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Iran warned that any U.S. strike on the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility or other sensitive sites would widen the conflict across the Middle East, as President Donald Trump threatened to launch a heavy attack on the underground complex.
The warning came late Tuesday from Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which said attacks on strategic facilities would be treated as an expansion of the war and would draw a "powerful" response from the country's armed forces.
Trump, speaking during an Oval Office meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, said the United States would likely strike the Pickaxe Mountain facility near Iran's Natanz nuclear complex "pretty soon, and very heavily." He claimed Iran may have moved nuclear centrifuges to the site but acknowledged Washington had no confirmation.
Trump also dismissed the prospect of immediate negotiations, saying Washington had "no interest" in meeting with Iran until Tehran was ready for what he described as "meaningful" nuclear talks.
"They want to desperately meet, and until they're ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in even," Trump said.
Repeating that "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," he argued that U.S. military operations had severely weakened the country and insisted the campaign was "not finished at all."
Earlier Tuesday, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced that its forces had destroyed an early-warning radar, a tactical radar complex near Ali Al Salem Air Base and another radar system on Kuwait's Bubiyan Island during the 24th wave of Operation Nasr 2.
The IRGC reported the radar systems had been rendered inoperable and pledged to keep military operations against the "aggressor" going.
The latest exchange follows an escalation in fighting since early July, with the U.S. stepping up attacks and Iran responding by targeting facilities and bases it says are used by the U.S. military across several countries in the region.
The renewed hostilities stemmed from a dispute over the implementation of clauses in the Pakistan-brokered memorandum of understanding signed by both sides in June, particularly those concerning the management of the Strait of Hormuz.
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