President Trump's Tuesday demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender" fell on defiant ears. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday made what the Guardian reports were his first public comments since Friday. In a speech read on state TV, he had this to say, per the Guardian and ABC News:
- "The president of America in an unacceptable statement explicitly urged Iranians to surrender, but we tell him: first threaten those who are afraid of being threatened. Threats will not affect the thinking and behavior of the Iranian nation."
- "Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender."
- "The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage."
- "War will be met with war, bombing with bombing, and strike with strike. Iran will not submit to any demands or dictates."
In other developments, Iran's atomic energy organization head on Wednesday maintained that the country's nuclear facilities are "doing fine." NBC News reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency says things aren't so unscathed. It said "a building with advanced centrifuge rotors was damaged" in Tehran, and "two buildings with centrifuge components were destroyed" to the north of the capital. Centrifuges are needed to enrich uranium, a key component in nuclear weapons.
NBC News also flags comments made Tuesday by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in support of Israel's bombing campaign. "This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us. We are also affected by this regime," which has brought "death and destruction to the world. I have the greatest respect for the fact that the Israeli army and the Israeli government had the courage to do this." (More Iran stories.)
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