Iranian nuclear sites sustained “extremely severe damage and destruction” in air strikes, the US has said – a stance mostly supported by the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
General Dan Caine, chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, told reporters that the destruction wrought by Operation Midnight Hammer will take “some time” to assess.
But he added that “initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction”.
The sites are Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
Image: Three nuclear sites in Iran were targeted by US strikes
Fordow is a secretive nuclear facility buried about 80m below a mountain and one of two key uranium enrichment plants in Iran, along with Natanz.
Isfahan features a large nuclear technology centre and enriched uranium is also stored there, diplomats say.
At Fordow, satellite images taken after the attack show holes in the mountain in which the nuclear site was situated.
Image: A satellite image showing two clusters of holes at the Fordow nuclear site in Iran following US strikes on the facility. Pic: Maxar
Images of Natanz, which is also suspected of having an underground facility, appear to show a new hole in a rocky area.
Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, said the initial assessment was that “all of our precision munitions struck where we wanted them to strike and had the desired effect”.
“Which means, especially in Fordow, which was the primary target here, we believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there,” he added.
America’s attack brings the US into direct involvement in the war between Israel and Iran, which started on 13 June. It prompted threats of reprisals from Tehran, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the facility at Natanz had been “completely destroyed”, while its underground halls “suffered a lot” because of cuts to electricity as the result of Israeli attacks.
He also told CNN that the Isfahan site had suffered “very significant damage”.
At Fordow, which is deep underground, he said it was difficult to know how much damage had been done.
Satellite images appear to show major damage at Isfahan.
Natanz was believed to have possibly already suffered extensive damage in Israel’s strikes earlier this week.
Fourteen bunker buster bombs were used in the attacks on Fordow and Natanz, and numerous Tomahawk cruise missiles were also used in the operation, which involved seven B-2 stealth bombers and was described by Donald Trump as “very successful”.
However, a senior Iranian source told the Reuters news agency that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow was moved to an undisclosed location ahead of the attacks.
Personnel numbers were said to have been cut, too.
The IAEA said there had been “no increase in off-site radiation levels” after the strikes.
Donald Trump said no further attacks were planned and he hoped diplomacy would take over.
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1:15
What is Operation ‘Midnight Hammer’?
Fears of a wider conflict
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned that the US strikes “will have everlasting consequences”, adding that his country “reserves all options” to retaliate.
Mr Hegseth said the United States “does not seek war” but would “act swiftly and decisively when our people, our partners, or our interests are threatened”.
Iran has repeatedly denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon, and Mr Grossi said this month the IAEA had no proof of a “systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon”.
Since the war broke out more than a week ago, Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel’s bombardment began, mostly civilians.
Israel has taken out much of Iran’s military leadership with attacks targeting air defences and military bases.
Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, and at least 24 people have been killed over the past nine days.
US Senator Chris Murphy, posting on X after the US strikes, said he and other senators received a classified briefing last week indicating that Iran did not pose an immediate threat through its nuclear programme.
“Iran was not close to building a deliverable nuclear weapon,” Senator Murphy said. “The negotiations Israel scuttled with their strikes held the potential for success.”
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2:36
What next after the US strikes on Iran?
‘Consultations’ with Vladimir Putin
The Iranian foreign minister told journalists on Sunday morning that he was flying to Moscow to have “serious consultations” with Vladimir Putin.
He described Moscow as a “friend of Iran”, adding: “We always consult with each other.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that “invaders must now await responses that will bring regret” after the US strikes.
Gulf states like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all home to US military bases, are on high alert after the strikes, with Bahrain urging drivers to avoid main roads and Kuwait setting up shelters.
The UK has also further increased “force protection” measures for its military bases and personnel in the Middle East to their highest level.
Iran has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to “maintain international peace and condemn the US strikes”, according to state media.
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3:33
PM: ‘My focus is on de-escalation’
‘Bold decision’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the “bold decision” by Mr Trump, saying it would “change history”.
The IRGC said it had launched 40 missiles at Israel on Sunday morning, including its biggest ballistic missile, the Khorramshahr-4.
Iranian missiles hit sites in northern and central Israel, including in Haifa, Ness Ziona, Rishon LeZion and Tel Aviv.
The UK is preparing to fly British nationals out of Israel.
“Iran’s nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat,” said Sir Keir Starmer.
However, Mr Araghchi said the US and Israel had “blown up” negotiations and asked: “How can Iran return to something it never left, let alone blew up?”
It was one sentence among the many words Donald Trump spoke this week that caught my attention.
Midway through a jaw-dropping news conference where he sensationally claimed to have “found an answer on autism”, he said: “Bobby (Kennedy) wants to be very careful with what he says, but I’m not so careful with what I say.”
The US president has gone from pushing the envelope to completely unfiltered.
Last Sunday, moments after Charlie Kirk‘s widow Erika had publicly forgiven her husband’s killer, Mr Trump told the congregation at his memorial service that he “hates his opponents”.
Image: President Donald Trump embraces Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika. Pic: AP
The president treats professional disapproval not as a liability but as evidence of authenticity, fuelling the aura that he is a challenger of conventions.
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“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” he told his audience, deriding Europe’s approach to immigration as a “failed experiment of open borders”.
Image: Mr Trump addresses the UN General Assembly in New York. Pic: Reuters
Then came a U-turn on Ukraine, suggesting the country could win back all the land it has lost to Russia.
Most politicians would be punished for inconsistency, but Mr Trump recasts this as strategic genius – framing himself as dictating the terms.
It is hard to keep track when his expressed hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza are peppered with social media posts condemning the return of Jimmy Kimmel to late-night television.
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2:29
Trump’s major shift in Ukraine policy
Perhaps most striking of all is his reaction to the indictment of James Comey, the FBI director he fired during his first term.
In theory, this should raise questions about the president’s past conflicts with law enforcement, but he frames it as vindication, proof that his enemies fall while he survives.
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0:49
Ex-FBI chief: ‘Costs to standing up to Trump’
Mr Trump has spent much of his political career cultivating an image of a man above the normal consequences of politics, law or diplomacy, but he appears to feel more invincible than ever.
Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of US troops to “war-ravaged Portland” in the state of Oregon, authorising the use of “full force” if needed.
The US president said he was directing US defence secretary Pete Hegseth to make the move in order to protect the city “and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists”.
Mr Trump did not specify whether he would send in National Guard troops or the US military.
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1:02
Fatal shooting at ICE facility in Dallas
The ICE facility in Portland has been targeted by protesters since June, sometimes leading to violent clashes.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said demonstrators had “repeatedly attacked and laid siege to an ICE processing centre” there, adding that several arrests were made.
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“Rose City Antifa, a recently designated domestic terrorist organization, illegally doxed ICE officers. They published their home address online and on public flyers. Individuals associated with Antifa also sent death threats to DHS personnel,” DHS wrote on X.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr Trump said “anarchy” was taking place in Portland.
He said: “You go out to Portland, people die out there. Many people have died over the years in Portland. Portland is, I don’t know how anybody lives there. It’s amazing, but it’s, it’s anarchy out there. That’s what they want. They want anarchy.”
In separate comments, Mr Trump said people were “out of control” in Portland and pledged to “stop that very soon”.
Image: People protest against the Trump’s immigration policies in Portland. Pic: Reuters
Image: ICE agents charge towards protesters in Portland. Pic: Reuters
After Mr Trump’s announcement, Oregon’s Democratic governor Tina Kotek said she was reaching out to the White House for more information.
“We have been provided no information on the reason or purpose of any military mission. There is no national security threat in Portland. Our communities are safe and calm,” she said.
Portland’s mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement that the “number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city”.
But Republicans supported the move. US labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who previously served as a Republican house representative for an Oregon district, said she had seen how “lawlessness” had turned Portland into a “crime-ridden war zone”.
In a post on X, she thanked Mr Trump “for taking action to keep our ICE facilities protected and Make America Great Again”.
Trump has sent military troops to the Democratic-controlled cities of Los Angeles and Washington DC so far in his second presidency. He has also discussed doing the same in Memphis and New Orleans, which are also Democratic strongholds.
It was an event organisers had hoped, perhaps optimistically, would be civil. Then comes a shout: “Shut the f**k up!”
In a busy room at Colorado State University, where Charlie Kirk had been scheduled to speak before his assassination, the crowd is riled, loudly heckling the speaker, Steven Bonnell, a left-wing streamer better known as Destiny.
It’s rowdy, gladiatorial and, in some ways, childish. A man in a Donald Trump shirt and a MAGA hat addresses Mr Bonnell: “You’re a fascist! You’re a degenerate!”
“I don’t want to get killed,” the streamer tells me after the debate.
“I’m out here at these events. And I wish that everybody could take a step back and realise that not every single issue that we fight over is the end of the f*****g world.”
This is where Kirk had been due to speak on the next stop on the tour that ended with his assassination in Utah.
A 21-year-old student has said she now carries a handgun because she’s a conservative. A young man says he came here from Florida because he didn’t feel safe.
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Another man, clearly quite drunk, points out a transgender person in the crowd and says they shouldn’t be allowed firearms. He receives a loud chorus of boos and cheers.
Across the road, in the football stadium, there had been a vigil. Amid a heavy police presence, more than 7,000 gathered to pay their respects, most of them wearing MAGA hats.
It was as much a rally or a recruitment drive for Kirk’s organisation, Turning Point USA, with speakers promising to set up thousands of new chapters around Colorado. I’ve come here to understand the movement he created, how he built it – and what it looks like without him.
“His political ideology is abhorrent, but I think he’s a very effective organiser,” Bonnell says. “And yeah, I’ll give credit where credit is due. He built a very impressive movement in an area that was considered unwinnable by conservatives.”
Image: Steven Bonnell, a left wing streamer better known as Destiny
‘The world of Charlie Kirk’
Kirk grew up in Arlington Heights, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Here, another smaller-scale vigil has been set up, organised by Sofia Volpe. She is 18 years old and came across Kirk on social media.
She says: “My family is conservative. I hold those values myself, but it was really nice to hear somebody younger speaking on this.
“I went to Wheeling High School, where Charlie went, and I joined the Turning Point chapter there. So that also kind of brought me into the world of Charlie Kirk.”
I ask her if she gets any backlash for supporting Kirk.
“People say that I’m horrible, that I’m racist, that I’m homophobic, that I’m transphobic, just all the phobics and I don’t identify myself with any of that. I think that I am a very loving and open person to anybody because people are people.”
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At another vigil, in another Chicago suburb, Miguel Melgar acknowledges not everyone saw Kirk that way.
“I don’t personally think that Charlie had hatred in his heart. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t accept the fact that he did make what could be perceived as some insensitive statements,” he says.
“And I think that especially if you do take certain statements and really only look at them in a vacuum, it could very well be perceived as statements that might have proliferated some type of a culture of a lack of acceptance.”
‘Kirk has become a martyr’
Kirk used social media to spread his message, to win over young minds, but he also built a formidable political organisation, Turning Point USA (TPUSA), to advocate for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses: boots on the ground to mobilise the likes online.
Mr Melgar helped him create it. He says TPUSA started as a moderate, bipartisan organisation and only became explicitly conservative after a $100,000 donation from a Republican politician.
“I think that there are plenty of opportunists that will want to see this as a Franz Ferdinand assassination type of event in the culture war… who will want to take any and every opportunity to use this to continue to drive division and to see this as an opportunity to create World War III,” he said.
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2:08
Sky’s James Matthews and Tom Cheshire reflect on a frenetic 10 days since Kirk’s assassination
The vigil we meet at is outside TPUSA’s first office, and others have also come to pay their respects. For many, it was Kirk’s faith – and his evangelism – that was most important.
And that’s how to understand his critics, an attendee named Marlene says, when I ask if she sees where they are coming from.
“I certainly do, it’s from the dark side…they don’t understand it and they’re threatened. Satan is always threatened.”
I ask about Kirk’s well-documented views on gay marriage (he opposed it) and Islam (which he wrote was “not compatible with Western civilisation”).
“There is right and wrong,” she says. “And sometimes it’s hard for people to hear that.”
Image: A vigil held for Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this month
As I leave, Mr Melgar joins hands in prayer with Marlene and her friend Anna.
Mr Melgar told me he would be going to another vigil later, so we tag along. It’s organised by Matthew Monfore, a young volunteer with Turning Point USA. And for him, Kirk’s fusion of religion and politics is what made him such an inspiration.
“Charlie Kirk has become really a martyr not just for Americans but I think for these nationalist movements across the world,” he said.
“And so when you do take a Christian foundation of Western civilisation, and that’s shipped around the world, and Islam, which is basically antithetical to that in numerous ways, and then also besides Islam, the gay marriage aspect of it, we believe that, according to Christian values, marriage is between one man, one woman, and that’s natural and right and given to us by God.”
Image: The vigil in Colorado
This is an explicit Christian nationalism, a term Mr Monfore is happy with – a faith that seeks not merely to inform politics, but to refashion it with Christianity at its centre, with other faiths and non-traditional beliefs relegated.
He is particularly incensed by the online reaction to Kirk’s murder, some of which certainly celebrated his death. I point out that Kirk himself called for President Joe Biden to be put on trial “and/or executed”.
He continued: “That is a good observation. And so I would actually defend that as free speech, because we do believe that Biden is a traitor to our country. And I know that people on the left think that Trump’s Hitler. So I really think that both you and I are in a conundrum here, that both people view each other as evil.”
Does Mr Monfore think the other side is evil?
He replies: “The left embraces ideology that’s antithetical to morality… So I think that the left embraces evil.”
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3:29
Donald Trump hailed Charlie Kirk a ‘hero’
‘I’m not going to send thoughts and prayers’
If the left has a spiritual home, it may be the University of California, Berkley. Two young Republicans, Martin Bertao and Miguel Muniz, are ploughing a relatively lonely furrow, pitching a tent with a sign that says “Change My Mind” – a tactic popularised by Kirk.
On their desk is a cap emblazoned with the logo of ICE, the US immigration authority that has been carrying out a crackdown, and another with Trump 2028, a reference to a third presidential term currently forbidden by the US Constitution.
Mr Bertao says it’s “rage bait” but also admits: “If they somehow repealed the Constitution and he won the primary, sure I’ll vote for him.
“We just try to spread the good word of conservatism, spread the amazing job that Donald Trump’s doing for our country.”
How does that tend to go down, I ask.
“Yeah, so, I don’t want to say unsafe, but sometimes people spit at us, sometimes people will yell at us,” Mr Muniz says.
Image: Martin Bertao and Miguel Muniz at the University of California, Berkley
A student called James passes by. He tells me: “I’m not excited about (Kirk’s death), but you know I’m not going to mourn someone who was actively rooting for my death as a trans person.
“So it’s not like I’m going to feel bad about it or send thoughts and prayers because if it were me, he’d be so happy.”
Kirk said in 2023 that “the transgender thing happening in America” is a “throbbing middle finger to God” and called trans athlete Lea Thomas “an abomination to God”.
“Speakers like him had, and like how, you know, his talks about transgender ideology, that changed a lot of how people treated me at my own high school,” James says.
Kirk also started a database called Professor Watchlist, dedicated to “unmasking” radical professors.
Image: Republican Miguel Muniz claims he has been spat on since the death of Charlie Kirk
Grace Lavery, an associate professor of English at Berkeley, was put on that list. She says she has changed her public office hours as a result.
“The part that feels more dangerous to me is that the conspicuousness and the sharing of that kind of information is then drawn on by people who are far more dangerous,” she says.
“There’s a significant population of far-right militants in the broader northern Californian scene. And those people are dangerous.”
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1:23
Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika vows to continue his mission
But although she describes Kirk as “an absolutely loathsome figure”, she doesn’t condemn him alone.
“We find ourselves in this polarity whereby we are so disgusted at the conduct of the people we understand as our enemy that we point out every time they do something vulgar,” she says.
“And then the moment that it falls to us to do something equally vulgar and disgusting, we do so anyway, and then blame the other side because they started it.
“And it is that form of split thinking which makes hypocrites of all of us, including me.”
‘I hope there’s a chance we can meet in the middle’
In Glendale, Arizona, people have spent the night camping outside the State Farm Stadium, “a bit of a party” according to one of them, to make sure they get a seat for the official memorial for Charlie Kirk.
The 63,000 stadium is quickly filled, and the overflow is directed towards another 20,000 seater not far away. Christian rock blares loudly, and when the speakers take to the stage, the entire crowd holds up the Turning Point USA signs placed on their seats.
Kirk’s movement isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s growing.
Image: Thousands gather to remember right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk
Callie, 18, Shaye, 27, and Britney, 32 and carrying her one-year-old son, drove 10 hours from California to be here.
“But it was worth it, and I’m so glad to be here,” Callie says. “It’s just powerful to be in the midst of all these people and be gathered together.”
“I wouldn’t have realised how much of an impact that Charlie Kirk’s organisation has had on the country and on the world until he was gone,” Shaye says.
What she says next brings her to tears: “And it’s so sad that that had to happen. But I know that God really does give beauty for ashes. I’m so grateful to Jesus Christ because I know Charlie Kirk’s gone on Earth, but he lives in heaven with Jesus Christ. And I’m so happy to be here to honour his legacy and his life.”
I ask whether they feel the US can come together with this memorial – or whether it will remain ever more divided.
“We have to be hopeful that there’s a chance that we can come in the middle. I think we felt hurt by how they treated the situation because we all lost somebody,” Britney says.
“We’re definitely praying that we can get together and meet.”
Image: Matthew Monfore, a young volunteer with Turning Point USA
‘Fight, fight fight!’
If Kirk built his power on the smartphone screen, this memorial is the jumbotron version of his politics: a mix of entertainment, religion and politics on a bombastic scale.
And on display are two interpretations, two visions, of his Christian nationalism, vengeance and forgiveness, Old Testament and New.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and one of the speakers, labels the left “wicked”.
“You are nothing. You produce nothing,” he says.
The President of the United States says: “I hate my enemies and I do not wish them well.”
But Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, is responsible for the most arresting moment of the memorial. Citing Jesus’s example on the cross, she addresses her husband’s murderer: “I forgive you.”
Afterwards, I catch up with Matthew Monfore, the Christian nationalist I met at the vigil in Illinois. He’d driven 26 hours to make it to Arizona, and he preferred the less tolerant message.
“We view the left as very irrational. The term was used by Stephen Miller and people on the cabinet. The term wicked came about that to deny these basic truths and being taught that you should be ashamed for standing otherwise came out today.
“The President of the United States spoke. He, along with people in his cabinet, essentially spoke to using the ‘fight’ word.