The strikes hit uranium enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, Trump said
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 program 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.”
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 around 20 ballistic missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, triggering country-wide air raid sirens and injuring 16 people.
Israel-Iran war live: Trump says key nuclear facilities ‘obliterated’ by US; missiles hit Israel after Iran launches retaliatory strikes
“There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” Trump said. “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.
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Trump, alongside Vice President JD Vance in the Situation Room at the White House on Saturday. Photograph: White House/Reuters
In his remarks, Trump also said that 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.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said his country reserved all options to defend itself and that the attacks were “outrageous and will have everlasting consequences”.
Later, Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the country was “resolved to defend Iran’s territory, sovereignty, security and people by all force and means against the United States’ criminal aggression”. It further called on the UN security council to convey an emergency meeting.
Soon after the foreign minister’s statement, Iran launched its missile barrage at Israel, the projectiles landing in 10 sites across central and north Israel. A large plume of smoke was seen rising from Haifa after the attacks and footage showed paramedics at the foot of a bombed-out apartment building near Tel Aviv.
Previously, Iranian officials said that 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 will “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.
Following 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 that 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 country’s Fordow nuclear site, but saying it was evacuated beforehand. The semi-official Fars news agency, also close to the Revolutionary Guards, quoted another official saying air defences opened fire near Isfahan and explosions had been heard.
Later, Iran’s atomic agency said that the country would carry on with its nuclear activities despite the US attacks on key facilities. The Iranian member of parliament Mohammad Manan Raisi, representing the city of Qom where Fordow is located, said that the damage to the nuclear facility was not major but “only on the ground, which can be restored”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also said that following the attacks on the three nuclear site, there was “no increase in off-site radiation levels”.
The decision to directly involve the US comes after more than a week of strikes by Israel on Iran that have moved to systematically eradicate the country’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities, while damaging its nuclear enrichment facilities.
US and Israeli officials have said that American stealth bombers and a 13,500kg (30,000lb) bunker buster bomb they alone can carry offered the best chance of destroying heavily fortified sites connected to the Iranian nuclear program buried deep underground at Fordow.
Top Republicans supported Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Iran. “The military operations in Iran should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says,” said the House speaker, Mike Johnson, in a post on X. “The President gave Iran’s leader every opportunity to make a deal, but Iran refused to commit to a nuclear disarmament agreement.”
Israel launched the attacks on Iran saying that it wanted to remove any chance of Tehran developing nuclear weapons. Iran has argued that its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes.
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Reporters watch as Donald Trump addresses the nation regarding the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Trump told reporters on Friday that he was not interested in sending ground forces into Iran. He had previously indicated that he would make a final choice over the course of two weeks, a timeline that seemed drawn out as the situation was evolving quickly.
Trump spoke to Reuters in a brief phone interview on Saturday, saying Iran should “make peace immediately. Otherwise they’ll get hit again.”
According to two White House officials, Trump and Netanyahu spoke after the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Prominent members of the Trump administration had also professed opposition to a US intervention in Iran, although they appeared to have been outmanoeuvred by hawks who convinced Trump to go forward with the strike.
JD Vance in a call with senior Israeli officials on Saturday said that the US should not be directly involved and that Israel was going to drag the US into the war, Reuters reported. Publicly, the vice-president has limited his criticism of the potential for a US strike against Iran.
The director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had also voiced skepticism that Iran was seeking to make a nuclear weapon, and current and former senior Pentagon officials are also said to be strongly opposed to the strikes.
