US President Donald Trump said Saturday night that US air strikes had "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities and threatened more attacks if Tehran does not make peace.
In a televised address to the nation from the White House after the United States joined Israel's air campaign against Tehran, Trump called the US attacks a "spectacular military success."
"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," Trump said in a late-night address to the nation.
"If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill."
Trump had earlier stunned the world by announcing on social media that US aircraft had struck Iran's Fordo nuclear enrichment plant, plus the Natanz and Isfahan facilities.
But the fresh US military entanglement comes despite Trump's promises to avoid another "forever war" in the Middle East – Iran has vowed to retaliate against US forces in the region if Washington got involved.
"Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran the bully of the Middle East must now make peace," said Trump.
"If they do not, future attacks will be far greater, and a lot easier," added Trump, who was flanked by Vice-President JD Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for his address.
Trump said earlier on his Truth Social site that a "full payload of BOMBS" was dropped on the underground facility at Fordo, describing it as the "primary site."
Trump added that "all planes are safely on their way home. Congratulations to our great American Warriors."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly congratulated Trump.
"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 message, adding that the attacks demonstrated "America has been truly unsurpassed."
Netanyahu added that Trump had created a "pivot of history" that will "help lead the Middle East and beyond to a future of prosperity and peace."
'Heads up'
Earlier Saturday there were reports that US B-2 bombers – which carry so-called "bunker buster" bombs – were headed out of the United States across the Pacific.
Trump did not say what kind of US planes or munitions were involved.
Iranian media confirmed that part of the Fordo plant as well as the Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites were attacked.
Trump spoke to Netanyahu after the attacks, while the United States also gave key ally Israel a "heads up" before the strikes, a senior White House official told the AFP news agency.
Trump had said on Thursday that he would decide "within two weeks" whether to join Israel's campaign – but the decision came far sooner.
The US president had also stepped up his rhetoric against Iran in recent days, repeating his insistence that it could never have a nuclear weapon.
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.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian had warned earlier 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."
On Saturday, Israel said it had attacked Isfahan for a second time, with the UN nuclear watchdog reporting that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop had been hit.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard meanwhile announced early Sunday that "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 program "cannot be taken away... by threats or war."
Huthi threat
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 had met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume nuclear talks with the United States that had been derailed by the war.
Iran's Huthi 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 Ninistry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed in the Israeli strikes.
Iran's retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.
Leading US Democrat Hakeem Jeffries said Trump risked US "entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East," while the Israeli army raised its alert level, permitting only essential activities until further notice.
US strikes on Iran: what we know
The United States has carried out strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, with Trump saying Saturday it was a "very successful attack" and that all US planes were safely on the way home.
Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up in 2018.
But he has since backed Israel's military campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities and top military brass, which it launched a little over a week ago.
- The targets -
Trump said the United States struck three main Iranian nuclear sites: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, with the former being hit with a "full payload of bombs."
Fordo – which was built in violation of UN resolutions under a mountain near the holy central city of Qom – was an enrichment plant capable of housing about 3,000 centrifuges.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium, both for civilian and military use, with the radioactive metal needing to be enriched to high levels for use in atomic weapons.
Fordo's location deep underground presented a challenge to Israeli forces, which do not have the deeply penetrating munitions needed to hit the facility.
Natanz was Iran's main uranium enrichment site, with nearly 70 cascades of centrifuges at its two enrichment plants, while a uranium conversion facility and a nuclear fuel fabrication facility were located at Isfahan.
- The munitions -
Trump did not identify the type of munitions used in the strikes, but the GBU-57 – a powerful 30,000-pound (13,600-kilogramme) US bunker-busting bomb – was likely used to hit Fordo.
The US military says the GBU-57 – also known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator – is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (60 metres) underground before exploding.
This differs from most other missiles or bombs that typically detonate their payload near or upon impact.
Testing of the weapons began in 2004 and Boeing was in 2009 awarded a contract to complete the integration of GBU-57 with aircraft.
- The aircraft -
The only aircraft capable of deploying the GBU-57 is the American B-2 Spirit, a long-range stealth bomber that can carry two.
Prior to the Iran strikes, specialist flight tracking sites and US media reported that multiple B-2s had left a base in Missouri in the central United States.
The bombers – which can fly 6,000 nautical miles (9,600 kilometres) without refuelling – are designed to "penetrate an enemy's most sophisticated defences and threaten its most valued, and heavily defended, targets," according to the US military.
The B-2 was first publicly displayed in 1988 and flew for the first time the following year, with the first of the planes delivered in 1993.
The bomber took part in operations against Serbian forces in the 1990s, flying non-stop from Missouri to Kosovo and back. B-2s were subsequently employed by the United States in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the 2000s.
- What comes next? -
Trump called on Iran to "agree to end this war," saying that "now is the time for peace."
But it remains to be seen whether the strikes will push Tehran to de0escalate the conflict, or to widen it further.
If Iran chooses the latter option, it could do so by targeting US military personnel who are stationed around the Middle East, or seek to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which carries one-fifth of global oil output.
Iran-Israel war: latest developments
Trump said that the US military had carried out strikes Sunday on three Iranian nuclear sites and that Tehran "must now agree to end this war," following days of speculation over whether the United States would join its ally Israel's bombing campaign.
As the Iran-Israel war entered its second week, here are the latest developments:
- US intervention -
Trump said the US military carried out a "very successful attack" on three Iranian nuclear sites, including the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo.
"We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordo, Natanz, and Esfahan," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
"A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordo," he said, adding that the planes were safely out of Iranian airspace and on the way home.
The president said that after the strikes, Iran "must now agree to end this war", insisting that under no circumstances should Iran possess a nuclear weapon.
Iranian media said part of the Fordo uranium enrichment facility as well as the Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites were attacked.
Israel raised its alert level after the strikes, permitting only essential activities until further notice, the military announced.
- 'Devastating' response -
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian warned his country's "response to the continued aggression of the Zionist regime will be more devastating" during a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the official IRNA news agency.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed more than 400 people since they began last week, the Islamic republic's health ministry said.
A US-based NGO, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, said on Friday that based on its sources and media reports, at least 657 people have been killed in Iran, including 263 civilians.
AFP journalists reported hearing explosions in Tehran on Saturday evening, after Israeli strikes on Ahvaz, in Iran's southwest.
Iranian media also reported an Israeli strike on an "evacuated" military base south of Tehran that wounded one person, while Israel reported it was attacking drone "storage facilities and a weapons facility" in southwestern Iran's Bandar Abbas region.
- Israel says it killed three Iranian commanders -
Israel's military said it had killed Saeed Izadi, a top Revolutionary Guards official in charge of military coordination with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as well as two other Iranian commanders overnight.
Iran's Fars news agency reported Saturday evening that "five Army officers were killed and nine others were wounded" in an Israeli strike in the western city of Sumar.
- Israel building struck -
Israeli rescue services said an Iranian "drone strike hit a two-storey residential building in northern Israel" following a wave of attacks reported by the military.
Iran's strikes since June 13 have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures.
- Isfahan nuclear site -
Israel targeted "two centrifuge production sites" at Iran's Isfahan nuclear facility overnight in a second wave of strikes on the location, a military official said.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed a centrifuge manufacturing workshop at the site had been hit in the strike.
Pezeshkian, during his call with Macron, said Iran had long been willing "to provide guarantees and build confidence in its peaceful nuclear activities," and that its right to a nuclear programme "cannot be taken away from them by threats or war."
The Arak heavy water reactor, which Israel struck earlier this week, was carrying out work related to "health and medicine," Iran's atomic agency chief said.
- US stealth bombers -
US stealth bombers flew Saturday across the Pacific Ocean, according to tracking data and media reports, fuelling speculation over their intended mission.
Multiple B-2 bomber aircraft left a base in the central United States overnight, The New York Times and specialist plane tracking sites reported.
The B-2 is capable of carrying the United States' heaviest payloads, including the bunker-busting GBU-57 ≠ the only weapon capable of destroying Iran's deeply buried nuclear facility in Fordo.
- Huthi threat -
Yemen's Tehran-backed Huthi rebels said they would restart their attacks on US-linked vessels and warships in the Red Sea if Washington got "involved in... aggression against Iran with the Israeli enemy," the group's military spokesman Yahya Saree said.
The group agreed to a ceasefire with the United States last month after an intense bombing campaign by Washington, but it has not stopped firing missiles at Israel.
– TIMES/AFP/NA
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