World awaits Iran's response after Trump says US 'obliterates' nuclear sites

ISTANBUL/WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM - The world awaited Iran's response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had "obliterated" Tehran's most sensitive nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.

With the damage visible from space after 30,000-pound US bunker-buster bombs crashed into the mountain above Iran's Fordow nuclear site, Tehran vowed to defend itself at all costs. It fired another volley of missiles at Israel that wounded scores of people and flattened buildings in Tel Aviv.

But perhaps in an effort to avert all-out war with the US superpower, it had yet to follow through on its main threats of retaliation against the United States itself - either by targeting US bases or trying to choke off global oil supplies.

Speaking in Istanbul, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Tehran would consider all possible responses. There would be no return to diplomacy until it had retaliated, he said.

Trump, announcing the strikes in a televised address, called them "a spectacular military success".

In a step towards what is widely seen as Iran's most effective threat to hurt the West, its parliament approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz, the entrance to the Gulf where nearly a quarter of the oil shipped around the world passes through narrow waters that Iran controls.

Iran's Press TV said closing the strait would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Attempting to choke off Gulf oil by closing the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite almost certain conflict with the US Navy's massive Fifth Fleet, based in the Gulf and tasked with keeping it open.

Reuters