Iran says the US attack on its nuclear sites expanded the range of legitimate targets for its armed forces and called US President Donald Trump a "gambler" for joining Israel's military campaign against the Islamic Republic.

Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters, said the US should expect heavy consequences for its actions.

"Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it," Zolfaqari said in English at the end of a recorded video statement.

Iran and Israel traded air and missile strikes as the world braced for Tehran's response to the US attack on its nuclear sites over the weekend, which Trump suggested could lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government.

The US launched 75 precision-guided munitions including bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles against three Iranian nuclear sites, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters.

Trump earlier called on Iran to forgo any retaliation and said the government "must now make peace" or future attacks would be "far greater and a lot easier", fuelling global concern about further escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

In a post to the Truth Social platform on Sunday,  Trump addressed the issue of regime change in Iran.

"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.

Trump's post came after officials in his administration, including US Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, stressed they were not working to overthrow Iran's government.

"This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon, calling the mission "a precision operation" targeting Iran's nuclear program.

Vance, in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press, said "our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change".

"We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it's already been built out. We want to end their nuclear program, and then we want to talk to the Iranians about a long-term settlement here," Vance said, adding the US "had no interest in boots on the ground".

Israel 'very close' to achieving goals in war with Iran, Netanyahu says. – AP

Commercial satellite imagery indicated the US attack on Saturday on Iran’s subterranean Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged or destroyed the deeply buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but the status of the site remained unconfirmed, experts said.

In his latest social media comments on the US strikes, Trump said "Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran."

"The biggest damage took place far below ground level. Bullseye!!!" he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump earlier called on Iran to forgo any retaliation and said the government "must now make peace" or "future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier."

The US launched 75 precision-guided munitions including bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles against three Iranian nuclear sites, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, told reporters.

Alarm grows after the US strikes on nuclear sites. – AP

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes. Rafael Grossi, the agency's director general, told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground.

A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim.

Tehran, which denies its nuclear programme is for anything other than peaceful purposes, sent a volley of missiles at Israel in the aftermath of the US attack, wounding scores of people and destroying buildings in Tel Aviv.

But it had not acted on its main threats of retaliation, to target US bases or choke off oil shipments that pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's parliament has approved a move to close the strait, which Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Iran's Press TV said any such move would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A protest in Tehran against the US attack on nuclear sites. – Reuters

Attempting to strangle Gulf oil supply by closing the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the US Navy's massive Fifth Fleet based in the Gulf.

Oil prices jumped on Monday to their highest since January. Brent crude futures LCOc1 rose $1.88 or 2.44 per cent at $78.89 a barrel as of 1122 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 advanced $1.87 or 2.53 per cent at $75.71.

Caine said the US military had increased protection of troops in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. The US State Department issued a security alert for all US citizens abroad, calling on them to "exercise increased caution".

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday called on China to encourage Iran to not shut down the strait, telling Fox News it would be a "terrible mistake".

"It's economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that, but other countries should be looking at that as well," he said. "It would hurt other countries' economies a lot worse than ours."

Security experts have long warned a weakened Iran could also find other unconventional ways to strike back, such as bombings or cyberattacks.

Rubio separately said that the US has "other targets we can hit, but we achieved our objective".

"There are no planned military operations right now against Iran," he later added. "Unless they mess around."

A giant billboard of Donald Trump in Tel Aviv, Israel. – Reuters

The Israeli military said on Monday 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.

A missile launched from Iran in the early hours of Monday was intercepted by Israeli defences, it said.

The Israeli military reported a missile launch from Iran in the early hours of Monday morning, saying it was intercepted by Israeli defences.

Air raid sirens blared in Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel. Iran has repeatedly targeted the Greater Tel Aviv – a metropolitan area of around 4 million people – the business and economic hub of Israel where there are also critical military assets.

Iranian news agencies reported air defences were activated in central Tehran districts to counter "enemy targets", and that Israeli air strikes hit Parchin, the location of a military complex southeast of the capital.

Israeli officials, who began the hostilities with a surprise attack on Iran on June 13, have increasingly spoken of their ambition to topple the hardline Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment.

Russia's foreign ministry condemned the US attacks which it said had undermined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and warned of the conflict spreading in the Middle East.

Donald Trump alongside Vice President JD Vance in the Situation Room at the White House. – Reuters

The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss the US strikes as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.

UNSecretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council the US bombings in Iran marked a perilous turn in the region and urged a return to negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme.

Commercial airlines were weighing how long to suspend Middle East flights after the US struck Iran. The Middle East route has become more important for flights between Europe and Asia but flight tracking website FlightRadar24 showed empty space on Sunday over Iran, Iraq, Syria and Israel.

"Operation Midnight Hammer" was known only to a small number of people in Washington and at the US military's headquarters for Middle East operations in Tampa, Florida.

The US State Department ordered employees' family members to leave Lebanon and advised citizens elsewhere in the region to keep a low profile or restrict travel.

The US Department of Homeland Security warned of a "heightened threat environment" in America, citing the possibility of cyber attacks or targeted violence. Law enforcement in major US cities stepped up patrols and deployed additional resources to religious, cultural and diplomatic sites.

Top US military officer describes how they struck Iranian nuclear sites. – AP

An organisation that monitors flight safety risks warned that the US strikes could lead to threats against American operators in the region and some flights were cancelled on Sunday and Monday.

Air France KLM said it has cancelled flights to and from Dubai and Riyadh on Sunday and Monday, in a sign of the broader effects of the attacks.

Tehran has so far not followed through on its threats of retaliation against the United States – either by targeting US bases or trying to choke off global oil supplies – but that may not hold.

As Tehran weighed its options, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday. The Kremlin has a strategic partnership with Iran, but also close links with Israel.

Speaking in Istanbul , Araghchi said his country would consider all possible responses and there would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated.

"The US showed they have no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force," he said.

Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said online that the initiative was "now with the side that plays smart, avoids blind strikes".

"Surprises will continue!"

A satellite view of the Isfahan nuclear site in Iran after US strikes. – Maxar Technologies/AP

Trump, in a televised address, called the strikes "a spectacular military success" and boasted that Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated".

But his own officials gave more nuanced assessments and – with the exception of satellite photographs appearing to show craters on the mountain above Iran's subterranean plant at Fordow – there has been no public accounting of the damage.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said no increases in off-site radiation levels had been reported after the US strikes.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that it was not yet possible to assess the damage done underground. A senior Iranian source said that most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow had been moved elsewhere before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim.

Trump immediately called on Iran to forgo any retaliation, saying the government "must now make peace".

"If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier," Trump said.

Vance said Washington was not at war with Iran but with its nuclear programme, adding this had been pushed back by a very long time due to the US intervention.

A chart showing the timeline of the US strikes. – US Department of Defense/AP

Diverging war aims

Israeli officials, who began the hostilities with a surprise attack on Iran on June 13, have increasingly spoken of their ambition to topple the hardline Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979.

US officials, many of whom witnessed Republican President George W Bush's popularity collapse following his disastrous intervention in Iraq in 2003, have stressed that they were not working to overthrow Iran's government.

"This mission was not and has not been about regime change," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon.

"The president authorised a precision operation to neutralise the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear programme."

Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told him his country would no longer endure being under missile attack.

"They're not going to live under threat from Iran anymore," Graham said. "Israel's made a decision. This regime is going to change in one of two ways: they're going to change their behaviour, which I doubt, the regime itself, or the people are going to replace the regime.”

B-2 bombers return to US base. – AP

Anti-war activists organised demonstrations on Sunday in New York, Washington and other US cities, with protesters carrying signs that read "hands off Iran".

Iranians described their fear at the prospect of an enlarged war involving the United States.

"Our future is dark. We have nowhere to go – it's like living in a horror movie," Bita, 36, a teacher from the central city of Kashan, said before the phone line was cut.

Much of Tehran, a capital city of 10 million people, has emptied out, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape Israeli bombardment.

Iranian authorities say more than 400 people have been killed since Israel's attacks began, mostly civilians. Israel's bombardment has scythed through much of Iran's military leadership with strikes targeted at bases and residential buildings where senior figures slept.

Iran has been launching missiles back at Israel, killing at least 24 people over the past nine days, the first time its projectiles have penetrated Israel's defences in large numbers. The elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 40 missiles at Israel in the latest volley.

Air raid sirens sounded across most of Israel on Sunday, sending millions of people to safe rooms.

Flags of US and Israel projected onto walls of Jerusalem's Old City. – AP

In Tel Aviv, Aviad Chernovsky, 40, emerged from a bomb shelter to find his house had been destroyed in a direct hit.

"It's not easy to live now in Israel, but we are very strong. We know that we will win,” he said.

Trump had veered between offering to end the war with diplomacy or to join it, at one point musing publicly about killing Iran's supreme leader. His decision ultimately to join the fight is the biggest foreign policy gamble of his career.

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