IRAN’S SUPREME LEADER Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared “victory”over Israel and said his country will never surrender as he took aim at comments made by US President Donald Trump, who ordered the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites last Saturday. 

The US bombing was carried out in support of Israel after Iran’s arch enemy launched aerial assaults across the country on 13 June, with the aim of crippling Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme.

Iran retaliated against Israel by launching missile attacks and also carried out an assault on a US military base in Qatar.

Iran has not been shown to have a nuclear weapons programme, despite claims from the Trump administration, Israel and a number of European countries. A US intelligence assessment published in March of this year said there was no reason to believe Iran was developing such weapons.

In his first public statement since a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, Khamenei congratulated “the great Iranian nation… for its victory over the fallacious Zionist regime (Israel)”.

Khamenei said the United States “engaged in the war directly, convinced that its refusal to intervene would lead to the complete destruction of the Zionist regime”.

“The American president indicated in one of his statements that Iran must surrender.

“Surrender! It is no longer a question of enrichment, nor of the nuclear industry, but of the surrender of Iran,” said Khamenei.

“Such an event will never happen. It will never happen.”

Khamenei said the US had “gained nothing from this war,” adding that “the Islamic republic won, and in retaliation dealt a severe slap to the face of America”.

He also said that Iran’s retaliation had brought Israel to the brink of “collapse”. 

“The Zionist regime almost collapsed and was crushed under the strikes of the Islamic republic,” Khamenei said.

While the full extent of the damage in Israel is still not known due to military censorship rules, the official death toll stands at 28, with more than 3,000 wounded. The Israeli attacks on Iran killed 627 people and wounded 4,870 others, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.

“They attacked our nuclear facilities, which of course would merit criminal prosecution in international courts, but they did nothing significant,” Khamenei said.

Referring Trump, who had claimed to have “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme, Khamenei said that he “exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration – anyone who has heard these words has understood that there is another truth behind these words”.

A leaked US intelligence report suggested that the Iranian enrichment programme had only been set back by a matter of months, while the Israeli military said it had been delayed by years. 

Khamenei also hit back at Trump’s characterisation of the Iranian attack on the Al Udeid Air Base – the largest US military base in the Middle East – which resulted in no reported casualties.

Trump “tried… to pretend that nothing had happened, when a major event had occurred”, Khamenei said.

He said the attack ”caused damage”, while Trump shrugged it off as “very weak”. 

The consequences of Israel’s 12-day war against Iran are still materialising. 

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Iran moves to suspend inspections from nuclear watchdog after US and Israel attacks

Yesterday, Iran’s parliament voted to suspend cooperation with the UN-based watchdog agency that oversees nuclear programmes, the IAEA, criticising it for not condemning Israel’s attacks on its nuclear sites.

The move still has to be approved by Iran’s security council.

Today the German government, who supported the Israeli attacks, said the vote sent the “wrong signal”.

Iran had been in talks with the Trump administration before Israel launched its attacks.

Those talks were aimed at re-establishing a deal Iran had made with the US and other powers regarding its uranium enrichment levels, which Trump reneged on in his first term.

Israel opposed that deal and the US-Iran talks.

With reporting from AFP

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