TEHRAN PROTESTS
As Iran’s leaders struck defiant tones, President Masoud Pezeshkian also vowed that the US would “receive a response” to the attacks.
People gathered on Sunday in central Tehran to protest against US and Israeli attacks, waving flags and chanting slogans.
In the province of Semnan east of the capital, 46-year-old housewife Samireh told AFP she was “truly shocked” by the strikes.
“Semnan province is very far from the nuclear facilities targeted, but I’m very concerned for the people who live near,” she said.
In an address to the nation hours after the attack, Trump claimed success for the operation, and US Vice President JD Vance followed up on Sunday morning.
“We know that we set the Iranian nuclear programme back substantially last night,” Vance told ABC.
But he also suggested Iran still had its highly enriched uranium.
“We’re going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel,” he said. “They no longer have the capacity to turn that stockpile of highly enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium.”
Another Khamenei advisor, 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 attacks on nuclear facilities could cause radiation leaks, but the IAEA had not detected any.
