Iran reportedly launched airstrikes on U.S. military installations in Iraq and Qatar in retribution of the United States. bombings of Iran’s main nuclear sites, Iranian state media reported Monday.
“With the US aggression on Iran, it became clear for all that the Zionists’ evil acts have been an extension of the Americans’ planning,” The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said in the Tasnim News Agency article. The article said “[w]hile the Zionist regime waged a war of aggression against Iran on June 13 and has been striking Iran’s military and nuclear sites, the US stepped in.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari made a statement on X to “express the State of Qatar’s strong condemnation of the attack on Al Udeid Air Base by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and consider it a flagrant violation of the State of Qatar’s sovereignty and airspace.”
Meanwhile, experts said it could be a while before the full extent of the damage is understood at Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan nuclear facilities, according to MSNBC. Some, including Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, said Iran likely moved the highly-enriched uranium (HEU) before the U.S. strikes.
Jeffrey Lewis, a former State Department official and current Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project (EANP) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California., said on X he was “unimpressed” by these strikes, calling both military missions – Israel’s being “Rising Lion” on June 13 and the U.S.’s being “Midnight Hammer” on June 22 – “tactically brilliant” but potentially “strategic failures.”
“No one even knows where the HEU is now!” Lewis said in his X thread. “@rafaelmgrossi says Iran moved it. Lil’ @marcorubio says nothing can move in Iran. But trucks are moving in Iran. Trucks and heavy equipment showed up at least two days ago to seal the tunnels to protect them.”
Lewis cited satellite imagery showing trucks outside Fordow potentially moving sensitive equipment out the day before the Midnight Hammer strike. The imagery also shows tunnels from the Esfahan site..
In an interview with ABC News, in response to inquiries about the location of Iran’s uranium, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged the whereabouts of the stockpile were unclear. The U.S. must ensure “we do something with that fuel” and “that’s one of the things that we’re going to have conversations with the Iranians about.”