Iran’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the country’s nuclear sites suffered significant damage following U.S. airstrikes over the weekend, though confusion remains over the true extent of the destruction.
Speaking in an interview with Al Jazeera, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei acknowledged for the first time that several nuclear sites were “badly damaged” by American B-2 bomber strikes carried out on Sunday.
Baghaei declined to elaborate on specific sites or the full scale of the impact but admitted the attacks were substantial. “Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,” he said.
His remarks came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that Iran’s nuclear programme had been severely crippled by the strikes, even as conflicting intelligence assessments painted a murkier picture.
Destroyed Or Delayed?
According to a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment, leaked to Reuters and other media outlets, the strikes likely set back Iran’s nuclear progress by only a few months, rather than causing long-term damage.
Citing sources familiar with the assessment, reports suggested Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts may resume sooner than Washington hoped.
However, President Trump dismissed these findings, calling the intelligence “very inconclusive.”
Speaking to reporters before departing for a NATO summit in The Hague, Trump argued the damage might be far greater than initially believed. “The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests,” he claimed.
Despite those cautious remarks, Trump later took to his Truth Social platform, insisting Iran’s nuclear ambitions had been set back “by decades” and declaring the nuclear sites “completely destroyed.”
The White House echoed this position, with spokesperson Karoline Leavitt labelling the leaked intelligence report as “flat-out wrong” in comments to CNN.
The debate over the true scale of the damage reflects broader uncertainty over whether the strikes achieved their strategic aim — halting Iran’s nuclear programme — or simply delayed its progress temporarily.
(With inputs from IBNS)
