Israel-Iran war: US joins war, bombs 3 Iran N-sites

The United States inserted itself into Israel’s war against Iran by dropping 30,000-pound bombs on a uranium enrichment site early on Sunday, raising urgent questions about what remains of Tehran’s nuclear programme and how its weakened military might respond.

SURPRISE ATTACK US B-2 bombers hit Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan N-facilities

VOWING REVENGE Tehran rules out talks as option after attack, looks to Russia for help

ESCALATION FEARS US entry may lead to wider conflict, UNSC calls emergency meet

Iran lashed out at the US for crossing “a very big red line” with its risky gambit to launch strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites with missiles and the bunker-buster bombs.

“The warmongering and lawless administration in Washington is solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implications of its act of aggression,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, adding that he would immediately fly to Moscow to coordinate positions with close ally Russia.

Amid fears of a wider regional conflict, the Trump administration sent a clear message that it wanted to restart diplomatic talks with Iran. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the US “does not seek war” with Iran. But Tehran said the time for diplomacy had passed and that it had the right to defend itself.

President Donald Trump earlier warned there would be additional strikes if Tehran retaliated against US forces. “There will either be peace or tragedy for Iran,” said Trump who acted without congressional authorisation.

The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran confirmed that attacks took place on the Fordow and Natanz enrichment facilities as well as the Isfahan nuclear site. Both Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around the sites.

Trump claimed the US “completely obliterated” the sites, but the Pentagon reported “sustained, extremely severe damage and destruction”. US defence officials said an assessment was ongoing.

With the attack, the US has inserted itself into a war it spent decades trying to avoid. Success could mean ending Iran’s N-ambitions and eliminating the last significant state threat to the security of Israel, its close ally. Failure could plunge it into another long and unpredictable conflict in the Middle East.

For Iran’s supreme leader, it could mark the end of an ambitious campaign to transform the Islamic Republic into a greater regional power that holds enriched nuclear material a step away from weapons-grade. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last spoke publicly on Wednesday, warning the US that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them”.

Iran, battered by Israel’s largest-ever assault on it that began on June 13, has a few ways it could retaliate. It could launch a wave of attacks on US forces stationed in the Middle East with the missiles and rockets that Israel hasn’t destroyed. It could attempt to close a key bottleneck for global oil supplies, the Strait of Hormuz between it and the UAE.

Or it could hurry to develop a nuclear weapon with what remains of its program. The Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran insisted that its nuclear programme will not be stopped.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme was peaceful, and US intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. Israel has significantly degraded Iran’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities and damaged its nuclear enrichment facilities. But only the US military has the bunker-buster bombs that officials believe offered the best chance of destroying sites deep underground and the planes to drop them.

Fourteen of the bombs were used on two nuclear sites, including Fordow, according to Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In all he said, 75 precision-guided weapons were used, including missiles fired from a submarine.

The strike on Fordow, which is dug deep into a mountain, raised an urgent question — what has happened to Iran’s stockpile of uranium and centrifuges? Satellite images taken after the American strikes, analysed by AP, show damage to the facility. The images suggest Iran packed the entrance tunnels to Fordow with dirt and had trucks at the facility ahead of the US strikes. Several Iranian officials, including Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, have claimed Iran removed nuclear material from targeted sites.