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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites “did not achieve anything” and Donald Trump had “exaggerated” their impact.
The remarks come amid conflicting accounts of the extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities from US bombing over the weekend. American forces struck three Iranian nuclear sites, with the US president claiming the attacks had “obliterated” the facilities.
But in a video message on Thursday, Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate decision maker, said Trump had “exaggerated because he needed to”.
“Anyone who heard his remarks could tell there was a different reality behind his words — they could do nothing,” the 86-year-old supreme leader said in his first public comments since a ceasefire with Israel took hold this week.
Khamenei was speaking as speculation mounted over the extent to which the US attack has impeded Tehran’s nuclear programme.
On Tuesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said the “aggressor enemy failed” to destroy nuclear sites. A US intelligence report leaked the same day suggested the strikes had only set Tehran’s nuclear programme back a few months.
But on Wednesday, CIA director John Ratcliffe, a Trump appointee, said intelligence indicated that Iran’s nuclear programme had been “severely damaged” and would need to be rebuilt “over the course of years”.
His comments followed media reports of an assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency that estimated the bombing had set back Iran’s nuclear programme by less than six months.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday lambasted the media for focusing on the DIA report, which the military intelligence agency had later stressed was a “preliminary, low-confidence assessment”.
In a joint press conference with General Dan Caine, the US chair of the joint chiefs, Hegseth said “first reports are almost always wrong” and criticised the media for reporting on “biased leaks”.
But Hegseth and Caine did not provide new evidence to support claims by Trump that Iran’s nuclear site at Fordow had been “obliterated”. They referred questions about damage assessments to the CIA and other US intelligence agencies.
Asked if he agreed with the claim that the nuclear programme had been “obliterated”, Caine said his role was not to conduct battle damage assessments and again referred questions to the intelligence community.
Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told French Radio that Iran’s nuclear programme had “suffered enormous damage”, though he said claims of its complete destruction were overblown.
Khamenei’s prolonged absence from public view had raised speculation about his safety. Israel targeted high-ranking Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists in the early stages of the 12-day conflict.
The recent conflict marks the first time since assuming power in 1989 that Khamenei has gone into hiding during a war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule out targeting Khamenei directly during the campaign, even calling on Iranians to rise up and pursue regime change.
Trump has insisted that the US knew exactly where Khamenei was located during the war, but added that a decision to eliminate him had not been made.
Additional reporting by Adrienne Klasa in Paris
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