Why is Trump threatening to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain again, now?

United States President Donald Trump says Washington may strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain “very soon”, in just the latest in a series of threats he has made against the heavily fortified underground site located next to the bombed-out Natanz enrichment complex.

Just hours after he made that threat, an Iranian oil tanker off Kharg Island was struck by four US missiles, according to Iranian news outlet Khabar Fouri. Kharg Island is the main hub for Iran’s oil exports, handling about 90 percent.

Trump made the threat against Pickaxe Mountain as he was speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, saying the US knows “everybody that’s moving at Pickaxe” and across Iran .

His remarks echoed a similar threat he made back in mid-July, when he stated on the Hugh Hewitt Show: “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready … We’ll probably give Pickaxe a shot relatively soon.”

The latest threat comes more than six months into the war that the US and Israel launched on Iran on February 28, amid mixed messages about the war from the Trump administration.

On Friday, Trump sought to downplay the war in Iran, calling it “small potatoes”, while a day earlier, at a White House news briefing, Vice President JD Vance appeared to suggest the conflict had cooled and to shrug off an alleged US strike on a wedding in southern Iran with “ sometimes things happen “.

At a White House briefing this week, Vance said of the conflict with Iran that he “wouldn’t call it a war” and claimed there was “no active shooting right now”.

But the US and Iran have exchanged attacks this week, including a US hit close to Iran’s oil infrastructure on Kharg Island.