International concern focused on fears that the unprecedented US attacks would deepen conflict in the volatile region after Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran earlier this month.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said bases used by US forces could be attacked in retaliation.
“Any country in the region or elsewhere that is used by American forces to strike Iran will be considered a legitimate target for our armed forces,” he said in a message carried by the official IRNA news agency.
“America has attacked the heart of the Islamic world and must await irreparable consequences.”
US President Donald Trump urged Iran to end the conflict after he launched surprise strikes on a key underground uranium enrichment site at Fordo, along with nuclear facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.
“We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the ‘bomb’ right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!)” he said on social media.
And while the US president did not directly advocate regime change in the Islamic republic, he openly played with the idea — even after his aides stressed that was not a goal of American intervention.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “But if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”
RTHK’s Washington correspondent, Simon Marks, said Trump’s remarks were certain to spark more speculation about his steps.
“But all of this… raises a massive question, which is, to what extent is Donald Trump committed to moving forward, possibly with more military action or committed to trying to foment some kind of change on the ground in Tehran?” He told RTHK’s Hong Kong Today programme.
“Certainly, that’s what (Israeli) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to do from Israel over the course of the last week. But the Americans have been holding back from that. Now, tonight, perhaps Donald Trump is flirting with the idea of adopting that position.”
Netanyahu, meanwhile, said his country’s military strikes will “finish” once the stated objectives of destroying Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities have been achieved.
“We are very, very close to completing them,” he told reporters.
As Iran’s leaders struck defiant tones, President Masoud Pezeshkian also vowed that the United States would “receive a response” to the attacks.
Another Khamenei adviser, Ali Shamkhani, said in a post on X that “even if nuclear sites are destroyed, game isn’t over, enriched materials, indigenous knowledge, political will remain.”
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that craters were visible at the Fordo facility, but no one had been able to assess the underground damage.
He added that attacks on nuclear facilities could cause radiation leaks, but the IAEA had not detected any. (Additional reporting by AFP)
