Alarm grows after the US inserts itself into Israel’s war against Iran with strikes on nuclear sites

By JON GAMBRELL FARNOUSH AMIRI and CARA ANNA DUBAI United Arab Emirates The world grappled Sunday with the enormous implications after the United States inserted itself into Israel s war against Iran with an attack that raised urgent questions about what remained of Tehran s nuclear project and how its weakened military might respond Specific observers warned that the future of worldwide efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons by peaceful means would be at stake in the days ahead while fears of a wider regional conflict loomed large Iran lashed out at the U S for navigating a very big red line with its risky gambit to strike three Iranian nuclear sites with missiles and -pound bunker-buster bombs Iran s U N ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani stated an emergency meeting of the United Nations Precaution Council that the U S decided to destroy diplomacy and that the Iranian military will decide the timing nature and scale of a proportionate response Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was flying to Moscow to coordinate with close ally Russia Tens of thousands of American troops are based in the Middle East Ali Akbar Velayati an adviser to Iran s supreme leader noted any country used by the U S to strike Iran will be a legitimate target for our armed forces the state-run IRNA news agency revealed At first the Trump administration indicated it sought to restart diplomatic talks with Iran Let s meet directly Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in an interview with CBS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared the U S does not seek war But President Donald Trump who has warned of additional strikes if Tehran retaliates against U S forces later mused about the possibility of regime change in Iran The U S strikes authenticated by the Atomic Capacity Organization of Iran hit the Fordo and Natanz enrichment facilities as well as the Isfahan nuclear site Iran and the U N nuclear watchdog mentioned there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around them Trump claimed the U S altogether and fully obliterated the sites but the Pentagon announced sustained extremely severe damage and destruction Israeli army spokesman Effie Defrin announced the damage is deep but an assessment with the U S continued We are very close to achieving our goals in removing Iran s nuclear and missile threats Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reported late Sunday Related Articles Trump is open to regime change in Iran after his administration explained that wasn t the goal Nations react to US strikes on Iran with numerous calling for diplomacy US inserts itself into Israel s war with Iran strikes Iranian nuclear sites Trump says he ll decide whether US will directly attack Iran within two weeks How President Trump s shifting deportation push has played out in Colorado There s no small moves The head of the International Atomic Vitality Agency Rafael Mariano Grossi recounted the Protection Council that no one was in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordo which is dug deep into a mountain but visible craters tracked with the U S announcements He commented IAEA inspectors should be allowed to look at the sites The U N nuclear watchdog s governing board planned an exigency meeting Monday Grossi stressed that a path for diplomacy remained but if that fails violence and destruction could reach unthinkable levels and global efforts at nuclear nonproliferation could crumble With the attack that was carried out without detection the United States inserted itself into a war it spent decades trying to avoid Success could mean ending Iran s nuclear ambitions and eliminating the last important state threat to the measure of Israel its close ally Failure or overreach could plunge the U S into another long and unpredictable conflict For Iran s supreme leader it could mark the end of a campaign to transform the Islamic Republic into a greater regional power that holds enriched nuclear material a step away from weapons-grade Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last spoke publicly on Wednesday warning the U S that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will effect in irreparable damage for them Iran battered by Israel s largest-ever assault on it that began on June has limited options for retaliation as key allies have mostly stayed out of the conflict It could attack U S forces stationed in the Middle East with the missiles and rockets that Israel hasn t destroyed It could attempt to close a key bottleneck for global oil supplies the Strait of Hormuz between it and the United Arab Emirates Or it could hurry to develop a nuclear weapon with what remains of its scheme The Atomic Ability Organization of Iran commented its undertaking will not be stopped New questions about Iran s nuclear stockpile Iran has long maintained that its nuclear operation was peaceful and U S intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb However Trump and Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could hurriedly assemble a nuclear weapon Israel has significantly degraded Iran s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities and damaged its nuclear enrichment facilities But only the U S military has the bunker-buster bombs that representatives believe offered the best chance of destroying sites deep underground A total of of the bombs were used on Natanz and Fordo according to the Pentagon Experts scrambled to answer the urgent question What has happened to Iran s stockpile of uranium and centrifuges Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC after the U S strikes analyzed by The Associated Press show damage to the facility They suggest Iran packed the entrance tunnels to Fordo with dirt and had trucks at the facility ahead of the strikes Several Iranian personnel including Atomic Resource Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi have claimed Iran removed nuclear material from targeted sites Before the Israeli military campaign began Iran noted it had declared a third unknown site as a new enrichment facility Questions remain as to where Iran may be storing its already enriched stocks as these will have almost certainly been moved to hardened and undisclosed locations out of the way of prospective Israeli or U S strikes declared Darya Dolzikova a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute focused on nonproliferation issues Global leaders responded with shock and calls for restraint Egypt warned of grave repercussions for the region Bahrain home to the U S Navy s Middle East-based Fifth Fleet called on Iran and the U S to promptly resume talks Trump s decision and the risks The decision to attack was a risky one for Trump who won the White House partly on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts But Trump also vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon He initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country s leaders to give up its nuclear operation For Netanyahu the strikes were the culmination of a decades-long campaign to get the U S to strike Israel s chief regional rival and its disputed nuclear scheme Netanyahu praised Trump saying his decision will change history Israel is widely assumed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons but the country has never acknowledged it Iran and Israel deal more attacks Israel s military chief Lt Gen Eyal Amir called the U S attack a key turning point but added We still have targets to strike and objectives to complete Iran s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard revealed it launched a barrage of missiles at Israel including its Khorramshahr- which can carry multiple warheads Israeli executives declared more than people suffered mostly minor injuries Late Sunday the Israeli military mentioned it again struck military infrastructure sites in Tehran and western Iran Earlier explosions boomed in Bushehr home to Iran s only nuclear power plant three semiofficial media outlets communicated Israel s military explained it struck missile launchers in Bushehr Isfahan and Ahvaz as well as a command center in the Yazd area where it noted Khorramshahr missiles were stored Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least people and wounded others according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists The group declared of those dead it identified civilians and precaution force personnel In Israel at least people have been killed and over wounded At Turkey s frontier with Iran one departing Iranian defended his country s nuclear project We were minding our own business Behnam Puran noted Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi Mehdi Fattahi and Amir Vahdat in Iran Aamer Madhani in Morristown New Jersey Julia Frankel in Jerusalem Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv Lolita Baldor in Narragansett Rhode Island Samy Magdy in Cairo Rusen Takva in Van Turkey Joah Boak in Washington Edith M Lederer at the United Nations and Suzan Fraser in Ankara Turkey contributed to this story Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your 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