A satellite overview shows the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility, along with damage from June 23 airstrikes, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, near Qom, Iran, June 24, 2025. Photo: Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed Wednesday (June 25, 2025) that the country’s nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged” in American strikes over the weekend.
Speaking on Al Jazeera, Mr. Baghaei refused to go into detail but conceded the strikes on Sunday by American B-2 bombers using bunker-buster bombs had been significant.
“Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he said.
His comments just after U.S. President Donald Trump said that the damage to Iranian nuclear sites from missile strikes over the weekend was severe, though he also acknowledged that the available intelligence on the matter was inconclusive.
Reuters and others reported Tuesday that those U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities set back Tehran’s program by only a matter of months, citing a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment through sources.
Both Mr. Trump and the White House rejected the assessment.
“The intelligence was very inconclusive,” Mr. Trump told reporters before joining a NATO summit in The Hague. “The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests.”
Later, during the same round of comments, Mr. Trump argued that Iran’s nuclear deal had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again”.
The President reiterated on his Truth Social account that the Iranian nuclear sites were completely destroyed, while the White House pointed Reuters to a statement by spokesperson Karoline Leavitt to CNN, which first reported the assessment, that the “alleged” conclusion was “flat-out wrong.”
Published – June 25, 2025 05:53 pm IST
