President Trump confirmed the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the American-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, calling it “justice.”
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“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead. This is not only Justice for the people of Iran, but for all Great Americans, and those people from many Countries throughout the World, that have been killed or mutilated by Khamenei and his gang of bloodthirsty THUGS,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump went on to say Khamenei, who ruled Iran for over 36 years, couldn’t avoid American missiles.
“There was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do,” he wrote, adding: “This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”
He urged the country’s military and secret police to work with the “patriots” to bring Iran together. And he warned the bombing will continue.
“The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!”
Khamenei’s heavily fortified compound was destroyed in the bombing campaign. Several top Iranian defense officials were also killed.
Trump suggested the ayatollah’s supporters would get immunity if they stopped fighting.
“We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us. As I said last night, ‘Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!,’” he noted.
Senior administration officials said Iran posed an “intolerable risk” to the US with its missile threat and, during negotiations, wouldn’t accept “free nuclear fuel forever” –- all of which led up to Saturday’s attack on Tehran.
One official described Iran’s missile inventory and said it posed “an intolerable risk to the United States.”
The US had “indicators” that Tehran was going to launch a preemptive strike against American assets in the region. The official pointed to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in the region, including ones in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as evidence of the risk.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles. We had analysis that basically told us, if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,” the official said.
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Another senior administration official described the final talks with Iranian officials and revealed the astonishing offer the Americans made.
“One of the things we offered – we said, we will give you free nuclear fuel forever,” the official said. “And they basically said that didn’t work for them. They needed to enrich uranium.”
The Trump administration said Iran’s nuclear capabilities were destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer, but were concerned that Tehran was preparing to ramp them up again.
That fear is one of the reasons the bombing will continue throughout the week.
Trump told Axios that he has options: “I can go long and take over the whole thing, or end it in two or three days.”
The president’s MAGA base will likely not tolerate a drawn conflict. European leaders also have expressed their concern about the stability of the Middle East.
Trump, however, sounded confident that no matter how long the bombing continued, Iran was being neutralized as a threat.
“In any case, it will take them several years to recover from this attack,” he said.