Donald Trump in the Situation Room of the White House, where the president and other top officials meet to supervise actions such as the attack on Iran | Credits: White House on X
The US military has carried out “massive precision strikes on the three key” Iranian nuclear sites, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan”, President Donald Trump said in a speech late on Saturday. “Everybody has heard those names for years”, where the Tehran regime ”has built this horribly destructive enterprise for years”.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump added in the speech posted on X by the White House.
“Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump, who had on Thursday said he would hold off on plans to attack Iran for two weeks. The US president then warned in a separate speech that “Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.”
Iran responded with attacks on Israel
Hours after the US bombings, Iran launched around 20 ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, triggering country-wide air raid sirens and injuring 16 people, The Guardian reported.
But Trump’s warnings did not stop Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei from pronouncing his threats against the US on X. “The US entering war is 100 per cent to its own detriment.”
A senior Iranian official said the American attacks meant Tehran now had the legal right to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it had already threatened to abandon, as reported by viraltrendingcontent on June 16th. Israel, which is believed to have at least 90 nuclear warheads, has not signed the treaty.
Abbas Golroo, the head of the Iranian foreign policy committee, said Tehran would withdraw, “if it decides that extraordinary events have jeopardised the supreme interests of its country.”
The US attack will have ‘everlasting consequences’
“The events this morning are outrageous and will have everlasting consequences,” Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, wrote on X. “Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people.”
Earlier, Iran stated that it reserved the right to take any necessary actions to defend itself, according to The Sunday Times.
Trump further warned, “There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left.”
He also said, “Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.”
Netanyahu praised Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video statement on X to hail the US strikes. “Congratulations, President Trump, your bold decision to target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history.”
Netanyahu added that, “first comes strength, then comes peace. And tonight, Donald Trump and the United States acted with a lot of strength.”
In his remarks, Trump also said that he and Netanyahu had “worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel”.
Not all Israelis are happy with Trump
While most Israelis appeared to support President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran strongly, there were dissenting voices, The Sunday Times said in an analysis of the conflict.
“I am both concerned about further Iranian retaliation, whose possible targets are my friends and family, and also worried about how (Israel’s prime minister) Netanyahu will try to capitalise on these developments for his own political gains,” said Uri Weltmann, a senior member of Standing Together, an Israeli peace movement.
In Iran, the media played down the US strikes, with the state-run IRNA news agency early on Sunday confirming an attack on the country’s Fordow nuclear site, but saying it was evacuated beforehand.
The semi-official Farsi news agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, quoted another official as saying that air defences opened fire near Isfahan and explosions had been heard.
Iran says it will continue its nuclear programme
Later, Iran’s atomic agency said that the country would carry on with its nuclear activities despite the US attacks on key facilities. The Iranian member of parliament, Mohammad Manan Raisi, representing the city of Qom where Fordow is located, said that the damage to the nuclear facility was not significant but “only on the ground, which can be restored”.
Previously, Iranian officials said that any US involvement would trigger an attack on US military bases in the Middle East, which host thousands of US troops across at least eight countries.
It was unclear if an Iranian response would include its network of proxies across the Middle East, militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. On Saturday, the Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree pledged an attack on US ships and warships in the Red Sea if the US intervened in Iran, despite a May ceasefire between the US and the Yemeni militia.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said in an interview on Sunday that Israel should finish its war in Iran, saying that its “main objectives had been achieved”.
Previously, Iranian officials said that any US involvement would trigger an attack on US military bases in the Middle East, which host thousands of US troops across at least eight countries.
