President Donald Trump on Saturday night said U.S. bombers “completely” destroyed” Iran’s “key” nuclear facilities — such as Fordo — and called on the Middle East country to negotiate for peace.
“Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” the president said in remarks to the American people from the White House. “Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater — and a lot easier.”
At 7:50 p.m. on Truth Social, Trump announced that the United States successfully attacked three Iranian nuclear targets with 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs. The U.S. said it bombed Iran’s two major uranium enrichment centers: Fordo, which is housed deep within a mountain, and Natanz, which Israel hit several days ago with smaller weapons. The U.S. also fired at a third site near the city Isfahan, per Trump.
The attacks were seemingly sudden: On Friday, Trump claimed he was giving Iran “two weeks” to negotiate for peace. Iran and Israel have been trading strikes for a little over a week after Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran in response to the country enriching uranium, which is a prerequisite for both nuclear power and building a nuclear bomb. At least 657 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed by Israeli strikes, with more than 2,000 people wounded, according to a Washington-based Iranian human rights group. At least 24 people in Israel have been killed and hundreds wounded, according to Israeli estimates.
Israel and many Republican U.S. lawmakers have long suggested that strikes on Iran are necessary because Iran is close to creating nuclear weapons. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who praised the U.S. strikes Saturday — himself has claimed that Iran could make a bomb in “maybe only a few months.” He made those comments 13 years ago, but continues to give the same timeframe. Netanyahu has warned that Iran is a nuclear threat as far back as 1992, but U.S. intelligence agencies this week reportedly assessed that Iran was not actively trying to make a bomb and that it would still be three years away. And Trump’s own direction of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, recently said that Iran was not close to making a nuke.
