looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there," Trump said. "We'll take a shot at that one. We'll knock it out fast."

No strike has been announced. This was a president saying what he is considering, not an order.

What Pickaxe Mountain is

The site is a fortified, deeply buried facility near one of Iran's main nuclear complexes. Anadolu Agency, citing its own reporting, puts it about 1.5 kilometres south of Natanz. It describes a solid granite mountain extending as deep as 600 metres, with Iran allegedly excavating more than 100 metres beneath it.

Tehran has described the site as a centrifuge assembly plant. Inspectors have had no access since construction began in 2020, which has fed concern that it could serve other covert purposes, including uranium enrichment. Anadolu also notes unverified claims that centrifuges were relocated there from other sites.

That lack of access is the core problem. Nobody outside Iran's government can say with confidence what is inside.

Nukes out, ground troops out

Trump ruled out using a nuclear weapon. "I wouldn't use nuclear. We don't have to," he said. Asked about ground forces in an attack on the complex, he answered: "No, I don't see that. I don't see that."

He framed the goal as permanent. "We want to make it so that they will never have a nuclear weapon, because if they had it, they would use it, in my opinion, instantaneously." He added that if the U.S. ended the campaign without securing that outcome, it could be forced to act again within a year.

The 'mother of all bombs' question

CNN reported Thursday, citing multiple U.S. officials familiar with the planning, that the military has drawn up new strike plans that could include the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, the largest non-nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. According to CNN's sources, the targets would be Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites, and the plans could be executed either before or after the midterms if Trump orders combat to resume. One source told CNN Trump directed the military to build packages including "a lot of energy infrastructure."

CNN's sources also said there are doubts about whether a MOAB would accomplish any of Trump's stated objectives or shift the balance of the war. Some officials privately question whether the White House has a strategy that ties these plans to ending the conflict.

Trump did not say whether he has authorized the weapon. He only stressed what it is. "It's not nuclear at all, this is just an extremely large bomb. It's like a tiny nuclear bomb. But the 'Mother of All Bombs' is one big bomb, but it's not nuclear." The sentence contradicts itself, but the point he was making is that the bomb carries no nuclear material.

'Very soon,' and a different account from Tehran

Trump said the war "will be over very soon," and that "oil will go dropping like a rock, and gas prices as well." He said Iranian officials "have asked us to please stop. And we do, because we're negotiating with them."

At a midterm rally in Montana on Wednesday, he gave a more sweeping picture. "They don't have a Navy; they don't have an air force; their army is decimated; their leaders are gone," he said. He then added: "I should have probably left the leaders because I don't know who we're negotiating with."

Iranian Army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia answered on Friday, Oct. 16, in a post on X. "If America leaves the region, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen and collective security will be established with the participation of the region's countries," he wrote. "If it doesn't leave, we'll expel it."

Iran's Mehr News Agency quoted him as saying that, despite Trump's repeated allegations, Iran's current air defense capabilities "far surpass pre-war and wartime levels." Neither claim has been independently verified.

The political clock

CNN reports that Trump has publicly said he would take no new actions before the midterms, but several advisers told the network privately they did not know whether that was definitive. The same reporting says Trump has dismissed allies urging him to bring troops home, arguing it would look like defeat.

The contradiction is plain. The president says Iran is begging for a pause and the war is nearly over. Iran's army says the Strait of Hormuz stays closed until U.S. forces leave. Neither account describes a negotiation close to a deal.

What remains unclear is the sequencing. Trump has not said whether he has approved a MOAB, whether Pickaxe Mountain will be hit before or after Election Day, or what he would count as the end of the war.