Trump: US Has No Immediate Plan to Kill Iranian Leader, Ali Khamenei
•UN watchdog says Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility destroyed
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
President Donald Trump said yesterday that US patience was wearing thin but it had no immediate intention to “take out” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while indicating he could dispatch diplomatic envoys as the Israel-Iran air war raged for a fifth day.
He also said his early departure from the Group of Seven nations summit in Canada had “nothing to do with” working on a deal between Israel and Iran, and that something “much bigger” than that was expected. He further called for “unconditional surrender”.
Trump’s comments, delivered via social media, suggested a more aggressive stance toward Iran as he weighs whether to deepen US involvement, a Reuters report said.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now…Our patience is wearing thin,” he said. Three minutes later, he posted, “Unconditional surrender!” in all capital letters.
Trump’s sometimes contradictory and cryptic messaging about the conflict between close US ally Israel and longtime foe Iran has deepened the uncertainty surrounding the crisis. His public comments have ranged from military threats to diplomatic overtures, not uncommon for a president known for an often erratic approach to both domestic and foreign policy.
Trump had predicted earlier on Monday that Israel would not be easing its attacks on Iran. But he also said he might send US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet Iranian officials.
But Vance said the decision on whether to take further action to end Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, which Western powers suspect is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb, “ultimately belongs to the president”.
Trump was meeting with his National Security Council on Monday afternoon to discuss the conflict, a White House official said.
Khamenei’s main military and security advisers have recently been killed by Israeli strikes, leaving major holes in his inner circle and raising the risk of strategic errors, according to five people familiar with his decision-making process.
The Israeli military said Iran’s military leadership was “on the run” and that it had killed Iran’s wartime chief of staff, Ali Shadmani, overnight, four days after he replaced another top commander killed in the strikes.
With Iranian leaders suffering their most dangerous security breach since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the country’s cyber security command banned officials from using communications devices and mobile phones, Fars news agency reported, quoted by Reuters.
Ever since the Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and triggered the Gaza war, Khamenei’s regional influence has been weakening as Israel has pounded Iran’s proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. And Iran’s close ally, Syria’s autocratic president Bashar al-Assad, has been ousted.
Israel launched its air war, its largest ever on Iran, on Friday after saying it had concluded the Islamic Republic was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and has pointed to its right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including enrichment, as a party to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Meanwhile, new satellite images suggest Israeli strikes damaged underground uranium-enrichment facilities at Iran’s primary nuclear-fuel production site, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The agency identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls at Natanz. The agency has yet to detect damage at Iran’s other underground enrichment site in Fordow, according to the statement.
The IAEA wrote Tuesday on X that it “has identified additional elements that indicate direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls.” It’s the first independent confirmation of Israeli claims that it took out the site, which it targeted in the opening hours of the conflict, now in its fifth day.
The Natanz facility, which had some 15,000 centrifuges separating uranium isotopes before Israel started its strikes on Iran, is built underground and is protected by a steel and concrete shell.
The Vienna-based agency had previously suggested Natanz’s vast enrichment halls remained intact, even as damages to surface structures at the base were clearly visible to satellites. If the reassessment is accurate and Iran’s highest-capacity enrichment site has been taken out, it would be another major blow to the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Along with destroying Iran’s only uranium-conversion facility in Isfahan, breaching Natanz’s fortification counts as a major accomplishment for Israel, which seeks to roll back the Islamic Republic’s ability to produce nuclear fuel.
