Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

A little earlier, the chairman showed a video that appears to show the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) destroying the entrances to the Fordo site - but again nothing definitive so far that the sites have been destroyed to the point where Iran can’t revive its nuclear programme.

When asked by reporters if he’d use the word obliterated - the general wouldn’t confirm.

Hegseth answers, angrily rebuking the press, and saying “[anyone] with eyes and a brain can recognise” the destruction.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

What is somewhat odd is that Hegseth is playing down intelligence (albeit preliminary) from his own department and preferring to cite everyone else.

That even includes the UN - “no friend of the US or Israel” - he said. He highlights assessments by Israel and the IAEA.

But the defence secretary is doing the job he was hired to do - cheer the military and Trump whilst attacking the press.

In contrast, General Dan Caine from the Joint Chiefs of Staff has sidestepped Hegseth’s angry politics, focusing on the logistics and giving us a vivid picture of what the military achieved.

He says the oldest soldier on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where Iran retaliated with strikes, was 28 years old and the youngest was 21.

Caine says all US weapons that hit the Fordo nuclear site reached their target and exploded.

Pilots in the jets trailing behind described it as "the brightest explosion I've ever seen, it literally looked like daylight".

Caine praises the bomber crews involved and says when they landed home they were greeted by "incredible cheers" from their families. "Tears were flowing."

And he finishes by saying he "could not be more proud". US forces remain on a "high state of readiness in the region" and he warns American adversaries that teams are continuing to study targets.

Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent

Unsurprisingly Pete Hegseth has given a robust, somewhat angry, and emotional defence of President Trump and the US’s mission in Iran.

He has lashed out at the media for challenging the narrative and accuses them of "searching for scandals and missing moments".

He says he’s fighting for the dignity of great American patriots, implying not going with the administration’s narrative is somehow a betrayal.

He also accuses reporters of “fawning” over the leaked preliminary intelligence briefing which he said was a “low confidence” report.

His performance is not that different to his previous role as a weekend Fox News host where he did a lot of fawning over President Trump, which is why his critics say he got the defence job in the first place.

“Badly damaged”, “severely damaged” “set back years”, “effectively destroyed” - Pete Hegseth quoted many organisations including the UN (often dismissed by the Trump administration), as examples of why he says the nuclear sites have been destroyed.

But it feels like the goal posts keep changing. Originally we were told it was "obliterated".

What Hegseth hasn’t said so far: are the sites destroyed to a point where Iran can’t revive its nuclear programme?

Operation Midnight Hammer was the "culmination" of 15 years of work, Caine continues.

He says the weapons used in the strikes were "designed, planned and delivered" to achieve success in attacking the Fordo nuclear site.

They struck two ventilation shafts at the site, he explains, which the Iranians had tried to cover with concrete to prevent an attack, Caine adds.

On both of the shafts targeted, the concrete caps were destroyed by an initial strike, he adds, allowing five more bombs to penetrate each one and move down into the main complex and "explode in the mission space".

Caine then shows a video of one of the weapons in action.

Gen Caine now turns his attention to the Iranian nuclear sites attacked by the US.

He says America first received intelligence on a project deep in the Iranian mountains a long time ago - in a reference to the Fordo facility.

He says an officer from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency had been studying Fordo for 15 years.

The general says a "bunker-buster" bomb was later developed with the aim to carry out the strike which eventually took place on 22 June.

• For context: The Fordo site is built deep within northern Iran’s rugged, remote mountains some 60 miles (96km) south of the capital Tehran

More from Caine, who says Iran's attack on the US air base in Qatar started at 07:30 local time.

Caine says he believes Al Udeid Air Base's air defence was the largest patriot engagement in America's military history.

He acknowledges that Qatar also helped the US defend its base, adding that the air defenders had seconds to decide what to do.

Championing US and Qatari soldiers involved, Caine says they demonstrated the combat capability of the army and air defences.

Image source, US Department of Defense

Gen Dan Caine, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is describing Iran's attack on the US airbase in Qatar.

"On Monday morning, the US began to receive warnings that Iran intended to attack US bases in region," he says.

On the orders of the president, he says they assumed a "minimum force posture" at the base - with "most folks" moved off the base except for a few soldiers.

Caine says there were 44 soldiers left "responsible for defending the entire base".

The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain, the youngest was a 21-year-old private who had been in the military for less than two years, he says.

Hegseth then proceeds to quote different agencies on the damage caused by the US strikes.

He says Israel's atomic agency said the US attack "rendered [Iranian] enrichment facilities inoperable".

Hegseth quotes the head of the UN nuclear watchdog as saying that "enormous damage" was caused to Iran's nuclear programme. And he adds that the CIA considers that Iran's nuclear programme "has been severely damaged".

Hegseth ends by accusing the media of spinning information about the strikes to make them appear unsuccessful.

"It's irresponsible," he says, as he praises those involved in the "complex" mission. "How about we celebrate that?" he poses. "This was an historically successful attack and we should celebrate it as Americans."

• UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday that there was a chance Tehran had moved much of its highly enriched uranium elsewhere as it came under attack

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says Washington "destroyed" Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Quoting a leaked intelligence report, Hegseth says it was a "preliminary" assessment and news outlets had an "agenda" to make the strikes appear less successful.

Hegseth decries the "fawning" coverage of the preliminary report, suggesting there were gaps in it and that it hadn't been coordinated with the wider intelligence community.

For context: An early Pentagon intelligence assessment of the US attack said its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities did not destroy the country's nuclear programme and probably only set it back by months. Read more here

Hegseth continues to tell the news conference about the Nato commitment to spend 5% on defence and national security.

He says this "seemed impossible" five years ago "but here we are", he says, because of Trump's leadership.

He moves on to the US strikes in Iran, which he says were "highly successful".

Hegseth says Trump directed "the most complex and secretive military operation in history" and it was a "resounding success".

Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, is speaking now.

He first references the Nato summit in the Netherlands, which he has just returned from.

What President Trump achieved "was game-changing and historic," he says, after Nato's 32 members committed to spending 5% of their GDP on defence spending by 2035.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen Dan Caine are now on stage to deliver their remarks.

Stick with us as we bring you the top lines from the briefing.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is about to give an update from the Pentagon on the impact of US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at the weekend.

He'll be speaking alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen Dan Caine.

Earlier, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social to say it would be a "major" update.

You can watch the briefing too by pressing Watch Live at the top of this page.

Frank Gardner
Security correspondent

There are several elements to a potential nuclear weapons programme, and it’s highly unlikely that the US, or even Israel, knows the answers to the status of all of them inside Iran right now.

First off, there is the highly enriched uranium (HEU). The UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is concerned about the whereabouts of 408kg (900lb) of this HEU, which is close to weapons grade, ie a substantial component for up to nine nuclear bombs, should Iran decide to build them.

It is unlikely that material was destroyed in the air strikes, and more likely that Iran has spirited it away to a secret destination underground somewhere else.

Then there are the centrifuges. When used in a “cascade”, these spin at high speed to enrich the uranium. A key question is whether the centrifuges in the subterranean hall deep inside the mountain at Fordo are still intact, destroyed, or damaged by the massive explosions above them.

Unless the US has secret intelligence, either through human informants or signals intercepted, it’s unlikely that either the Pentagon or the IAEA could know what state these centrifuges are in.

Twelve days of Israeli air strikes have killed some of Iran's top nuclear scientists as well as military commanders. But it is almost impossible that they would have eliminated decades of Iranian nuclear research, stored in hard drives, vaults, and in the brains of scientists.

Finally, there is the political decision to which the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has the final say in deciding what's next with its nuclear programme.

Will he return to talks, submit to US and Israel demands to give up enrichment on its territory, or will he permanently cease all co-operation, raising suspicions that he could be racing to rebuild its suspect nuclear programme?

Image source, Reuters

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, delivered his first video message since US strikes on his country and Iran's ceasefire with Israel.

News of the address started to trickle in through social media and Iranian state media, before his message in full was broadcast around 14:05 local time (11:35 BST).

• In a speech broadcast by state TV Khamenei says "nothing significant" occurred to the nuclear sites struck by the US earlier this week, a remark that directly opposes US President Donald Trump's assertion that Iran's nuclear programme had been "obliterated"
• The Iranian leader says his country demonstrated their unity, sending a message that "our people are one voice"
• Khamenei says Trump called on his country to "surrender" but his comments were "too big for the mouth" of the US president
• "For a great country and nation like Iran, the very mention of surrender is an insult," he adds
• The Iranian leader also threatened to carry out more strikes on US bases in the region, adding: "If an attack occurs, the cost to the enemy and the aggressor will certainly be high"
• Earlier, in posts shared on social media, Khamenei said Iran had "delivered a heavy slap to the US’s face" in its attack of a US base in Qatar. There were no casualties from this strike
• He also offered repeated congratulations on what he described as his country's "victory" over Israel

His comments come two days after a ceasefire ended a 12-day war between Iran and Israel. Israeli strikes on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, according to Tehran's health ministry. Iran's attacks on Israel killed 28 people, as reported by AFP news agency.

Image source, Getty Images

As we've just reported, Iran's supreme leader downplayed the impact of the US strike on three of Iran's nuclear sites, suggesting they had "failed to achieve anything significant".

This directly contradicts Donald Trump's claims that the US had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear programme with its operation - which involved 125 US military aircraft and targeted the sites of Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

Speaking at the Nato summit in the Netherlands yesterday, Trump rejected a Pentagon intelligence report that suggested the US had only set back Iran's programme "by a few months".

Instead, Trump insisted that the nuclear sites in Iran were "completely destroyed" and accused the media of "an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history".

Standing alongside Trump at the Nato podium, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth also dismissed the report, and argued that the evidence of what had been bombed "is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated".

And this was followed-up by CIA director John Ratcliffe, who later said there was "credible intelligence" Iran's nuclear programme had been "severely damaged".

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Persian

Image source, Getty Images

Iran's supreme leader says the US military action was never about nuclear issues or nuclear enrichment - but about "surrender".

One day it’s about human rights, another day it’s about women’s rights, then it’s about the nuclear issue, then about the missiles, he says.

But he adds that actually in its core, it has always been about one thing: they want Iran to surrender.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Persian, World Service reporter

Ayatollah Khamenei continues, saying that the Iranian people demonstrated their unity - sending a message that "our people are one voice".

He says Trump called on Iran to "surrender", but his comments were “too big for the mouth of the president of the United States”.

"For a great country and nation like Iran, the very mention of surrender is an insult," Khamenei adds.

He adds that Donald Trump accidentally revealed a truth - that the Americans have been opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran from the very beginning.

Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Persian

In his statement, Ayatollah Khamenei says the US "failed to achieve anything significant" by attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

He says US President Donald Trump had made an “unusually exaggerated” account of what had taken place.

It was clear he needed to do it, says Khamenei - adding that anyone listening could tell the US were overstating things to distort the truth.

We attacked one of the US’s key bases in the region, and here, they tried to downplay it, he says.