US confirms attack on Iran's ballistic missile facilities

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday authorized military response to any further Iranian attacks, describing recent strikes as cowardly for avoiding Saudi airspace, CNN reported.

The report said he secured full US backing from President Donald Trump.

CNN's report said the crown prince called the attacks “cowardly,” saying “Iran knew that Saudi airspace was not being used to attack Iran.”

US President Donald Trump said ‌on ​Sunday ⁠that ‌Iran's new leadership wants to talk to him ​and that ‌he has agreed.

“They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long,” Trump said in an interview with The Atlantic on Sunday.

Asked whether the conversation would happen today or tomorrow, Trump said, “I can’t tell you that.” He added that some of the Iranians involved in negotiations in recent weeks were no longer alive.

“Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big—that was a big hit,” he said. “They should have done it sooner, Michael. They could have made a deal. They should’ve done it sooner. They played too cute.”

The Israeli military said it destroyed the headquarters Iran’s internal security forces in a new wave of airstrikes over Tehran, targeting key command and control centers on Sunday.

“The Israel Defense Forces destroyed the General Staff of the internal security forces (law enforcement) of the Iranian terrorist regime,” the military said in a statement.

“The Israel Defense Forces completed another wave of strikes in the skies over Tehran and targeted dozens of command centers and the regime’s central headquarters,” it added.

The military said the General Staff of the internal security forces “served as a command and control center responsible for creating communication between command levels and the regime’s forces on the ground and directed the brutal suppression against the Iranian people.”

It added that the headquarters of the Thar-Allah base, “which functioned as the command responsible for defending Tehran against military threats,” was also destroyed.

“Our forces are now striking in the heart of Tehran with increasing intensity, and this will only intensify further in the coming days,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a meeting with Defense Minister Israel Katz, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and Mossad chief David Barnea.

“The combination of forces enables us to do what I have longed to do for 40 years — to strike the terror regime decisively. That is what I promised — and that is what we will do,” Netanyahu added, referring to the joint US-Israel military campaign against Iran.

US Central Command denied claims by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was struck by ballistic missiles, saying the ship was not hit and the missiles “didn’t even come close.”

CENTCOM added that the carrier “continues to launch aircraft in support of … defending the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”