Image source, Anadolu via Getty Images

We'll shortly be pausing our live coverage, but before we do here's a recap of the day's main developments:

• US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth calls last weekend's US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites "historically successful", saying Tehran's nuclear programme is now severely damaged
• He again accuses some US media outlets of "irresponsible reporting", after a leaked intelligence report suggested the strikes' impact may have been limited
• US President Donald Trump later denies reports that Iran moved uranium before the strikes
• In a defiant TV address to the nation earlier in the day, Iran's supreme Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the US "failed to achieve anything significant" with its strikes
• He also claims victory over Israel - and says Iran delivered a "heavy slap" to the US by attacking a US base in Qatar
• In a separate development, Iran has approved a bill to end cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog - but the IAEA says it has not been informed of any change

Thanks for sticking with us. You can continue to read more about the this story in our main article.

We have more on the new reality in Iran in our in depth article by Kasra Naji from BBC Persian.

You can find more stories about Iran in our special index.

Image source, Maxar Technologies via Getty Images

The Pentagon briefing earlier was the most detailed assessment so far from the US government on the strikes.

Hegseth said Iran's nuclear capabilities had been "obliterated" and quoted a few different organisations to back this up - including the UN nuclear watchdog who said the strikes caused "enormous damage" to Iran's nuclear sites, and Iran's foreign minister saying they'd been "badly damaged".

Hegseth's "battle buddy", the head of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, then outlined how US forces carried out the mission.

Caine described in detail the strike on the Fordo nuclear site and the weapons used, as well as what it was like for the pilots who called it the "brightest explosion I've ever seen".

But no new evidence was given about exactly what was damaged in Iran's nuclear programme.

Earlier this week, a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment suggested core components of Iran's nuclear programme remained intact.

EU leaders have pledged to contribute "all diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions" surrounding Iran.

In a statement, the leaders say they will also aim to create a "lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear issue, which can only be achieved through negotiations".

It adds that they welcome the ceasefire, and encourage all parties to show restraint.

The EU remains clear that "Iran must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon", the statement adds.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad and Sarah Jalali
BBC Persian and BBC Monitoring

Image source, EPA

The most powerful person in Iran has reportedly left his usual residence in central Tehran and is now sheltering in a secure bunker from which he sends out video messages to state media, but this hasn't been confirmed by Iran yet.

While his location is unclear, the background of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s message today resembled that of his previous address with a flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and a photo of its founder, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Based on the observations by BBC Monitoring, Khamenei looked tired in the video message and spoke slowly, although one cannot make any assumptions on that, and the video had several cuts but the sound echo issue in his previous recorded message was fixed.

There is this speculation he may follow the example of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel, and deliver only pre-recorded messages going forward.

The previous time he appeared on state television was on 18 June also in pre-recorded message, in which he also dismissed US President Donald Trump's call for Tehran’s "unconditional surrender".

He has not been seen in public since Israel’s strike on Iran on 13 June, when another pre-recorded message was aired following the attack.

The most recent images showing him in a public setting date back to 11 June, during a meeting with members of the Iranian parliament.

Image source, Reuters

We've heard from both Iran and the US today, with updates mostly focusing on last weekend's US strikes:

US defends attack "success": At a news conference earlier, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hailed the US strikes on Iranian nuclear targets as a "historic success". As our correspondent points out, he was trying to push back against a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment that questioned the strikes' impact - and attacked the media for not backing Trump enough.

Iran says US gained nothing: In a televised speech earlier - the first time he'd been seen in more than a week - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US attacks "failed to achieve anything significant". He said the US strikes were never about nuclear issues, but they just want Iran to "surrender".

They can't both be right: As our security correspondent Frank Gardner writes, the two narratives from Khamenei and Hegseth are at odds with each other. Yes the US weapons hit their targets, but we simply don't know whether Iran's suspected nuclear has actually been destroyed, he writes.

Cut ties: Iran has officially passed a law ending cooperation with the global nuclear watchdog - although the International Atomic Energy Agency says Tehran is yet to notify it of any change.

Image source, US Department of Defense

The US released these annotated images earlier today, showing how its military carried out the attack on Iran's Fordo nuclear site.

It shows two ventilation shafts at the complex that were the target of the attack, and their development from 2008 to 2025, post-strike.

It also lays out a wider diagram of the site, and an internal look at the construction of the shafts. Six bombs were used on each of the two shafts.

• Read Frank Gardner's analysis of the US evidence here

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

In a post on his Truth Social platform, US President Donald Trump slams what he calls "fake news reporters" from CNN and the New York Times and says they should be fired "immediately".

Trump accuses them of being "BAD PEOPLE WITH EVIL INTENTIONS!!!".

Trump has repeatedly attacked CNN and the New York Times for its reporting of a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment that questioned the effectiveness of the US strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.

Since then the Trump administration has continued to push back against those reports, with the Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth today insisting the strikes were "historically successful" in his news conference, during which he cited different agencies on the damage caused by the US raids.

Khamenei's video address quells speculation about public absencepublished at 15:53 British Summer Time 26 June

15:53 BST 26 June

Soroush Negahdari
BBC Monitoring

Khamenei's address ended a week-long public silence that had sparked speculation about his health and authority, particularly following a two-day silence after the US-announced Iran-Israel ceasefire.

His absence and silence during other recent critical events – including US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and Iran's retaliatory strikes on the US base in Qatar – had raised questions over his role and control in national decision-making.

Reports suggested that security threats had led Khamenei to be "sheltering in a bunker", limiting his communications. Mehdi Fazaeli, a senior member of his office, acknowledged during a TV interview on Tuesday that Khamenei was in a safe place, though no further details were disclosed.

Until shortly before his televised address today, social media was abuzz with memes, conspiracy theories, and criticism, with some alleging a strategic silence to avoid endorsing controversial actions.

Despite his reappearance, his perceived weakened demeanour and the unusual format of recent addresses continue to fuel speculation.

During his press briefing earlier, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth backed up his update by listing assessments of the US attack on Iran.

These included from the Israeli Defence Forces and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He then used these to attack the press - watch some of it above.

Imogen James
Live reporter

After the reports that Iran has approved a bill suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global nuclear watchdog says it hasn't been informed of this by Iran.

"As of now, the IAEA has not received an official communication from Iran on this matter," it confirmed to the BBC.

A suspension of cooperation would mean IAEA inspectors would be banned from accessing Iranian nuclear sites until certain conditions are met.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Persian

Image source, Iran government

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has confirmed that senior military commander Saeed Izadi was killed in Israeli strikes, IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency reported.

Izadi was a senior commander of the IRGC's extraterritorial Quds Force and was responsible for coordination with Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

There is no mention in the IRGC's statement about when and where he was killed.

The IDF announced Izadi’s death on 21 June, and accused him of being an architect of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

The UK sanctioned Izadi back in 2023,, external in response to "unprecedented threats" from Tehran to "peace and security across the Middle East" and "plots to kill individuals on UK soil". He was also sanctioned by the US in 2019 for allegedly providing millions of dollars to Hamas.

Soroush Negahdari
BBC Monitoring

Iran's constitutional watchdog has officially approved a bill mandating the suspension of cooperation with the global nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The bill bars IAEA inspectors from accessing Iranian nuclear sites until specific conditions are met. These conditions include recognition of Iran's right to uranium enrichment under Article 4 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The bill has already been approved by Iran's parliament, and this approval from the Guardian Council - a body of clerics and jurists - means it is officially a law now.

Final authority, including how and when it will be implemented, lies with Iran's Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s supreme leader.

As we explained earlier, today's briefing by the US on their strikes on Iran was incredibly detailed.

For part of it, the press in the room were shown a video by Gen Dan Caine. The clip showed a test of one of the bombs used in the strikes.

The battle of the narrativespublished at 14:37 British Summer Time 26 June

14:37 BST 26 June

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

Image source, Reuters

No surprises there then: the Pentagon briefing we have just watched is directly at odds with the claims made by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier today.

The US, said Iran's leader, who has only just emerged from hiding, had "failed to achieve anything significant" in its attacks on Iran's key nuclear facilities. Yet those attacks, specifically the one on the most important site at Fordo, were "a historic success" according to the US Defence Secretary, destroying or "obliterating" Iran’s nuclear programme.

They can't both be right.

So let’s break this down. Did those 12 massive US bunker-busting bombs, the GBU-57s, all hit their targets in the mountain at Fordo? Yes.

Were they the culmination of years of painstaking study by the Pentagon on how best to attack Iran's deeply buried uranium enrichment programme? Yes. Did they choose the best line of attack - the ventilation shafts - then detonate at the right depth to achieve maximum effect? Yes.

But that's not the whole story.

We simply don't know, beyond conjecture, what state those centrifuges are in, down there in that subterranean hall, because neither US nor UN inspectors have been down there. Crucially, we don't know where the missing 408kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) has gone to.

And we don't know - because this was a Pentagon briefing, not an intelligence assessment - how much of a nuclear knowledge base Iran retains that could soon, potentially be applied to restarting its programme in secret.

So in short, from a purely tactical point of view, the B2 pilots who flew that extraordinary 37 hour mission to drop those 13-tonne bunker-busting bombs fulfilled their mission to the letter.

But when it comes to the question of whether Iran's suspected nuclear programme has actually been destroyed (as the US claims), or merely set back, the jury is still very much still out.

The US president has also just addressed rumours that some of Iran's highly enriched uranium was removed from the Fordo nuclear site before it was bombed by the US.

This was also denied by Hegseth during his press conference.

"Nothing was taken out of [the] facility," Trump writes on social media, adding it "would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!"

Instead, he suggests that "cars and small trucks at the site" belonged to "concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the [ventilation] shafts".

As we reported, Gen Caine, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the US targeted the nuclear site in Fordo by dropping bombs down its ventilation shafts.

We've just heard reaction from US President Donald Trump, who calls his defence secretary's press conference "one of the greatest, most professional… news conferences" he has ever seen.

In a social media post, he goes on to suggest that the "Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!"

This appears to be part of his continuing push back against a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment that questioned the effectiveness of the raids.

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Battle damage assessments take time – time to review intelligence reports from both surveillance and human sources, time to gather information and time to reach conclusions with some level of confidence.

The pace of American politics moves much more quickly.

Trump administration officials are pushing back hard against the leaked preliminary report suggesting a less than optimal result from Saturday night’s airstrikes because they know it doesn’t take long for the public opinion in a major event like this to harden.

If American voters conclude now that the US attacks weren’t effective, it will be hard for the White House to change their minds weeks or months later.

Polls indicate that Donald Trump’s popularity has sagged recently and that Americans were sceptical about American military involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict going into Saturday night.

A successful military operation has the potential to give this president a boost if the White House can convince the public that Trump took decisive action, that produced a positive result. But the window on such opportunities closes fast.

Chris Partridge
BBC News weapons analyst

Image source, US Department of Defence

The Pentagon gave an unusually detailed description of the B-2 attacks on Fordo with the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), and showed various pictures of the strike scene.

They targeted two air ventilation shafts.

For each shaft, General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described how one MOP blew off a concrete cap covering the shaft, before five more MOPs - travelling at more than 1,000 feet per second – went down the same shaft, causing extensive blast and pressure damage.

He added: “Weapons all guided to intended targets and aim points and functioned as designed (ie exploded). Tailing jets said it was the brightest explosion they had ever seen. Male and female aviators were on this mission.”

We know that six B-2 bombers were involved at Fordo – each dropping two GBU-57s. The strike package was supported by F-22 and F-35 5th generation stealth jets – plus other 4th generation fighter aircraft.

On battle damage assessment, Gen Caine said the USAF was not involved, as that was for the intelligence teams. "We don't mark our own homework."

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth took the lectern at the Pentagon briefing room with two goals.

He wanted to present evidence of the success of the American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities and push back against a preliminary defence intelligence assessment that suggested the strikes were less effective.

And he wanted to berate the American media and paint their coverage of that report as unpatriotic and disrespectful to the “brave men and women” in the US military.

Hegseth ticked through a variety of other intelligence information – from US sources as well as the Israelis - that he said concluded that the Iranian nuclear programme was set back years from the attacks.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated, choose your words,” he said.

The American media weren’t reporting this sufficiently, he said, because they were cheering against the president and hoping that he failed.

“It’s in your DNA.”

The morning’s briefing was the Trump administration’s attempt to wrest back the narrative around Saturday night’s attacks – and take a few mores swipes at journalists in the process.

There's a question now on whether highly enriched uranium had been moved out of the Fordo nuclear sites before the American missiles struck the Iranian base.

This is followed up by another asking whether Caine has been pressured politically to give a better assessment of what happened.

"No, I have not," Caine replies, adding that his job is to offer a range of options to the president and then follow the orders given.

"I've never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking," he says.

Hegseth then steps in and responds to the question of whether uranium had been moved, saying: "There is nothing to suggest that we didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit".

Pressed further on this, the defence secretary says the US is "watching every single aspect", but refuses to offer more detail.