Trump threatens to strike Fordow again after claiming Iran's nuclear program was obliterated

Published October 17, 2026 • By Naeemofficial782

President Donald Trump said the United States may carry out further military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, specifically naming the underground Fordow site, in an interview with NewsMax broadcast late Wednesday night.

"We're watching Fordow. We may have to go there," Trump told host Rob Finnerty, according to a transcript cited by Chinese state media and translated by Anadolu Agency. "We'll try to hit that target. We'll destroy it very quickly."

Trump added that the US would not deploy ground troops in any such operation, saying "No, I don't foresee that." He also said the conflict with Iran would end "very soon" and that negotiations between Washington and Tehran were ongoing.

The contradiction at the heart of the threat

The remarks represent a significant shift in tone from earlier this month, when the Pentagon claimed that previous strikes had already set back Iran's nuclear programme by two years. More importantly, they appear to contradict a claim Trump has repeated almost daily since June 2025: that Iran's nuclear programme was completely and totally destroyed.

"Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post after the June strikes, according to the Mirror. In his State of the Union address in February, he reiterated that Washington had taken strong action against Iran's nuclear ambitions, saying a previous operation had "obliterated" Tehran's nuclear weapons programme.

On Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that while the US had caused "severe damage" to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, withdrawing before fully eliminating the possibility of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon could force future military action. "We can do it. But if we do it, we might have to do it again in a year," he said. "We want Iran to never have a nuclear weapon, because I think if they have it, they'll use it instantly."

The gap between "obliterated" and "we may have to go there" is the central inconsistency of the administration's Iran policy. Either the programme was destroyed — in which case there is nothing left to bomb — or it wasn't, and the war is not over.

Iran says Fordow is 'empty'

Iranian officials responded to Trump's threat by stating that the Fordow facility is "empty" and that any US strike on the site would be doomed to fail, according to reports citing Iranian state media.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters earlier this month that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the earlier US attack. Iranian state television has also reported that while Fordow's capabilities were set back by up to two years, the Natanz and Isfahan facilities sustained limited damage, and that many centrifuges at Fordow remained untouched.

Fordow, located near the Natanz nuclear facility in Isfahan province, is considered one of Iran's most heavily fortified underground nuclear sites. Trump has repeatedly threatened to strike it in the past, and the site was among those targeted during earlier US operations this month.

The 'mother of all bombs' option

Separately, CNN reported on Wednesday that the US military has drawn up new plans for strikes on Iran that include the possible use of the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB), commonly known as the "mother of all bombs," against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities.

The MOAB is a 21,000-pound conventional bomb designed for use against tunnel complexes and cave systems. It has been used only once in combat, in Afghanistan in 2017. The report of its potential use was attributed to unnamed US officials and has not been confirmed by the Pentagon.

Asked directly about the MOAB on NewsMax, Trump confirmed it was under consideration but stressed it was not a nuclear weapon. "No, not nuclear. The mother of all bombs is a big bomb, but it's not nuclear," he said. He also told the network that the US would not use nuclear weapons against Iran, saying "we don't need to do that."

Military officials have questioned the effectiveness of the MOAB for this specific task, however. One source told CNN that "MOAB is a massive weapon with a strong psychological signaling effect, good at large-area destruction, but limited use beyond that. It was never designed as a warhead to penetrate deep into geological formations."