Khamenei warns against further American attacks

Dubai: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday his country had delivered a “slap to America’s face” with its strike on an American base in Qatar, and warned against any further US attacks in his first public comments since a ceasefire was declared with Israel after 12 days of war.

Khamenei spoke in a recorded video broadcast on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19. The 86-year-old looked

and sounded more tired than he did only a week ago, speaking in a hoarse voice and occasionally stumbling over his words.

The more-than 10 minute speech by the supreme leader was filled with warnings and threats directed toward the United States and Israel.

He downplayed Sunday’s US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites using bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles, saying that US President Donald Trump — who said the attack “completely and fully obliterated Iran’s nuclear program — had “exaggerated” its impact.

“They could not achieve anything significant,” he said.

However, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency Director

Rafael Grossi, reiterated on Thursday that the damage done by Israeli and US strikes at Iranian nuclear facilities “is very, very, very considerable.”

“I think annihilated is too much but it suffered enormous damage,” Grossi told French broadcaster RFI.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, on Wednesday also conceded that “our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure.”

Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists.

Following Sunday’s US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump was able to help negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday.

Khamenei claimed the US had only intervened in the war because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.”

“It entered the war to save them, yet it gained nothing,” he said.

He said his country’s attack on the US base in Qatar on Monday was significant, since it shows Iran “has access to important US centres in the region and can act against them whenever it deems necessary.”