More than 200 Israeli Air Force fighter jets hit more than 100 nuclear, military and infrastructure targets across Iran, including its main nuclear facility in Natanz.
Iranian leaders are likely to believe that the Trump administration was not just aware of these strikes in advance, but covertly endorsed them.
Two key Iranian nuclear scientists are among six scientists killed in Israeli strikes on sites in Iran on Friday.
Israel says Iran launched 100 drones towards its territory after attack on Iranian nuclear sites and killing of military leaders.
The United States is no stranger to targeting Iranian interests and personnel. Recall the case of the January 2020 US assassination by drone strike of Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which simply further enshrined imperial double standards.
The Israeli army said it had damaged the Natanz uranium enrichment site’s underground structures, including a multistorey enrichment hall with centrifuges, electrical rooms and additional supporting infrastructure.
It added that “vital infrastructure at the site that allows for its continuous functioning and the continued advancement of the Iranian regime’s project to obtain nuclear weapons was attacked”.
This came just a day after United States President Donald Trump said his administration was “fairly close to a pretty good agreement” with Iran and that military action “could blow it” and lead to a “massive conflict”.
On Thursday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), declared that Iran had not complied with its nonproliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years. Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme focuses on peaceful purposes and is not developing weapons.
The spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces, Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned that Israel would pay a “heavy price” for its attacks, which also killed three senior military figures, including Mohammad Bagheri, the country’s highest-ranking official.
In total, six Iranian scientists have been killed in the Israeli strikes.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency described two of the victims, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi and Fereydoun Abbasi, as “major nuclear scientists”.
Tehranchi, a theoretical physicist, was the president of the Islamic Azad University of Iran. He was added to the US Department’s Entity List of actors “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests” in March 2020.
The building housing the residence of Tehranchi and several other Iranian scientists was severely damaged in Friday morning’s attacks, reports aljazeera.com.
Abbasi was a former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and a former member of the Iranian parliament. He held a PhD in nuclear physics and had conducted nuclear research at the defence ministry.
In 2010, Abbasi survived twin blasts in Tehran that killed fellow nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari. Iran blamed Israel for the incident, although Israel neither confirmed nor denied the assassination, the report says.
It remains to be seen if Iran decides to attack US military sites in the Middle East, but its leaders are likely to believe that the Trump administration was not just aware of these strikes in advance, but covertly endorsed them.
The US said it had not been involved in the attacks, but Tehran pointed both to Israeli officials stating the attack had been completely coordinated with the US, and that the Israeli air force is entirely dependent on US supplies.
Logically speaking, this would not be the first time the US government is accused of placing Israel’s policy objectives ahead of its own.
The billions upon billions of dollars in lethal aid that Republican and Democratic administrations alike have showered upon Israel can scarcely be said to benefit the average US citizen, who would certainly be better off if said billions were invested in affordable housing or healthcare options in the US itself.
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