Trump says US forces bombed Iran nuclear sites; says 'Fordow is gone', World News
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump on Saturday (June 21) said that a "very successful attack" on three nuclear sites in Iran had been successfully carried out, including at Fordow.
In a posting on Truth Social, Trump added, "All planes are safely on their way home" and he congratulated "our great American Warriors."
Trump ended his posting saying, "Now is the time for peace."
The action came as Israel and Iran have been engaged in more than a week of aerial combat that has resulted in deaths and injuries in both countries.
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 programme is intended for peaceful purposes.
Diplomatic efforts by Western nations to stop the hostilities had so far been unsuccessful.
In another social media posting Trump said: "Fordow is gone."
Trump appeared to be referring to the underground nuclear storage facility in Natanz. The bombing came after B-2 bombers had been dispatched to Guam earlier on Saturday, according to US sources.
A US official told Reuters that B-2 bombers were involved in the strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.
It was still unclear whether any Israeli forces were involved in this latest bombing, which significantly expanded the scope of the hostilities.
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Straits Times
24 minutes ago
- Straits Times
Iran says US attacks on three nuclear sites were ‘savage'
The agency did not confirm whether the sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been 'completely and totally obliterated'. PHOTO: AFP Iran says US attacks on three nuclear sites were 'savage' Follow our live coverage here. TEHRAN – Iran's atomic energy agency described US strikes on three key nuclear facilities as a 'savage assault' but pledged not to abandon its nuclear industry after the assault. The 'lawless actions' will not cause 'the development of this national industry to be halted', the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said in a statement, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. The agency did not confirm whether the sites of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been 'completely and totally obliterated', as US President Donald Trump said they were in an address from Washington. Iran's nuclear safety authority said it detected no signs of radioactive contamination at the three nuclear sites following the strikes, IRNA said in a separate report. The authority also assessed that there was no threat to residents living near the facilities. Iranian lawmaker Mannan Raisi, who represents Qom – the closest population centre to Fordow – said the facility did not suffer 'serious damage', with most of the impact limited to above-ground structures, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported. He added that any material at Fordow that could pose a potential risk to the public 'had already been removed in advance'. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
40 minutes ago
- Straits Times
With military strike his predecessors avoided, Trump takes a huge gamble
Most importantly, US President Donald Trump is betting that he has destroyed Iran's chances of ever reconstituting its nuclear programme. PHOTO: REUTERS Follow our live coverage here. WASHINGTON – Over the past two decades, the United States has used sanctions, sabotage, cyberattacks and diplomatic negotiations to try to slow Iran's long march to a nuclear weapon. At roughly 2.30am on June 22 in Iran, President Donald Trump unleashed a show of raw military might that each of his last four predecessors had deliberately avoided, for fear of plunging the United States into war in the Middle East. After days of declaring that he could not take the risk that the mullahs and generals of Tehran who had survived Israel's strikes would make a final leap to a nuclear weapon, he ordered a fleet of B-2 bombers halfway around the world to drop the most powerful conventional bombs on the most critical sites in Iran's vast nuclear complexes. The prime target was the deeply buried enrichment centre at Fordow, which Israel was incapable of reaching. For Mr Trump, the decision to attack the nuclear infrastructure of a hostile nation represents the biggest – and potentially most dangerous – gamble of his second term. He is betting that the United States can repel whatever retaliation Iran's leadership orders against more than 40,000 US troops spread over bases throughout the region. All are within range of Tehran's missile fleet, even after eight days of relentless attacks by Israel. And he is betting that he can deter a vastly debilitated Iran from using its familiar techniques – terrorism, hostage-taking and cyberattacks – as a more indirect line of attack to wreak revenge. Most importantly, he is betting that he has destroyed Iran's chances of ever reconstituting its nuclear programme. That is an ambitious goal: Iran has made clear that, if attacked, it would exit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and take its vast programme underground. That is why Mr Trump focused so much attention on destroying Fordow, the facility Iran built in secret in the mid-2000s that was publicly exposed by President Barack Obama in 2009. That is where Iran was producing almost all of the near-bomb-grade fuel that most alarmed the United States and its allies. Mr Trump's aides were telling those allies on June 21 night that Washington's sole mission was to destroy the nuclear programme. They described the complex strike as a limited, contained operation akin to the special operation that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. 'They explicitly said this was not a declaration of war,' one senior European diplomat said late on June 21, describing his conversation with a high-ranking administration official. The prime target was the deeply buried enrichment centre at Fordow, which Israel was incapable of reaching. PHOTO: AFP But, the diplomat added, Osama had killed 3,000 Americans. Iran had yet to build a bomb. In short, the administration is arguing that it was engaged in an act of preemption, seeking to terminate a threat, not the Iranian regime. But it is far from clear that the Iranians will perceive it that way. In a brief address from the White House on June 21 night, flanked by Vice-President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, Mr Trump threatened Iran with more destruction if it does not bend to his demands. 'Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace,' he said. 'If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.' 'There will be either peace,' he added, 'or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left.' He promised that if Iran did not relent, he would go after them 'with precision, speed and skill.' In essence, Mr Trump was threatening to broaden his military partnership with Israel, which has spent the last eight days systematically targeting Iran's top military and nuclear leadership, killing them in their beds, their laboratories and their bunkers. The United States initially separated itself from that operation. In the Trump administration's first public statement about those strikes, Mr Rubio emphasised that Israel took 'unilateral action against Iran', adding that the United States was 'not involved'. But then, a few days ago, Mr Trump mused on his social media platform about the ability of the United States to kill Iran's 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, anytime he wanted. And on June 21 night, he made clear that the United States was all in, and that contrary to Mr Rubio's statement, the country was now deeply involved. Now, having set back Iran's enrichment capability, Mr Trump is clearly hoping that he can seize on a remarkable moment of weakness – the weakness that allowed the American B-2 bombers to fly in and out of Iranian territory with little resistance. After Israel's fierce retaliation for the Oct 7, 2023, terror attacks that killed over 1,000 Israeli civilians, Iran is suddenly bereft of its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Its closest ally, Syria's Bashar Assad, had to flee the country. And Russia and China, which formed a partnership of convenience with Iran, were nowhere to be seen after Israel attacked the country. That left only the nuclear programme as Iran's ultimate defence. It was always more than just a scientific project – it was the symbol of Iranian resistance to the West, and the core of the leadership's plan to hold on to power. Along with the repression of dissent, the programme had become the ultimate means of defence for the inheritors of the Iranian revolution that began in 1979. If the taking of 52 American hostages was Iran's way of standing up to a far larger, far more powerful adversary in 1979, the nuclear program has been the symbol of resistance for the last two decades. One day historians may well draw a line from those images of blindfolded Americans, who were held for 444 days, to the dropping of GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs on the mountainous redoubt called Fordow. They will likely ask whether the United States, its allies or the Iranians themselves could have played this differently. And they will almost certainly ask whether Mr Trump's gamble paid off. NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
In full: President Trump's speech on US strikes on Iran
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said US air strikes on Saturday (Jun 21) "totally obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites, as Washington joined Israel's war with Tehran in a flashpoint moment for the Middle East. In a televised address to the nation from the White House, Trump warned that the United States would go after more targets if Iran did not make peace quickly. Here's the full transcript of his speech, which lasted just over three minutes: Thank you very much. A short time ago, the US military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. 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. 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, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier. For 40 years, Iran has been saying. Death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular. So many were killed by their general, Qassim Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue. I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We 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. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades. Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that's so. I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan "Razin" Caine, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack. With all of that being said, this cannot continue. 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. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago. Tomorrow, General Caine, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will have a press conference at 8am at the Pentagon. And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
