‘We will end this war’: Iran issues stern warning to ‘gambler' Trump a day after US attacks nuclear sites

Calling US President Donald Trump a “gambler” for joining Israel's military campaign against Iran, Tehran on Monday said that the American strikes on its nuclear sites has now expanded the range of legitimate target for its armed forces.

Since Trump dropped massive bunker-buster bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday morning, Iran has been threatening to retaliate. While it has continued to fire missiles at Israel, Iran is yet to take any action against the US itself.

A Reuters report quoted Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, as saying, “Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it.”

Iran and Israel traded another wave of air and missile strikes on Monday as the world braced for Tehran's response.

Trump's call for ‘Make Iran Great Again’

Even as the Donald Trump administration has repeatedly said that its aim is solely to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, and not to pursue a war with Iran, the president in a social media post on Sunday openly spoke of toppling the regime. The hardline clerical rulers have been Washington's principal foes in the Middle East since Iran's 1979 revolution.

"It’s not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" he wrote.

A Reuters report said that commercial satellite imagery revealed that the US attack may had severely damaged the Fordow nuclear plant site, built inside a mountain, and possibly destroyed it and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, although there was no independent confirmation.

Trump called the strike a "Bullseye!!!".

"Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran," he wrote. "The biggest damage took place far below ground level."

Israel attacks Iran airfields

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) on Monday claimed that it had struck six Iranian military airports, and destroyed 15 fighter jets and helicopters, multiple reports said.

The IDF claimed that jets that were destroyed by their military were intended for use against their aircraft and to thwart Israel's attacks on Iranian territory.

The IDF said that F-14, F-5, and AH-1 aircraft belonging to the Iranian military were among the jets destroyed, while also claiming that their strikes damaged runways on these military airports and underground apartments, the reports added.

According to a Reuters report, the Israeli military said on Monday that about 20 jets had conducted a wave of strikes against military targets in western Iran and Tehran overnight. ⁠In Kermanshah, in western Iran, missile and radar infrastructure was targeted, and in Tehran a surface-to-air missile launcher was struck, it said.