Alarm grows after the US inserts itself into Israel's war against Iran
with strikes on nuclear sites
[June 23, 2025]
By JON GAMBRELL, FARNOUSH AMIRI and CARA ANNA
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world grappled Sunday with the
United States inserting itself into Israel's war by attacking Iranian
nuclear sites, an operation that raised urgent questions about what
remained of Tehran’s nuclear program and how its weakened military might
respond.
Experts warned that worldwide efforts to contain the spread of nuclear
weapons by peaceful means would be at stake in the days ahead, while
fears of a wider regional conflict loomed large. The price of oil rose
as financial markets reacted.
Iran lashed out at the U.S. for crossing “a very big red line” with its
risky gambit to strike the three sites with missiles and 30,000-pound
bunker-buster bombs.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told an emergency meeting of
the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. "decided to destroy diplomacy,”
and that the Iranian military will decide the “timing, nature and scale”
of a "proportionate response.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to
Moscow to coordinate with close ally Russia.
Tens of thousands of American troops are based in the Middle East. Ali
Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, said any country
used by the U.S. to strike Iran ”will be a legitimate target for our
armed forces,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
At first, the Trump administration indicated it wanted to restart
diplomatic talks with Iran. “Let's meet directly,” Secretary of State
Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS. Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth said the U.S. “does not seek war.”
But President Donald Trump, who has warned of additional strikes if
Tehran retaliates against U.S. forces, later mused about the possibility
of “regime change " in Iran.
The U.S. strikes, confirmed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,
hit the Fordo and Natanz enrichment facilities, as well as the Isfahan
nuclear site. Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog said there were no
immediate signs of radioactive contamination around them.
Trump asserted on his Truth Social platform that Iran’s nuclear sites
sustained “monumental damage” in the attack, though an American
assessment on the strikes is still underway.
“The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!” he
wrote.
Trump previously claimed the U.S. “completely and fully obliterated” the
sites, but the Pentagon reported “sustained, extremely severe damage and
destruction.” Israeli army spokesman Effie Defrin said “the damage is
deep,” but an assessment with the U.S. continued.
“We are very close to achieving our goals” in removing Iran's nuclear
and missile threats, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late
Sunday.
U.S. defense officials have said they are working to determine about
just how much damage the strikes did. Iran as well has not said how much
damage was done in the attack, though Tehran has not offered any details
so far on the strikes it has faced from Israel in its war with that
country.
The head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael
Mariano Grossi, told the Security Council that no one was in a position
to assess the underground damage at Fordo, which is dug deep into a
mountain, but visible craters tracked with the U.S. announcements. He
said IAEA inspectors should be allowed to look at the sites. The IAEA's
governing board planned an emergency meeting Monday.
Grossi stressed that a path for diplomacy remained, but if that fails,
“violence and destruction could reach unthinkable levels,” and global
efforts at nuclear nonproliferation “could crumble.”
Satellite images analyzed Monday by The Associated Press appear to show
at least one crater at the Natanz site. A hole of around 5 meters (16
feet) could be seen in images taken by Planet Labs PBC and Maxar
Technologies on Sunday after the American strikes. That hole sits
directly over the underground portion of the site, which includes
centrifuge halls.
Iran has offered no assessment of how much damage has been done at the
site. Previous Israeli strikes destroyed an above-ground centrifuge
hall, as well as all of the power equipment at the site, likely cutting
its electrical supply.
With the attack that Washington said was carried out without detection,
the United States inserted itself into a war it spent decades trying to
avoid. Success could mean ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions and
eliminating the last significant state threat to the security of Israel,
its close ally. Failure — or overreach — could plunge the U.S. into
another long and unpredictable conflict.
For Iran’s supreme leader, it could mark the end of a campaign to
transform the Islamic Republic into a greater regional power that holds
enriched nuclear material a step away from weapons-grade levels.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last spoke publicly on Wednesday, warning the
U.S. 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 limited options for retaliation, as key allies have mostly
stayed out of the conflict. It could attack U.S. 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 Oman.
Or it could hurry to develop a nuclear weapon with what remains of its
program. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said its program will
not be stopped.
New questions about Iran’s nuclear stockpile
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, and U.S.
intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing
a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could
quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.
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Protesters chant slogans as one of them holds up a poster of the
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a protest following
the U.S. attacks on nuclear sites in Iran, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday,
June 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israel has significantly degraded Iran’s air defenses and offensive
missile capabilities and damaged its nuclear enrichment facilities. But
only the U.S. military has the bunker-buster bombs that officials
believe offered the best chance of destroying sites deep underground. A
total of 14 of the bombs were used on Natanz and Fordo, according to the
Pentagon.
Experts scrambled to answer the urgent question: What has happened to
Iran’s stockpile of uranium and centrifuges?
Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC after the U.S. strikes,
analyzed by The Associated Press, show damage to the facility. Other
images from Maxar Technologies suggest Iran packed the entrance tunnels
to Fordo with dirt and had trucks at the facility ahead of the strikes.
Several Iranian officials, including Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, have claimed Iran removed nuclear material
from targeted sites.
Before the Israeli military campaign began, Iran said it had declared a
third, unknown site as a new enrichment facility.
“Questions remain as to where Iran may be storing its already enriched
stocks … as these will have almost certainly been moved to hardened and
undisclosed locations, out of the way of potential Israeli or U.S.
strikes,” said Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal
United Services Institute focused on nonproliferation issues.
Global leaders responded with shock and calls for restraint. Egypt
warned of “grave repercussions” for the region. Bahrain, home to the
U.S. Navy’s Middle East-based 5th Fleet, called on Iran and the U.S. to
“quickly resume talks.”
The State Department advised U.S. citizens worldwide to “exercise
increased caution.”
Trump's decision and the risks
The decision to attack was a risky one for Trump, who won the White
House partly on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign
conflicts.
But Trump also vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear
weapon. He initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the
country’s leaders to give up its nuclear program.
For Netanyahu, the strikes were the culmination of a decades-long
campaign to get the U.S. to strike Israel’s chief regional rival and its
disputed nuclear program. Netanyahu praised Trump, saying his decision
“will change history.”
Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with
nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.
Iran and Israel trade more attacks
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Amir, called the U.S. attack a
key “turning point" but added: "We still have targets to strike and
objectives to complete."
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a barrage of 40
missiles at Israel, including its Khorramshahr-4, which can carry
multiple warheads. Israeli authorities said more than 80 people suffered
mostly minor injuries.
Late Sunday, the Israeli military said it again struck military
infrastructure sites in Tehran and western Iran.
The Israeli military confirmed other attacks on Iran late Sunday which
included strikes on Hamedan and Kermanshah in western Iran, as well as
strikes in Tehran, Iran’s capital. Israel also hit what its military
described as a missile production site in Shahroud.
Earlier, explosions boomed in Bushehr, home to Iran’s only nuclear power
plant, three semiofficial media outlets reported. Israel’s military said
it struck missile launchers in Bushehr, Isfahan and Ahvaz, as well as a
command center in the Yazd area where it said Khorramshahr missiles were
stored. Iran has not acknowledged losses of military materiel in the war
so far.
Iranian state media reported air defense systems were firing in Tehran
early Monday, while explosions could be heard in the nearby city of
Karaj.
A social media account associated with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, published a propaganda post Monday portraying missile
strikes on a darkened city with a giant skull bearing the Star of David
on it. “The punishment continues,” the poster read.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 950 people and wounded
3,450 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights
Activists. The group said of those dead, it identified 380 civilians and
253 security force personnel. In Israel, at least 24 people have been
killed and over 1,000 wounded.
At Turkey’s border with Iran, one departing Iranian defended his
country’s nuclear program.
“We were minding our own business,” Behnam Puran said.
___
Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Nasser Karimi,
Mehdi Fattahi and Amir Vahdat in Iran; Aamer Madhani in Morristown, New
Jersey; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel;
Lolita Baldor in Narragansett, Rhode Island; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Rusen
Takva in Van, Turkey; Joah Boak in Washington; Edith M. Lederer at the
United Nations and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this
story.
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