Trump says he believed Iran would attack first, new strike on Iran leadership ‘substantial’
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The news: US President Donald Trump said that a fresh strike on Iran’s “new leadership” appeared “pretty substantial”, as he told reporters at the White House he believed Tehran was “going to attack first” and that he “might have forced Israel’s hand” in launching joint US-Israeli action.
“It was my opinion that they were going to attack first. I didn’t want that to happen,” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. His comments came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the US had decided to strike because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” and that if Washington did not “pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”
Trump said “the leader of the pack is gone”, referring to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by strikes on his compound in Tehran, and that “another hit today on the new leadership” looked significant.
He added the “worst case” would be that “somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person”, adding he would like to see “somebody who brings the government back to the people”. Referring to the initial strike, he said “49 people were taken out in the first hit”.
Trump also acknowledged higher energy costs, saying, “We have a little high oil prices for a little while — but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than ever before.”
The context: The comments came as Israel on Tuesday struck a building in the city of Qom that hosts the Assembly of Experts, the body of 88 Shia clerics responsible for selecting Iran’s supreme leader, the Wall Street Journal reported citing Iranian state broadcaster IRIB.
IRIB said the offices were evacuated before the strikes and that no casualties were reported.
The Israeli military also said it struck Iran’s presidential office and the Supreme National Security Council building.
Meanwhile, Iran — where the Red Cresecent Society said at least 787 people have been killed in US-Israeli strikes — stepped up attacks across the region. The US Embassy in Riyadh came under attack twice on Tuesday, causing part of the roof to collapse, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.
The State Department said in a cable viewed by the Journal that staff were sheltering in place with no injuries reported.
The sources: The Wall Street Journal , Bloomberg , The Associated Press
