Iran weighs payback for US air offensive

Trump floats Tehran regime change idea

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Iran and Israel traded air and missile strikes as the world braced yesterday for Tehran's response to the US attack on its nuclear sites and US President Donald Trump raised the idea of regime change in the Islamic republic.

Iran vowed to defend itself on Sunday, a day after the US joined Israel in the biggest Western military action against the country since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, despite calls for restraint and a return to diplomacy from around the world.

Commercial satellite imagery indicated the US attack on Saturday on Iran's subterranean Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged or destroyed the deeply buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but the status of the site remained unconfirmed, experts said.

In his latest social media comments on the US strikes, Mr Trump said "Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran".

"The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!" he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Mr Trump earlier called on Iran to forgo any retaliation and said the government "must now make peace" or "future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier".