Ayatollah Ali Khamenei taunted Donald Trump over a leaked intelligence report that said the U.S. attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities weren’t as devastating as the president had claimed.
CNN reported on Tuesday that a top-secret Defense Intelligence Agency assessment believed the U.S.’s June 22 bunker-buster barrage “did not destroy” Iran’s core nuclear infrastructure and likely set the program back by only “a few months.”
In a televised address Thursday, the supreme leader crowed from his bunker that America “didn’t achieve much,” despite Trump’s “showmanship.”
Khamenei boasted that Iran had “delivered a hand slap to America’s face” with its retaliatory missile strike on a U.S. base in Qatar and said the country would “never surrender.”
“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” he said, referring to Iran’s missile attack on Monday on an American base in Qatar in which no one was killed.
Then Khamenei doubled down on X, warning: “The fact that the Islamic Republic has access to key US centers in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary is a significant matter.
“Such an action can be repeated in the future too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
