US President Donald Trump has announced that the US has bombed three nuclear sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort to destroy the country’s nuclear programme, in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
“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 said in a speech from 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.”
Iran condemned the strikes, warning they would have long-term repercussions for the region and the global order.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said diplomacy was not an option after the US attack and that Iran “reserves all rights to defend its security, its interests and its people”.
“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 said at a press conference in Istanbul on Sunday.
Araghchi further claimed that the US had “blown up diplomacy” that Tehran was engaged in with Europe and said he would meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow on Monday.
Trump had previously said he would wait two weeks before deciding whether or not to intervene in Israel’s war with Iran, in order to give diplomacy a chance.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a statement on Sunday that the US had placed itself “at the frontline of aggression” by attacking Iran. It warned that US bases in the Middle East were not a strength but a “point of vulnerability”, although it stopped short of directly threatening military action.
The strikes on Saturday night hit uranium enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, Trump said. He warned Iran against retaliating against US targets in the region, promising that further US strikes would be even more deadly.
Iran launched about 20 ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, triggering countrywide air raid sirens and injuring 16 people.
Trump said: “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,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Trump said 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”.
Speaking again after Trump’s speech, Netanyahu said his promise to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities had been fulfilled following the US strikes.
The US action was met with condemnation from countries including China and Russia, with Moscow calling the strikes “irresponsible”.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement: “The negotiating table is the only place to end this crisis.”
Iran’s missile barrage on Sunday afternoon was perhaps its most intense yet, hitting 10 sites across central and northern Israel.
In Ramat Aviv, a northern suburb of Tel Aviv, a row of apartment buildings took a direct hit from an Iranian missile, which blasted away parts of the walls and blew out windows across the street. People in the area had all taken shelter when sirens sounded, so the blast caused only light casualties.
Previously, Iranian officials had said 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.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the US on Wednesday that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic would “result in irreparable damage for them”.
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.
After Iran’s barrage of missiles, Israeli warplanes began strikes in western Iran, hitting missile launchers and Iranian soldiers, the Israeli military said.
The Israeli opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said in an interview on Sunday that Israel should finish its war in Iran, saying its main objectives had been achieved.
In Iran, the media played down the US strikes, with the state-run IRNA news agency early on Sunday acknowledging an attack on the Fordow nuclear site but saying it had been evacuated beforehand.
The semi-official Fars news agency, also close to the Revolutionary Guards, quoted another official as saying air defences had opened fire near Isfahan and explosions had been heard.
Later, Iran’s atomic agency said the country would carry on with its nuclear activities despite the US attacks on key facilities.
Mohammad Manan Raisi, and Iranian MP representing the city of Qom where Fordow is located, said the damage to the nuclear facility was not major but “only on the ground, which can be restored”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said there had been “no increase in off-site radiation levels” after the attacks on the three nuclear sites.
Source: The Guardian
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
