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Zhao Ziwen

Khushboo Razdan

Robert Delaney

US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the US military carried out aerial strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, following days of appeals by Israel for the American military to join its attacks on the Islamic republic, and vowed to launch more attacks if Tehran does not stand down.
Trump delivered a late night televised address from the White House, calling the strikes a “spectacular military success”.
Flanked by Vice-President J.D. Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump warned that future attacks would be “far greater” unless Iran pursued a diplomatic solution.
Trump said Iran “must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier. There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.
“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, most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes.”
The US president said earlier on social media that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated” and that the US had “completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan”.


“All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”
The Fordow uranium enrichment facility is considered by many to be among Israel’s most vital targets in its conflict with Iran.
Israel’s 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,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, and says its programme is for peaceful purposes only.
Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, warned in a post on X that the US attacks “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate.
In response, 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 residential blocks.
Israel said it had launched fresh strikes on western Iran targeting missile launchers.
The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran confirmed that attacks took place on its Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz sites, but it insisted that its work will not be stopped.
“No signs of contamination have been recorded,” according to the National Centre for the Nuclear Safety System, which operates under Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.
“There is therefore no danger for the inhabitants living around the ... sites.”
Likewise, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday there had been no reported increase in off-site radiation levels.

Israel had been urging the Pentagon to use its 30,000-pound [13,608kg] GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs – commonly known as “bunker busters” – to disrupt nuclear enrichment facilities built at Fordow deep within an Iranian mountain.
The US sent B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam earlier on Saturday, aircraft that would be needed to drop them.
Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, who is close to Trump, said he spoke to the president and confirmed that six of the bunker busters were used on Fordow, and that Isfahan and Natanz were targeted with some 30 Tomahawk cruise missiles from submarines hundreds of kilometres away.
CBS said the US reached out to Iran “diplomatically” shortly before the attacks to say its action would be limited to the strikes on the nuclear facilities and that “regime change efforts are not planned”.
Trump’s decision to enter the Iran-Israel conflict has the potential to abruptly change the balance of power in the Middle East while pulling the US into a conflict that puts the president at odds with many of his own political allies, and risks drawing Washington into another war in a region where its interventions have failed to bring peace.
“Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were predictable, given the advance warning signalled by the B-2 bomber deployment and his earlier threats,” said Jesse Marks, CEO of Rihla Research & Adviser, a Washington-based geopolitical consultancy.


“The true inflection point, however, will be the scale of destruction – this will likely determine whether Iran chooses to retaliate against US positions across the broader Middle East,” he said. “For now, Trump appears to have opted for a limited strike, deliberately avoiding the deployment of US ground forces.
“This suggests a calibrated message: a clear intent to degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities while still leaving space for future negotiations.”
The United States had begun evacuation flights from Israel, and was offering help to American citizens and permanent US residents living in Israel or the West Bank, Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, said earlier on Saturday.
A US State Department official said around 70 people were flown from Tel Aviv to Athens, Greece on Saturday on two government-organised flights.
The official urged US citizens to depart on their own if possible, without waiting for government help.
Several other countries, including China, India and several European nations, have also arranged evacuations for their nationals.

Israel and Iran have exchanged wave after wave of devastating strikes since Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed in Israeli attacks.
The prospect of the American military entering another conflict in the Middle East, about four years after US troops withdrew from Afghanistan, has already divided Republicans who have supported Trump for years.
“The President gave Iran’s leader every opportunity to make a deal, but Iran refused to commit to a nuclear disarmament agreement,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said shortly after the attacks were announced.
Trump “has been consistent and clear that a nuclear-armed Iran will not be tolerated. That posture has now been enforced with strength, precision, and clarity,” he said in a statement. “The President’s decisive action prevents the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, which chants ‘Death to America’, from obtaining the most lethal weapon on the planet.”
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, previously a fervent Trump supporter who broke with the president over Iran in recent days, said the Iran-Israel conflict “is not our fight”.

“Every time America is on the verge of greatness, we get involved in another foreign war,” she said on social media. “There would not be bombs falling on the people of Israel if Netanyahu had not dropped bombs on the people of Iran first. Israel is a nuclear armed nation. This is not our fight. Peace is the answer.”
Democratic Party House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries condemned the US attacks, and demanded that Trump “immediately” brief Congress.
“President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorisation for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East,” Jeffries said.
“First, the Trump administration bears heavy burden of explaining to the American people why this military action was undertaken. Second, Congress must be fully and immediately briefed in a classified setting,” he added.
Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Washington-based Defence Priorities, warned of the risk that Trump’s action “started a protracted bombing campaign”, depending on how Tehran responds.
“Iran will have to retaliate in some way, if only for its domestic audiences. The question is how strongly it retaliates and what targets it chooses,” she said. “It could try to strike US service members in the region, but knows this could pull the United States in more deeply, which it may want to avoid.
“It could instead hit oil facilities in US partner countries or try to block traffic in the Strait of Hormuz,” Kavanagh added. “This might not elicit as strong a US response but still would risk regional spillover. Iran will have to weigh its desire to retaliate with the costs it could face if the United States started a protracted bombing campaign.”
Additional reporting by agencies


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US president calls strikes a ‘spectacular military success’ as Iran’s top diplomat warns of ‘everlasting consequences’


US president calls strikes a ‘spectacular military success’ as Iran’s top diplomat warns of ‘everlasting consequences’.


Israel-Iran conflict

US-Iran tensions

Trump claims US ‘obliterated’ Iran nuclear sites, threatens more attacks

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}US president calls strikes a ‘spectacular military success’ as Iran’s top diplomat warns of ‘everlasting consequences’

US president calls strikes a ‘spectacular military success’ as Iran’s top diplomat warns of ‘everlasting consequences’