US President Donald Trump last night approved a plan to attack Iran, but has withheld a final order for such a strike, according to the Telegraph.
He told reporters after a meeting with military chiefs in the White House: “I have ideas on what to do but I haven’t made a final – I like to make the final decision one second before it’s due.”
Israel has repeatedly called for the U.S. to join its war against Iran, claiming the attack was necessary to eliminate its nuclear programme – although yesterday Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said it “could not affirm there is any systematic effort in Iran at the moment to manufacture a nuclear weapon”.
Trump said a deal with Tehran “could still happen” – and insisted, despite the IAEA’s view, that “Iran was a few weeks away from having a nuclear weapon”.
He told reporters: “They should have made the deal, I had a great deal for them, in the end they decided not to do it, and now they wish they did it”.
Sources told US media yesterday that Mr Trump wanted to see if Iran would agree to a last minute deal to end its nuclear programme before moving forward with plans to attack.
Iran’s Fordow nuclear site buried deep beneath a mountain – and the US is thought to have the only weapon that might destroy such a deeply buried facility: a 30,000lbs bunker busting bomb.
The Guardian reports this morning that Mr Trump seems not to be “fully convinced” that dropping the GBU-57s ‘bunker buster’, a 13.6-tonne bomb “would effectively eliminate Fordow”.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned against US involvement in the conflict and Iran, saying: “If the US wants to actively intervene in support of Israel, Iran will have no other option but to use its tools to teach aggressors a lesson and defend itself … our military decision-makers have all necessary options on the table,” according to state media.
“Our recommendation to the US is to at least stand by if they do not wish to stop Israel’s aggression,” he added.
As attacks from both Iran and Israel continued last night, Israel’s rescue service that an Iranian missile had hit the Soroka Medical Centre in south Israel causing “extensive damage” and injuring at least 40 people, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service.
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said that: “Iran’s terrorist dictators fired missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva and at civilians in the center of the country. We will make the tyrants in Tehran pay a heavy price.