Iran’s Supreme Leader says US strikes on nuclear sites achieved nothing | BBC News

Iran's supreme leader has insisted the US "gained no achievements" from strikes on its nuclear facilities, in his first public address since a ceasefire with Israel was agreed. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes did not "accomplish anything significant" to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme, and that his country’s retaliation against an American air base in Qatar dealt a "heavy blow" to the United States. Washington doubled down on its assessment that the strikes had severely undermined Iran's nuclear ambitions, with US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth saying intelligence gathered by the US and Israel indicated the operation "significantly damaged the nuclear programme, setting it back by years". Previously, US President Donald Trump said the strikes against three key nuclear sites inside Iran "totally obliterated" them, and he responded furiously to a leaked US intelligence report suggesting that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme had only been set back by a few months. Hegseth described the mission as a "historic success" and said the enrichment facilities were now "inoperable", noting that the US was "not aware of any intelligence" indicating the enriched uranium had been moved out of the former facility, Fordo, prior to the attack.