Iran has warned the US to brace for retaliation after Donald Trump’s administration joined Israel in its battle in opposition to Tehran, tearing up his isolationist overseas coverage and launching essentially the most consequential intervention in a battle in a era.
Virtually a day after US strikes concentrating on three key Iranian nuclear websites, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, informed France’s Emmanuel Macron: “The Americans must receive a response to their aggression,” signalling a possible Iranian reprisal that might drag the US into a brand new, protracted battle within the Center East.
Trump insisted the airstrikes have been a restricted intervention, urged Tehran to barter an finish to its makes an attempt to construct a nuclear weapon and warned that hanging US troops would result in a brutal US navy marketing campaign.
However after probably the most fateful choices of his second administration, the query of whether or not the US will turn out to be embroiled in a drawn-out battle within the Center East – one thing he had promised to keep away from – now seems to be within the fingers of senior officers in Tehran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
World leaders urged restraint from each side and a return to diplomacy to stop the battle from spiralling uncontrolled. Western governments referred to as for a return to the negotiating desk, whereas China and Russia condemned the strikes and stated they undermined international safety.
Israel continued to strike targets in Iran on Sunday, claiming that about 30 jets flew sorties in opposition to dozens of navy targets in Iran, together with the Imam Hussein strategic missile command centre within the Yazd space, the primary in opposition to the long-range missile web site.
Iranian officers signalled that they’d contemplate disrupting maritime commerce within the strait of Hormuz or launching strikes in opposition to certainly one of dozens of US bases within the area, as its management seeks to venture energy after an embarrassing collection of raids by Israeli and now US warplanes which have operated over the nation nearly unopposed.
Senior Pentagon officers stated the shock in a single day US assault inflicted main injury and destruction on the nuclear amenities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
In a press convention in Washington, Gen Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of workers, detailed Operation Midnight Hammer, during which seven B-2 Spirit bombers flew 18 hours from the US to websites in Iran to drop 14 GBU-57 large ordnance penetrators.
Caine stated it was not clear whether or not Iran retained some nuclear functionality and he stopped wanting utilizing the identical language as Donald Trump, who stated when saying the strikes on Saturday evening that the websites had been “completely and totally obliterated”. The dimensions of the injury underground was not but confirmed, Caine stated.
Iranian sources have been fast to disclaim that the nation’s nuclear programme was devastated. Senior sources informed Reuters that many of the extremely enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere earlier than the assault. The declare couldn’t instantly corroborated.
Satellite tv for pc imagery of the assault web site from Maxar Applied sciences confirmed six recent craters on the Fordow nuclear enrichment web site, in all probability the entry level for the “bunker buster” bombs meant to penetrate deep into the power earlier than detonation.
Iran launched about 20 ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, triggering countrywide air raid sirens and injuring 16 individuals.
Iran’s supreme chief, Ali Khamenei, stated in a recorded assertion aired on state tv after the strikes: “The Iranian nation is not one to surrender. Americans should know that any military involvement by the US will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them.”
Iran’s overseas minister, Abbas Araghchi, stated diplomacy was not an choice after the US assault and that Iran “reserves all rights to defend its security, its interests and its people”.
He stated at a press convention in Istanbul: “My country has been under attack, and we have to respond based on our legitimate right to self-defence. We will do that for as long as needed and necessary.”
Araghchi stated the US had “blown up diplomacy” that Tehran had been engaged in with Europe and stated he would meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday.
Iran’s parliament on Sunday permitted a measure permitting the nation’s management to shut the strait of Hormuz, a vital transport route from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea that handles about 20% of the worldwide oil commerce.
An Iranian transfer to dam the strait could be “massively escalatory”, stated Andrew Borene, a former senior workers officer in counter-terrorism on the US Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence. “It would disrupt anywhere from 20 to 25% of every barrel of oil in global trade,” stated Borene, now govt director of world safety at Flashpoint, a menace intelligence agency.
However he argued Iran would in all probability undergo greater than its adversaries from such a transfer, probably alienating regional allies who’ve remained publicly impartial within the Israel-Iran battle. The closure would extra instantly lower off Arab neighbours together with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait from worldwide markets, he stated.
“I think it ends up being worse for the Iranians than for anyone else,” Borene stated. “You’re going to cut off your Arab neighbours from their ability to export … I have to think that runs the risk that you have now converted Arab neutrals into Arab Iranian adversaries.”
Whereas the ultimate choice rests with the nation’s management and never its pliant legislature, the parliament’s transfer indicated an Iranian menace to disrupt international vitality transport.
It was unclear whether or not an Iranian response would come with its community of proxies throughout the Center East, together with militias akin to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. On Saturday, the Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree pledged to assault US ships and warships within the Pink Sea if the US intervened in Iran. The group agreed a ceasefire with the US in Might.
US officers stated they have been sending indicators to Iran to encourage it to barter quite than launch a retaliation that might escalate right into a protracted battle.
Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, denied that the US was pursuing a coverage of regime change in Iran. “This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” he stated. “Anything can happen in conflict. We acknowledge that. But the scope of this was intentionally limited. That’s the message that we’re sending. ”
The US vice-president, JD Vance, who has been an outspoken opponent of US navy interventions, stated throughout an interview on MSNBC that the US was “not at war with Iran, we’re at war with Iran’s nuclear programme”.
Talking from the White Home on Saturday evening, Trump stated: “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. 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.
“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. 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.”
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hailed the 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,” he stated in a video assertion.
Trump stated 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”.
After Iran’s barrage of missiles, Israeli warplanes started strikes in western Iran, hitting missile launchers and Iranian troopers, the Israeli navy stated.
In Iran, the media performed down the US strikes, with the state-run IRNA information company acknowledging early on Sunday an assault on the Fordow nuclear web site however saying it had been evacuated beforehand. The semi-official Fars information company, which is near the Revolutionary Guard Corps, quoted one other official saying air defences opened hearth close to Isfahan and explosions had been heard.
Later, Iran’s atomic company stated the nation would keep on with its nuclear actions regardless of the US assaults on key amenities. Mohammad Manan Raisi, a member of the Iranian member representing the town of Qom, the place Fordow is positioned, stated the injury to the nuclear facility was not main and “only on the ground, which can be restored”.
The Worldwide Atomic Power Company stated there had been “no increase in off-site radiation levels” after the assaults on the three nuclear websites.
Israel has been launching strikes on Iran for 2 weeks. It has sought to systematically eradicate the nation’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities and injury its nuclear enrichment amenities.
US and Israeli officers stated 13,500kg (30,000lb) bunker buster bombs that US stealth bombers alone can carry provided the most effective likelihood of destroying closely fortified websites related to the Iranian nuclear programme buried deep underground at Fordow.
