Trump says US may need to strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain

United States (US) President Donald Trump said the US may have to target Pickaxe Mountain, a site linked to Iran’s nuclear program, as he aims to ensure Tehran does not get a nuclear weapon.
In an interview with Newsmax on Thursday night, Trump also said he would not use a nuclear weapon in the war on Iran, which began in February with US-Israeli strikes.
Trump said the US wanted to make sure Iran will never have a nuclear weapon “because if they had it, they would use it.”
“Their nuclear is buried under millions of tons of mountain. Now we’re looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there. We’ll take a shot at that one. We’ll knock it out fast,” Trump told the 
news outlet.
Pickaxe Mountain is a fortified facility buried deep underground near one of Tehran’s main nuclear sites.
Tehran ready to respond to any US threats
Iran’s acting oil minister says Tehran would respond “immediately and appropriately to any US threat to Iranian energy facilities.”
“The war that the United States started by ignoring international norms has affected the energy sector globally,” Hamid Bovard said, reports Aljazeera.
“We will take precise and appropriate retaliatory measures at the right time to counter enemy threats.”
Pezeshkian labels middle east conflict an ‘ecocide’
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday urged countries to condemn what he called “ecocide” in the Middle East caused by “wars of aggression.”

Pezeshkian said the conflicts in Gaza and the wider Middle East had inflicted a significant toll on nature that extended beyond borders and required “international solutions.”
“What has occurred in our region as a result of wars of aggression is ecocide, or environmental genocide, and it must be condemned,” Pezeshkian told a nature summit in Armenia attended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Burning tanker sparks concerns in Gulf of Oman
Iran’s navy said on Friday that it had detected an oil tanker on fire as it attempted to cross a prohibited area east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman, according to state media.
The navy described the tanker as “violating,” saying it had switched off its tracking systems. It gave no indication of what had caused the fire.
The navy said uncoordinated movements along routes and in prohibited areas created insecurity and posed significant risks to other vessels, Reuters reported.
Saudi coalition intercepts Houthi missiles aimed at Riyadh
Meanwhile, on the Saudi side, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthis said on Friday that it intercepted missiles and drones over Riyadh and other areas as the kingdom comes under sustained attack from its Iran-backed foes.
Since Yemen’s civil war flared back to life in July, the Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi targets, including Red Sea tankers, oil facilities, and Riyadh’s international airport, where 13 people were killed in a single attack last week.
Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition that has supported Yemen’s internationally recognised government against the Houthis for more than a decade.