Donald Trump says the United States has carried out a successful attack on three Iranian nuclear sites, leaving them “totally obliterated”.
“A short time ago, the US military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime,” Trump said, labelling the strikes a “spectacular” success.
Trump said the objective was to put a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s “number one state sponsor of terror”, and accused Iran of being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
“Iran, the bully of the Mideast, must now make peace,” Trump said.
Trump said there are “many targets left”, and if peace is not achieved the US will target them with “speed, precision and skill”.
“There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than what we have witnessed over the past eight days.”
In response, New Zealand is deploying a Defence Force plane to the Middle East in the hope of evacuating Kiwis from the region.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins released a joint statement stating a C-130J Hercules plane would carry Defence Force and Foreign Affairs personnel to the Middle East and will stand ready to assist if needed. The Government is also in discussion with commercial airlines.
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Earlier today, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social to declare the US had successfully attacked 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! Thank you for your attention to this matter [sic].”
Trump added: “This is an historic moment for the United States of America, Israel and the World. Iran must now agree to end this war.”
CNN reported American B-2 bombers were used in the weekend operation to target the three Iranian nuclear sites Trump referenced in his Truth Social post, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Trump’s post comes amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, with Israeli and US military operations intensifying their targeting of Iranian assets.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and one of the most vocal supporters of US intervention in Iran, congratulated Trump following the strike, saying it “was the right call” and that “the [Iranian] regime deserves it”. He added the US has “the best Air Force in the world”, which makes him “so proud”.
Residents of Qom, a city about 87 miles south of Tehran, heard several explosions outside of their city, according to Iranian state media outlet FARS News.
The Fordow nuclear plant is located close to Qom, built into a mountainside.
The explosions came after the air defence system at Fordow was activated, FARS reported.
The United States’ airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites mark 45 years since the US has directly used its Air Force on Iranian soil. The last use of the Air Force in Iran was in 1980, when then-US President Jimmy Carter ordered an attempt to rescue US citizens taken hostage amid the Iranian Revolution. That operation, nicknamed Eagle Claw, was aborted after a series of procedural failures that ultimately left eight US servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.
Earlier: Iran threatens ‘more devastating’ response to Israel’s attacks
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian warned on Saturday of a “more devastating” retaliation should Israel’s nine-day bombing campaign continue, saying the Islamic republic would not halt its nuclear programme “under any circumstances”.
Israel said on Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its unprecedented offensive, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed Tehran’s alleged progress towards a nuclear weapon had been set back by two years.
“We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Saar told the German newspaper Bild, adding that Israel would keep up its onslaught.
Israel and Iran have traded 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.
On Saturday, Israel said it had attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time, with the UN nuclear watchdog reporting that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop had been hit.
Later on Saturday, Iran’s Mehr news agency said Israel had launched strikes on the southern city of Shiraz, which hosts military bases.
And early on Sunday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announced a “vast” wave of “suicide drones” had been launched against “strategic targets” across Israel.
Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, and on Saturday Pezeshkian said its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme “cannot be taken away ... by threats or war”.
‘Not prepared to negotiate’
In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said Iran was “ready to discuss and cooperate to build confidence in the field of peaceful nuclear activities”.
“However, we do not agree to reduce nuclear activities to zero under any circumstances,” he added, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
Referring to the Israeli attacks, he said: “Our response to the continued aggression of the Zionist regime will be more devastating.”
Iran’s armed forces threatened to strike shipments of military aid to Israel “from any country”.
Israel’s main arms supplier is the United States, whose President Trump warned on Friday that Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes as Washington weighed whether to join Israel’s campaign.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Istanbul on Saturday for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the conflict.
Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume nuclear talks with the United States that had been derailed by the war.
But Araghchi said Saturday: “Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again, and once aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed.”
“We’re not prepared to negotiate with them [the Americans] anymore, as long as the aggression continues”.
Hundreds killed
Trump, dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, said he was unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.
“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said of Israel’s campaign.
Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.
US B-2 stealth bombers capable of carrying bunker busters were flying across the Pacific Ocean, according to tracking data and media reports, fuelling speculation over their intended mission.
Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen on Saturday threatened to resume their attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, despite a recent ceasefire agreement.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Friday that, based on its sources and media reports, at least 657 people had been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.
Iran’s health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed and 3056 in the Israeli strikes.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.
The Israeli military said it had launched a fresh wave of strikes on Saturday in the area of southern Iran’s Bandar Abbas, targeting drone storage sites and a weapons facility.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency said air defences were activated in the area.
Overnight, Iran said it had targeted central Israel with drones and missiles. Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian drone struck a residential building.
Revolutionary Guards spokesman Mohammad Ali Naini said Iran’s armed forces had “hit 14 strategic military” targets in the overnight attack, including Haifa’s Sail Tower, the city’s oil refinery and the Ovda airbase.
On the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Israel said Saturday that an Iranian terror plot targeting Israeli citizens had been “thwarted”.
‘Tired’
Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles had been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones.
In Tel Aviv, where residents have faced regular Iranian strikes for nine days, some expressed growing fatigue under the constant threat from Iran.
The streets of Tehran, meanwhile, were still largely quiet Saturday, though a few cafes and restaurants were open.
In the afternoon, supporters of the government gathered briefly in front of the headquarters of state television to wave Iranian, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags to a soundtrack of electronic music whose lyrics called for the “death of Israel”.
Western powers have repeatedly expressed concerns about the expansion of Iran’s nuclear programme, questioning in particular the country’s accelerated uranium enrichment.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi has said Iran is the only country without nuclear weapons to enrich uranium to 60 percent.
However, his agency had “no indication” of the existence of a “systematic programme” in Iran to produce a bomb.
Grossi told CNN it would be “pure speculation” to guess at how long it would take Iran to develop one.
- Agence France-Presse; additional reporting NZ Herald
