Iran weighs retaliation against US for strikes

Parisa Hafezi, Phil Stewart and Maayan Lubell | June 23, 2025

Iran and Israel have traded air and missile strikes as the world braces for Tehran’s response to the US attack on its nuclear sites and President Donald Trump raised the idea of regime change in the Islamic republic.

Iran vowed to defend itself after the US joined Israel in the biggest Western military action against the country since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite calls for restraint and a return to diplomacy from around the world.

Commercial satellite imagery indicated the US attack on Iran’s subterranean Fordow nuclear plant in the early hours of Sunday Iranian time severely damaged or destroyed the deeply buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but the status of the site remained unconfirmed, experts said.

In his latest social media comments on the US strikes, Trump said “Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran.”

Trump earlier called on Iran to forgo any retaliation and said the government “must now make peace” or “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier”.

The US launched 75 precision-guided munitions including bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles against three Iranian nuclear sites, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes.

Rafael Grossi, the agency’s director general, told CNN it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack.

Tehran, which denies its nuclear program is for anything other than peaceful purposes, sent a volley of missiles at Israel in the aftermath of the US attack, wounding scores of people and destroying buildings in Tel Aviv.

But it had not acted on its main threats of retaliation, to target US bases or choke off oil shipments that pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s parliament has approved a move to close the strait, which Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Caine said the US military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. The US State Department issued a security alert for all American citizens abroad, calling on them to “exercise increased caution”.

The Israeli military reported a missile launch from Iran in the early hours of Monday morning, saying it was intercepted by Israeli defences.

Air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel. Iranian news agencies reported air defences were activated in central Tehran districts to counter “enemy targets”, and that Israeli air strikes hit Parchin, the location of a military complex southeast of the capital.

In a post to the Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump raised the idea of regime change in Iran.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” he wrote.

Trump’s post came after officials in his administration, including US Vice President JD Vance and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, stressed they were not working to overthrow Iran’s government.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. The Kremlin has a strategic partnership with Iran, but also close links with Israel.

Speaking in Istanbul on Sunday, Araqchi said his country would consider all possible responses and there would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated.

The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss the US strikes as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.