🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Military strikes have degraded Iran’s nuclear infrastructure without resolving the underlying uncertainties. The program may be smaller and less operationally capable, but also more dispersed and opaque. Destroying Pickaxe would not, by itself, change that.

With renewed US strikes against Iran looking increasingly possible, attention has again turned to Pickaxe Mountain, the deeply buried complex near Natanz. What would another strike actually accomplish?

Pickaxe is believed to extend 80-100 meters (on the conservative side) beneath bedrock, considerably deeper than Fordow. Iran began developing the complex after sabotage at Natanz in 2020 as an effort to protect its nuclear infrastructure from US and Israeli strikes.

Israeli intelligence reportedly assessed that Iran moved thousands of advanced centrifuges and components into Pickaxe after the June 2025 war. This remains unverified publicly. Satellite imagery cannot establish what is underground/whether the equipment has been installed.

CSIS documented extensive construction and reinforcement in 2026, but imagery showed blocked entrances and little apparent activity. There is no public confirmation that enrichment has begun or that the site is operational.

Regardless of the activity at Pickaxe, it hardly represents the final or sole remnant of the Iranian nuclear program. Iran likely has dispersed some its centrifuges and there’s much we don’t know.

The main US option for deeply buried targets is the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). Weighing 30,000 lb, it is GPS-guided and designed to penetrate hardened structures before detonating. But its effectiveness depends heavily on the material it encounters.

The GBU-57’s publicly cited penetration capability of roughly 60 meters needs qualification. This is not a demonstrated ability to penetrate 60 meters of granite. Its performance varies with the geological medium, and detailed assessments of its effectiveness remain classified

Fordow provides a useful but imperfect comparison. The US employed GBU-57s against the facility and its ventilation shafts in June 2025 but the extent of underground destruction is uncertain Pickaxe’s structural characteristics may differ considerably.

Another weapon recently discussed is the GBU-43/B MOAB. Unlike the GBU-57, the roughly 21,000-lb MOAB is principally a large air-blast weapon, carrying approximately 18,700 lb of explosive. It is not designed to penetrate deeply buried facilities.

But Pickaxe is not synonymous with Iran’s nuclear program. The 2025 strikes devastated its declared enrichment infrastructure, yet the location of its nuclear material, surviving centrifuge inventories and capacity to reconstitute enrichment remain uncertain.

🔗 https://fxtwitter.com/NicoleGrajewski/status/2118762688897589623

🇮🇱 Israeli President Isaac Herzog announces he will task Gadi Eisenkot with forming the next government after securing the backing of 67 lawmakers, compared with 46 for Netanyahu. Eisenkot will formally receive the mandate on Sunday at 5 p.m., with 28 days to form a government.

🔗 Faytuks News Network

🇺🇸✡️ The Republican Party hundreds of thousand of dollars for Laura Loomer to post on X/Twitter

The right-wing activist Laura Loomer has been paid by private clients to make political posts on social media without publicly disclosing the payments, according to a former campaign aide to President Donald Trump and three others familiar with the arrangements, shedding light on what they say is a business practice of one of the Trump administration’s most influential online firebrands.

The allegations were made by Alex Bruesewitz, an adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign, and three other people who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Two of the three people said they had paid Loomer directly to post political messages on her X account, where she has 1.9 million followers. The third said they had overseen clients who paid her to post on the account. The three spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Bank transaction emails and a wire transfer statement reviewed by The Washington Post appear to show four payments totaling more than $60,000 sent to Loomer and a Florida-based company registered in her name, King Breaker Media, since May of last year.

The documents do not specify the purpose of the payments, but two people familiar with the arrangements said they were for political posts.

Loomer, one of Trump’s best-known online acolytes, denied to The Post that she is paid to post on social media. She instead described herself as a journalist and activist and disputed the idea that she is an influencer paid to promote any political cause.

The new claims about Loomer’s influence business could add fuel to a growing debate about the little-regulated industry of political messaging on social media, where influencers on both sides of the aisle have operated in a legal gray area between advocacy and advertising.

Bruesewitz first posted his allegations on X on Thursday. Many of the details about Loomer’s alleged online influence operation have not been previously reported.

Bruesewitz said in an interview with The Post that he had paid Loomer for tweets last year. He said the money had been sent through his political consulting firm, X Strategies, for posts related to policy issues. He declined to specify what clients.

Despite brokering these deals himself, he believes that they should require clearer disclosures and have “gotten out of hand.”

Loomer disputed Bruesewitz’s account and said that his firm contacted her last year offering to pay her for research.

“He paid me to make a one-page research document for him, and then he wanted me to distribute the information. And that’s what I did,” Loomer said. Asked where she was expected to distribute the research, she said, “Either X or maybe an article.”

Two of the people said that Loomer charges $3,000 to $5,000 per tweet, and sometimes more.

Loomer said she does not have set pricing for consulting work. “I certainly don’t charge $5,000 for a tweet,” she said.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/11/07/trump-ally-laura-loomer-paid-thousands-political-tweets-people-familiar-say/