‘Badly broken’: In a first, Iran admits impact on nuclear sites in US strikes; keeps details under wrap

Iran on Wednesday for the primary time admitted that latest US strikes “badly damaged” its nuclear installations.Speaking to Al Jazeera, Iran’s international ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei mentioned the June 22 strikes by American B-2 bombers utilizing bunker-buster munitions had precipitated important destruction.“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” Baghaei mentioned, whereas declining to offer additional details.The admission comes after US President Donald Trump repeatedly claimed the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.Trump’s particular envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, additionally advised Fox News that the US and Israel had achieved their goal of “total destruction of the enrichment capacity” in Iran. He added that Iran’s earlier precondition for talks — an finish to Israel’s navy marketing campaign — had now been addressed.Meanwhile, talking forward of the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been “set back decades,” simply a day after asserting a truce between Iran and Israel.“They’re not going to be building bombs for a long time,” Trump mentioned, insisting that US strikes had precipitated the “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear sites.Drawing a parallel with World War II, Trump mentioned, “That ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war.”The reference was to the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which led to Japan’s give up and the tip of the Pacific theatre in World War II.Commenting on the potential of Iran resuming uranium enrichment past permitted ranges, Trump added, “I think they’ve had it. They just went through hell… the last thing they want to do is enrich.”On June 22, the US carried out Operation Midnight Hammer, dropping 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on three key underground nuclear sites.The assault was designed to deal a vital blow to Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, in line with Trump’s stance that Iran can’t be allowed to own nuclear weapons.According to Pentagon figures, greater than 125 plane participated in the mission, together with stealth bombers, help planes, fighters and surveillance craft. A complete of 75 precision weapons have been used, together with 14 bunker busters and over two dozen cruise missiles.