Moon Desk: Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian condemned US strikes on nuclear sites Sunday, saying in his first response that the attack revealed Washington was ‘behind’ Israel’s military campaign in the Islamic republic.
‘This aggression showed that America is the main factor behind the Zionist regime’s hostile actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran,’ he said, according to IRNA news agency, adding that the United States acted after seeing Israel’s ‘obvious inability’.
President Donald Trump said US air strikes ‘totally obliterated’ Iran’s main nuclear sites, with Tehran later accusing Washington of ‘blowing up’ talks aimed at a deal on its nuclear programme.
In a televised address, Trump warned the United States would strike more targets if Iran did not make peace quickly. Hours later, Iran launched two waves of attacks against long-time foe Israel.
‘Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,’ Trump said from the White House, adding the key underground enrichment site at Fordo was hit, along with facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.
‘Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran the bully of the Middle East must now make peace,’ he said, warning future attacks would be ‘far greater’ unless a diplomatic solution was reached. ‘Remember, there are many targets left.’
Trump’s intervention — despite his past pledges to avoid another ‘forever war’ — threatens to dramatically widen the conflict, after Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign on Iran last week, with Tehran vowing to retaliate if Washington joined in.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of sabotaging diplomacy after talks with European powers.
‘This week, we held talks with the E3/EU when the US decided to blow up that diplomacy,’ he wrote on X.
Earlier, he condemned the US attacks as ‘lawless and criminal’ while pledging to defend Iran’s sovereignty and warning of ‘everlasting consequences’.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the US strikes, saying Trump’s decision to ‘target Iran’s nuclear facilities with the awesome and righteous might of the United States will change history’. In response to the US attack, Iran’s armed forces said they targeted multiple sites in Israel including Ben Gurion airport, the country’s main international gateway near Tel Aviv.
Israeli rescuers said at least 23 people were wounded. Police said at least three impacts were reported.
One of them was the Ramat Aviv area of Tel Aviv, tearing holes in the facades of apartment blocks.
‘Houses here were hit very, very badly,’ said Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai. ‘Fortunately, one of them was slated for demolition and reconstruction, so there were no residents inside. In Jerusalem, Claudio Hazan, a 62-year-old software engineer, said he hoped the US intervention would hasten an end to the Iran-Israel war.
‘Israel by itself would not stop and it would take longer,’ he said. Israel said it had launched fresh strikes on western Iran and in Qom, south of Tehran. Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported four Revolutionary Guard members were killed in strikes on a military base in the north of the city.
The Israeli military said it had ‘struck missile launchers ready to launch toward Israeli territory, soldiers in the Iranian Armed Forces, and swiftly neutralised the launchers that launched missiles toward Israeli territory a short while ago’.
In Tehran, AFP journalists said the roar of aircraft flying over the city could be heard repeatedly for the first time since Israel’s initial attacks.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said it had not detected any increase in radiation levels at key nuclear sites in Iran following the strikes and Tehran said Sunday there were ‘no signs of contamination’.
Saudi Arabia said no radioactive effects were detected in the Gulf and voiced ‘great concern’ over the US strikes.
Qatar and Oman, which had been mediating nuclear talks between the US and Iran, criticised the move by Washington and urged de-escalation.
The European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas called on all sides ‘to step back’, adding Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, as Germany called on Iran to ‘immediately’ resume negotiations with the United States.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer called on Iran to ‘return to the negotiating table’ over its nuclear ambitions.
US media reported the strikes were carried out by B-2 stealth bombers dropping bunker-buster bombs, as well as submarine-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The US employed seven B-2s in the strikes — aircraft that can fly 6,000 nautical miles without refueling and which are designed to ‘penetrate an enemy’s most sophisticated defences and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets,’ according to the US military.
‘This was the largest B-2 operational strike in US history and the second-longest B-2 mission ever flown,’ according to Caine.
Several B-2s proceeded west over the Pacific as a decoy while the bombers that would take part in the strikes headed east — a ‘deception effort known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders,’ the general said.
‘Iran’s fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran’s surface-to-air missile systems did not see us. Throughout the mission, we retained the element of surprise,’ Caine said.
The United States used the B-2 in operations against Serbian forces in the 1990s, flying non-stop from Missouri to Kosovo and back, and the bombers were subsequently employed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the 2000s.
Following his address, Trump warned Iran against ‘any retaliation’. Iran and its proxies have previously attacked US military bases in Iraq and elsewhere in the region.
Iran’s Huthi allies in Yemen on Sunday repeated their threat to resume attacks on American vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, saying they were ‘ready to target US ships and warships’.
The US president had stepped up his rhetoric against Iran since Israel first struck Iran on June 13, repeating his insistence that it could never have a nuclear weapon.
Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes since then.
Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, and on Saturday its president said the Islamic republic’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme ‘cannot be taken away by threats or war.’
