Amid threats to supreme leader, Teheran replies by launching hypersonic missiles on Israel

Having called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, US President Donald Trump said that he was still weighing his options on US military intervention in the escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran, saying he had been presented with all the options but no decision had been taken as yet.

“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on June 18.

Trump, calling for Teheran’s compliance on a nuclear deal, issued a warning on June 17 to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the Truth Social platform. “We know exactly where the supreme leader is hiding,” Trump wrote. “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … (But our) patience is wearing thin.”

Three minutes later, he posted, “Unconditional surrender!”

His threat was almost immediately rejected by Iran, which replied with salvos of supersonic missile and two-stage Sejjil missile attacks against Israeli military targets.

In a televised message on June 18, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said the United States must bear in mind that any military engagement against Iran will undoubtedly inflict “irreparable consequences” on them.

Khamenei said Iran would not accept an “imposed war”, adding that Iran’s surrender was impossible.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he is “profoundly alarmed” by developments in the unfolding conflict between Israel and Iran and called for “immediate de-escalation leading to a ceasefire”.

In a statement read by his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric on June 18, Guterres urged restraint and diplomacy as he warned against any “additional military interventions”.

Early June 18 saw an answer in English from Khamenei on X: “We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.” In central Teheran, protesters gathered to denounce Trump’s recent comments on their leader.

Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters that he saw the US as “complicit in what Israel is doing” and Iran will respond firmly to the US if it becomes directly involved in Israel’s military campaign.

Despite concerns of the international atomic energy community over nuclear safety, Israel’s military said on June 18 that “more than 50 fighter jets” struck an Iranian centrifuge production facility and multiple weapons manufacturing sites, and it now “has control of Iranian airspace” and intends to escalate the campaign in the coming days.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed earlier that Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites have set Teheran’s nuclear program back a “very, very long time”.

On June 18, Iran’s Air Defense Force said it had shot down 28 hostile aircraft during the past 24 hours, including an advanced Hermes drone over the central province of Isfahan, home to some of the country’s nuclear facilities.

For the first time in days, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said on June 17 that an Israeli strike directly hit the underground enrichment halls at the Natanz facility, revising an earlier assessment wherein it said it believed the halls had only been hit indirectly.

The IAEA also said two centrifuge production facilities in Iran — a workshop in Karaj and the Tehran Nuclear Research Center — were also hit in Israeli attacks.

Celebrating on social media that “A tornado sweeps through Tehran”, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, vowed to take out all nuclear sites in Iran, especially the facilities at Fordow, which are built deep into a mountainside and reportedly not easy for Israel to attack.

In comments to the German media at the G7 summit in Canada, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said it was “dirty work Israel is doing for all of us” by carrying out strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, Deutsche Welle reported on June 17.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified to Congress in March that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, and that Iran’s supreme leader had not reauthorized the dormant program, the Associated Press reported.

However, during an overnight flight back to Washington from the G7 summit, Trump dismissed the testimony by the chief of spy agencies. “I don’t care what she said,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One.

In retaliation, Iran told Israeli residents of Tel Aviv and Haifa to prepare for attacks, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claiming its hypersonic Fattah-1 missiles were “repeatedly shaking the shelters” in Tel Aviv.

Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can maneuver mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept. The Wall Street Journal reported on June 18, citing an unnamed US official, that Israel was running low on defensive “Arrow” missile interceptors.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief from 1997-2009, said on X that Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and Trump’s threat of “total surrender” were “a clear act of national humiliation”.

The assault on Iran “is a sure way to destroy” the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, he warned, adding that it “sends a clear message to many countries that their ultimate security is to develop nuclear weapons”.

Sarah Leah Whitson, a US-based lawyer, warned that assassinating Iran’s supreme leader could be a violation of international law and “continued belligerence and hostile rhetoric” by Trump is “only throwing fuel on the fire”.

As the US is deploying more fighter jets to the Middle East, Trump and his team were considering a few options, including joining Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, three US officials told Reuters.

A YouGov poll showed most US citizens believe that the US military should not get involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, with some 60 percent opposing the move and only 16 percent supporting it.

Despite international alarm, neither side was backing off from the long-range blitz that began on June 13 with Israel’s unprecedented attacks against Iranian nuclear and military facilities.

Due to the deadly strikes, China and the governments of several other nations began evacuating their citizens from both countries.

Agencies contributed to this story.

Contact the writer at cuihaipei@chinadaily.com.cn