Updated

US President Donald Trump said on October 16 that the United States may need to target Pickaxe Mountain, a site linked to Iran's nuclear program, to ensure Tehran never obtains a nuclear weapon, while ruling out sending US troops into Iran. He did not dispute reports that the US military is weighing use of the so-called "mother of all bombs" against the site, though he said he would not use a nuclear weapon in the war, which began in February with US-Israeli strikes. Iran's ambassador to Germany responded that the threat of such a weapon showed American "desperation and confusion" in the face of Iranian resilience, citing a German newspaper report questioning whether the bomb would even work against hardened Iranian sites. The remarks underscore continued US consideration of further military action against Iran's nuclear infrastructure months after the February war.