Washington — America launched strikes on three Iranian nuclear services, President Trump introduced Saturday night, calling them a “spectacular army success.”
“The U.S. army carried out huge precision strikes on the three key nuclear assemblies within the Iranian regime: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan,” President Trump stated in a nationwide handle from the White Home Saturday evening. “Our goal was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability and a cease to the nuclear risk posed by the world’s primary state sponsor of terror.”
Previous to his handle, the president wrote on his Fact Social platform {that a} “full payload of BOMBS” was dropped on the “major website” Fordo. The president additionally stated all U.S. planes made it safely out of Iranian airspace.
And in second put up, Mr. Trump wrote: “That is an HISTORIC MOMENT FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ISTAEL (sic), AND THE WORLD. IRAN MUST NOW AGREE TO END THIS WAR. THANK YOU!”
Trump warns Iran towards retaliating after U.S. strikes
The president addressed the nation concerning the strikes late Saturday evening, saying that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment services have been utterly and completely obliterated” and issuing a warning to Iran to try for a peace deal in its warfare with Israel.
White Home
“There can be both peace, or there can be tragedy for Iran far better than now we have witnessed over the past eight days,” Mr. Trump stated whereas flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Keep in mind, there are various targets left.”
Mr. Trump added that “if peace doesn’t come shortly, we are going to go after these different targets with precision, pace and talent. Most of them may be taken out in a matter of minutes.”
Iran has pledged to retaliate if the U.S. joined the Israeli assault, which started with airstrikes on Iranian nuclear websites and army targets on June 13. Iran has responded with missile and drone assaults on Israeli cities.
However in a follow-up social media put up following his nationwide handle, Mr. Trump stated that “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”
Early Sunday morning, Iran fired round 30 missiles at Israel, the IDF informed CBS Information, 4 of which made it via the nation’s missile protection methods and brought on accidents and in depth harm.
What we all know to this point concerning the U.S. strikes
Protection Division officers confirmed that American B-2 Spirit bombers have been used to strike Fordo early Sunday native time, with every of these B-2s armed with U.S.-produced “bunker-buster” bombs often known as the GBU-57 Large Ordnance Penetrators, or MOPs — bombs so heavy that they may solely be dropped by a B-2.
At a Pentagon briefing Sunday morning, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, stated seven B-2s from Whiteman Air Drive Base in Missouri dropped a complete of 14 MOPs towards two nuclear goal areas — “the first-ever operational use of this weapon,” he stated. Caine stated about two dozen submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles focused the Isfahan website.
“Ultimate battle harm will take a while, however preliminary battle harm assessments point out that each one three websites sustained extraordinarily extreme harm and destruction,” Caine stated.
CBS Information 
He stated Iran doesn’t seem to have returned fireplace throughout the mission, which the U.S. dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer.
Fordo, the location of a high-grade uranium enrichment facility that worldwide consultants consider is vital to Iran’s nuclear program, is buried virtually 300 ft beneath a mountain and guarded by important air defenses. The MOP was thought of to be the weapon with the very best probability of destroying the Fordo facility.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth referred to as the strikes “an unbelievable and overwhelming success.”
“We devastated the Iranian nuclear program, however it’s price noting that the operation didn’t goal Iranian troops or the Iranian folks,” Hegseth stated on the briefing alongside Caine.
The U.S. reached out to Iran diplomatically Saturday to say the strikes are all of the U.S. plans and that regime change efforts usually are not deliberate, the sources stated. Earlier this week, a number of U.S. officers informed CBS Information that Mr. Trump opposed an Israeli plan to kill Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme chief.
Not all U.S. allies within the area who home U.S. troops which might be a part of U.S. Central Command have been knowledgeable prematurely of the approaching U.S. plan to strike in Iran, based on diplomatic sources. A number of the allies have been knowledgeable because the planes have been within the air.
The United Nation’s Worldwide Atomic Power Company said in a social media put up that it confirmed “no improve in off-site radiation ranges” within the wake of the U.S. strikes.
What Israeli and Iranian officers are saying
The U.S. alerted Israel forward of the strikes, two White Home officers informed CBS Information. Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke following the strikes, the officers stated. And in a video handle, Netanyahu praised the president for conducting the strikes.
“President Trump and I typically say peace via power. First comes power, then comes peace. And tonight President Trump and the US acted with a whole lot of power.”
In a press convention in Istanbul Sunday morning, Iranian Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi stated Iran condemned “within the strongest phrases the US brutal army aggression towards Iran’s peaceable nuclear services.”
“The warmongering and lawless administration in Washington is solely and absolutely answerable for the damaging penalties and much reaching implement- implications of its act of aggression,” Araghchi stated, including that Iran would “won’t ever compromise over their independence and sovereignty.”
In an announcement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated Sunday that the U.S., with its strikes, had “virtually positioned itself on the forefront of aggression by straight attacking peaceable services.”
The IRGC vowed “regrettable responses” to the U.S. strikes, including that “the quantity, dispersion, and dimension of U.S. army bases within the area usually are not a power, however have doubled their vulnerability.”
Araghchi stated he would journey on Sunday to Moscow to satisfy with Russian President Vladimir Putin for “severe consultations,” citing Iran and Russia’s “strategic partnership.”
In statements conveyed by Russia’s state-run information companies on Sunday, the Kremlin strongly condemned the U.S. assaults on Iran, calling them an irresponsible violation of worldwide regulation that may considerably improve the danger of a broader battle within the Center East.
Homeland Safety officers are monitoring for potential bodily and cyber reprisals from the U.S. assault, domestically amid a “very excessive” risk stage and with the “purple line” of the Iranian response doctrine now crossed, CBS Information has discovered.
“We’re in unchartered territory,” one U.S. intelligence official informed CBS Information, whereas talking about potential Iranian threats to the U.S. homeland. “We do not understand how Iran will react to this as a result of that is the very best price of stress and battle we have had in current historical past. We’re simply undecided how the Khomeini regime will react.”
The official added that assessments vary from little to no motion on the a part of Iranians to determined and drastic motion.
U.S. lawmakers give combined response
Home Speaker Mike Johnson was briefed forward of the strikes, based on a supply acquainted.
The response from U.S. lawmakers has been combined. Some Republicans, together with Johnson, expressed help for the strikes, whereas others, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, an ardent Trump supporter, posted on X that “this isn’t our struggle.”
Each Democratic Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Chief Chuck Schumer criticized the president for not looking for congressional authorization for the strikes.
“President Trump misled the nation about his intentions, failed to hunt congressional authorization for using army power and dangers American entanglement in a probably disastrous warfare within the Center East,” Jeffries stated.
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chair of the Senate Choose Committee on Intelligence, stated in an announcement that Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to “‘finish the countless overseas wars.'”
“Tonight, he took steps that would drag the US into one other one, with out consulting Congress, with out a clear technique, with out regard to the constant conclusions of the intelligence neighborhood, and with out explaining to the American folks what’s at stake,” Warner stated.
The occasions that led as much as the shock strikes
Earlier Saturday, a number of U.S. officers had confirmed to CBS Information that B-2 bombers had departed Whiteman Air Drive Base in Missouri en path to Guam. A number of U.S. aerial refueling tankers have been noticed on business flight trackers flying flight patterns according to escorting plane from the central U.S. to the Pacific. Sunday morning, Gen. Caine stated that was a “deception effort,” identified to only a few, and that the B-2s concerned within the strike departed individually on an eastward flight path.
The U.S. strikes come after Araghchi met with European officers in Geneva Friday and stated he was open to additional dialogue.
“Iran is able to think about diplomacy as soon as once more,” Araghchi stated, including, “I stress that Iran’s protection capabilities usually are not negotiable. (However) I categorical our readiness to satisfy once more within the close to future.”
On Thursday, the president stated he would resolve whether or not to strike Iran “throughout the subsequent two weeks.” One supply informed CBS Information on the time that Mr. Trump “believes there’s not a lot alternative. Ending the job means destroying Fordo.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee stated earlier Saturday that the U.S. had begun evacuating Individuals and inexperienced card holders out of Israel aboard assisted departure flights. Two flights departed from Tel Aviv to Athens with roughly 70 U.S. residents, their accompanying instant relations and lawful everlasting residents, the State Division stated previous to Mr. Trump’s announcement of the strikes.
White Home 
In the meantime, the White Home launched images of the State of affairs Room throughout the strikes. Within the room with the president have been Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Dan Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Center East particular envoy Steve Witkoff, White Home chief of workers Susie Wiles, deputy chief of workers Dan Scavino, deputy nationwide safety adviser Andy Baker, White Home basic counsel David Warrington and White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Gabbard’s presence within the room was important, as on Friday, Mr. Trump informed reporters that she was “flawed” when she testified to Congress in March that Iran wasn’t constructing a nuclear weapon.
Haley Ott,
Nicole Sganga,
Aaron Navarro,
Margaret Brennan,
James LaPorta and
Jennifer Jacobs
contributed to this report.
