Trump-Iran latest: US Secretary of Defense rages at coverage of bombing after ayatollah threatens further attacks

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has claimed that the US “gained no achievement” after it attacked three Iranian nuclear sites.

Instead, the US entered the war to “save” Israel after Tehran’s missiles broke through Israel’s multi-layered defence system, the supreme leader said as he claimed victory in the 12-day war.

“The US directly entered the war as it felt that if it did not get involved, the Zionist regime (Israel) would be fully destroyed. It entered the war to save it,” he said.

“The US attacked our nuclear facilities, but couldn’t do any important deed… The US president did abnormal showmanship and needed to do so,” he added.

Donald Trump said over the weekend that the US deployment of 30,000-pound bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.

However, this appeared to be contradicted by an initial assessment from one of his administration’s intelligence agencies.

Pastor Ara Torosian received a distressed phone call from two Iranian members of his Farsi-speaking church on Tuesday – US federal immigration officers were at their Los Angeles home to arrest them.

It was the second such call he received this week.On Monday, an Iranian couple with a three-year-old was detained at a routine immigration appointment, Torosian said.

Both families were recently arrived asylum seekers who had entered the United States at the US-Mexico border after making an appointment, he said.

The appointment system, known as CBP One, was launched by former US president Joe Biden to promote orderly border crossings. President Donald Trump ended the program when he took office, as part of his aggressive crackdown on immigration.

Torosian said when he arrived at the couple’s home on Tuesday he saw an army of federal law enforcement officers and began filming on his cell phone as officers stopped him from getting close to his church members.

As officers restrained the woman being detained she started to have a panic attack and began convulsing on the floor, he said.

A damaged unit of the South Pars refinery’s Phase 14, which was hit by Israel in its first strike on Iran’s oil and gas sector, has returned to operation, the Iranian state-run agency Nour News reported.

South Pars, the world’s biggest gas field, is located offshore in Iran’s southern Bushehr province and is responsible for the lion’s share of the country’s gas production.

Iran is the world’s third-largest gas producer after the United States and Russia.

Gas production was not halted and the damaged unit was repaired in about 10 days, the agency added.

Earlier on Thursday, US senators emerged with sharply different assessments of the US bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites, with Republicans calling the mission a clear success and Democrats expressing deep skepticism.

CIA director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to Capitol Hill to give the classified briefings, originally scheduled for Tuesday.

Many Republicans left satisfied, though their assessments of how much Iran’s nuclear program was set back by the bombing varied.

Sen Tom Cotton said a “major blow” and “catastrophic damage” had been dealt.

“Their operational capability was obliterated. There is nobody working there tonight. It was highly effective. There’s no reason to hit those sites anytime soon,” Sen Lindsey Graham said.

Here, we take a look at the questions both US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump must answer over the attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites.

US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Dan Caine said the bunker-buster bombs “went exactly where they were intended to go”.

“Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won’t see an impact crater, because they’re designed to deeply bury and then function. I know there’s been a lot of questions about that all six weapons at each vent at Fordow went exactly where they were intended to go,” he said.

Iran currently has no plan to meet with the United States, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday in an interview on state TV, contradicting US President Donald Trump’s statement that Washington planned to have talks with Iran next week.

The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran was assessing whether talks with the US were in its interest, following five previous rounds of negotiations that were cut short by Israel and the U.S. attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The US and Israel said the strikes were meant to curb Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear programme is solely geared toward civilian use.

Mr Araqchi said the damages to nuclear sites were “not little” and that relevant authorities were figuring out the new realities of Iran’s nuclear programme, which he said would inform Iran’s future diplomatic stance.