Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike on Saturday, the official Iranian news agency mizan was quoted as saying in media reports, as the war in West Asia entered its fourth week.
There was no radiation leakage, Mirzan said.
Amid escalating regional strikes, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility has sustained damage. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said its assessment is based on analysis of recent satellite imagery, which indicates that buildings within the underground complex were affected, the media reported.
It was unclear, however, whether the IAEA was citing the June 2025 Israeli strike during the 12-day war against Iran, or fresh airstrikes by the US-Israeli duo in the ongoing conflict—that may have raised the issue of leakage of nuclear radiation.
Natanz, Iran’s main enrichment site, was initially hit in the first week of the ongoing war which started on February 28, and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images. The IAEA said that “no radiological consequence” was expected from that earlier strike.
The nuclear facility, located nearly 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, had also been targeted by Israeli airstrikes in the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June 2025, and by the United States now.
The Saturday strike comes a day after President Donald Trump said he was considering “winding down” military operations in West Asia even as the US is sending three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the region.
Trump’s Friday post on social media followed an Iranian threat to attack recreational and tourist sites worldwide and another day of the airstrikes and drone and missile attacks that have engulfed the region.
The mixed messages from the US came after another climb in oil prices plunged the country’s stock market, and was followed by a Trump administration announcement it was lifting sanctions on Iranian oil already loaded on ships, a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices. However, Tehran said it has no floating crude oil on the sea.
The three-week-old war has shown no signs of abating, with Israel saying Iran continued to fire missiles at it early Saturday, while Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours in the country’s eastern region, which is home to major oil installations.
The attacks came a day after Israeli airstrikes hit Tehran as Iranians observed the Persian New Year, Nauroza normally festive holiday that has been muted by the war.
Trump on “goals”
The US and Israel have offered shifting ‘rationales’ for the war, from hoping to foment an internal uprising that would potentially topple Iran’s leadership, to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising and no end to the ongoing war in sight either.
On social media, Trump said, “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great military efforts in the Middle East.”
That seemed at odds with his administration’s move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another USD 200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
The US is also deploying three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Middle East. Days earlier, the US redirected another group of amphibious assault ships carrying another 2,500 Marines from the Pacific to the Middle East. The Marines will join more than 50,000 US troops already in the region.
Trump said he has no plans to send ground forces into Iran but has also asserted that he retains all options.
Iran threatens others
Meanwhile, Iran’s top military spokesperson, General Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned on Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide will not be safe for the country’s enemies. The threat renewed concerns that Tehran may revert to using militant attacks beyond the Middle East as a pressure tactic.
In a statement read on Iranian television to mark Nauroz. Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians’ steadfastness in the face of war. He has not been seen in public since he became the Supreme Leader following Israeli strikes that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained in the punishing US and Israeli strikes, which began February 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country. But Iran’s attacks are still choking off oil supplies and raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
Israel-Hezbollah
The Israeli military said early Saturday that it began a wave of strikes targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Beirut’s southern suburbs in Lebanon.
Smoke was seen rising, fires broke out and loud explosions were heard across parts of central Beirut, hours after the Israeli army renewed evacuation warnings for seven neighbourhoods.
Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced over 1 million, according to the Lebanese government.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the ongoing war. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 US military members have also been killed.
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