Donald Trump has warned Iran to make a deal “before there is nothing left” and issued a chilling threat: he knows where the supreme leader is hiding but “we are not going to take him out, at least not for now”.
Mr Trump demanded a “real end” to the bloody conflict with Israel, which is now entering its sixth day, and told Tehran there was still time to end the war if it delivered “unconditional surrender”.
After launching Operation Rising Lion last week with an unprecedented attack on Iranian nuclear sites and top military figures, Israel claimed on Tuesday to have the Iranian military leadership “on the run”.
Warning that the operation – which marks the largest attack on Iran since the 1980s – was “not over yet”, Israel said an overnight attack on Tehran’s command centre killed Iran’s new wartime chief of staff, Ali Shadmani – who had only been in the role for four days.
As terrified Iranians fled Tehran and other areas being pounded by the Israeli air force, civilians told The Independent they were either trying to stockpile supplies and take the risk of remaining in the country while others were making journeys of hundreds of kilometres to borders with countries like Armenia.
Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, insisted his country’s strikes on Iran were “the war to end wars” and “engender peace in the Middle East”, as he told Merit TV that Mr Trump was not putting pressure on Israel to halt its offensive.
“We’ve pulled off a number of surprises – when the dust settles – you’re going to see some surprises on Thursday night and Friday, that will make the beeper operation almost seem simple,” the senior Israeli diplomat said, referring to the pager attack on Hezbollah.
After leaving the G7 summit in Canada early on Monday night “because of what’s going on in the Middle East”, Mr Trump said his departure “certainly has nothing to do with a ceasefire” and was “much bigger than that”, adding: “Stay tuned!”
Asked by reporters alongside Sir Keir Starmer whether he supported regime change in Tehran, Mr Trump replied: “I want to see no nuclear weapons in Iran, and we’re well on our way to making sure that happens.”
The US president later told CBS News that he wanted a “real end” to the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme, and predicted that Israel would not be slowing its attacks on Iran, claiming: “You’re going to find out over the next two days. You're going to find out.”
Mr Trump later boasted that “we know exactly where the so-called ‘supreme leader’ is hiding”, adding: “He is an easy target, but is safe there – we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”
But speaking at the G7 on Tuesday, Sir Keir insisted that Mr Trump was not planning to attack Iran, telling reporters: “There is nothing the president said that suggests he's about to get involved in this conflict. On the contrary, the G7 statement was about de-escalation.
“I think what he said was he wanted to go beyond a ceasefire effectively and end the conflict. And I think he’s right about that. I mean, a ceasefire is always a means to an end.”
The conflict continued to rage on Tuesday, with an Israeli military official telling reporters that overnight alone Israel struck “dozens” of military assets, including a Tehran command centre “responsible for managing combat operations” and components connected to the Iranian nuclear programme.
He claimed that Israeli forces have taken out “more than a third of Iran’s missile launchers” in a wave of strikes which continued over western Iran on Tuesday.
Iran, meanwhile, has probably fired more than 1,000 projectiles at Israel, including 400 ballistic missiles and dozens of drones, the official added.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have hit Israel’s military intelligence directorate and spy agency Mossad’s operational centre early on Tuesday.
Iranian officials have reported 224 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel said 24 civilians had been killed, although rights groups say the toll in Iran is likely to be significantly higher.
“At one point every thirty minutes or so there were explosions,” said one man in the Iranian capital who asked not to be identified for fear of backlash from the Iranian authorities for speaking to Western media.
“We were terrified,” he added, saying that civilians felt that if Iran hadn’t retaliated with attacks on Israel “Israel would have destroyed us by now”. He continued: “We haven’t left our homes, in my area alone at least 10 civilians have been killed.” Other families were taking the long road from places like Tehran to Armenia.
One of Israel’s main targets has been Iran’s nuclear facilities – with Israeli officials saying they have pounded the sprawling nuclear sites of Natanz and Isfahan, as well as the Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research in Tehran (SPND) and had killed at least 10 scientists so essential to the nuclear programme “it will be very hard advancing it without their knowledge”.
When asked if Israel had the sufficient capability to eliminate Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons – and whether it would be able to target underground facilities in places like the Natanz nuclear facility without US assistance – the military official added: “We have a few surprises up our sleeve.”
He said Israel was still assessing the damage to the Natanz facility “but our initial understanding is that the strikes were successful, at least to some degree”.
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday there were indications of direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, but that there was no change to report at the Fordow and Isfahan sites.
Iran has insisted that its nuclear programme is merely for civilian purposes. Israel claims it acted on intelligence suggesting Iran was “approaching the point of no return” in creating a nuclear weapon, although anonymous US officials have suggested this does not chime with Washington’s assessments.
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