Iran's supreme leader has insisted the US "gained no achievements" from strikes on its nuclear facilities, in his first public address since a ceasefire with Israel was agreed on Tuesday.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes did not "accomplish anything significant" to disrupt Iran's nuclear programme, and described the retaliation against an American air base in Qatar as dealing a "heavy blow".
It came as Washington doubled down on its assessment that the strikes had severely undermined Iran's nuclear ambitions.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said intelligence gathered by the US and Israel indicated the operation "significantly damaged the nuclear programme, setting it back by years".
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Previously, US President Donald Trump said the strikes against three key nuclear sites inside Iran "totally obliterated" them, and has responded furiously to reports citing unnamed American officials suggesting the damage may have been less extensive than anticipated.
Speaking alongside senior general Dan Caine at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday morning, Hegseth said the mission was a "historic success" that had "rendered [Iranian] enrichment facilities inoperable".
During an at times combative exchange with reporters, Hegseth also said the US was "not aware of any intelligence" which indicated the enriched uranium had moved out of Fordo - the deeply buried facility which the US targeted with powerful so-called bunker buster bombs - prior to the strikes.
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