Iran-Israel latest: Trump strikes did not destroy Tehran’s nuclear sites, intelligence report suggests

Iran will not abandon its nuclear technology despite the recent US and Israeli strikes, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said.

“We have made tremendous efforts to achieve this technology, and our scientists have made enormous sacrifices, even losing their lives for this goal,” Mr Araghchi told New Arab website.

“Our people have endured sanctions for this, and a war was imposed on our nation over this issue. No one in Iran will abandon this technology.”

“I imagine that our outlook on the nuclear program and the non-proliferation regime will undergo changes, though I cannot yet determine their direction,” he said, when asked whether Iran would reconsider its stance toward the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

Iran has executed three men for allegedly spying for Israel’s intelligence unit Mossad, according to the Iranian judiciary’s news agency, Mizan.

Since Israel’s 13 June attack on Iran, Tehran has reportedly executed multiple people suspected of spying for Tel Aviv.

Vice President JD Vance visited his home state of Ohio Tuesday evening, making a keynote speech at the Ohio Republican Party Dinner in Lima.

During his remarks, Vance celebrated the U.S. striking three of Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, which was the culmination of a conflict between Israel, America’s biggest ally in the Middle East, and Iran over its advancing pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Vance recalled what the president told him in the Situation Room a few days ago.

“Mr. Vice President, you don’t have to call him the supreme leader, but you would if the guy had a nuclear weapon,” Vance recalled Trump telling him of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Vance continued in his own words: “Because the leverage that nuclear weapons give you to destabilize the world, to destroy our economic interests, to destroy our national security interests — you don’t want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon.”

There has been some division among Trump’s Make America Great Again base, as some have criticized the president for getting involved in a foreign conflict.

In response to these critiques, Vance explained Trump’s thinking in what he calls the “Trump Doctrine.”

“Number one, you articulate a clear American interest, and that’s, in this case, that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. Number two, you try to aggressively, diplomatically, solve that problem. And number three, when you can’t solve it diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict,” he said.

A new CNN poll reveals that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The survey from CNN and SSRS of 1,030 adults in the US between June 22 and June 23 was conducted on the two days after Trump authorized Operation Midnight Hammer wherein U.S. forces dropped bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordow near Qom and also bombed facilities in Natanz and Isfahan.

The findings showed 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s decision to take military action against Iran.

US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend did not destroy the country’s nuclear program, early intelligence suggests, contrary to claims by President Donald Trump, a report states.

Citing four people briefed on the initial assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, CNN reports that the strikes likely only set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by months.

Read more by Oliver O’Connell :

US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend did not destroy the country’s nuclear program and only set back Tehran’s program by only a matter of months, a preliminary US intelligence assessment suggests.

Analysts said that, if the assessment was based on satellite imagery, the extent of damage to the deeply buried Fordow uranium enrichment facility would not necessarily be revealed.

The initial report was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s main intelligence arm and one of 18 US intelligence agencies.

However, President Donald Trump and high-ranking US officials – including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said the weekend strikes, which used a combination of bunker-busting bombs and more conventional weapons, essentially eliminated Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump’s administration on Tuesday told the U.N Security Council that its weekend strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities had “degraded” Iran’s nuclear program, short of Trump’s earlier assertion that the facilities had been “obliterated.”

Asked for comment, the White House pointed to a statement by spokesperson Karoline Leavitt to CNN, which first reported the assessment, that the “alleged” conclusion was “flat-out wrong.”

“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she said.

A US official said a more refined report was expected in the coming days and weeks.