Iran suggests it’s open to talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran’s “potential new leadership” has indicated it is open to talks with the United States after U.S. and Israeli forces launched a major attack on Tehran, killing the country’s supreme leader and other high-ranking officials, a senior White House official said Sunday.

President Donald Trump says he is “eventually” willing to talk but that the military operation for now “continues unabated,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations. The official did not say who the potential new Iranian leaders were or how they announced their alleged willingness to talk.

Trump told The Atlantic on Sunday that he intends to speak with the new Iranian leadership.

He added: “They want to talk, and I agreed to talk, so I will talk to them,” declining to comment on the timing.

The potential future diplomatic opening comes as new details emerge about the detailed planning of US-Israeli strikes and some of the targets struck in Iran.

US Central Command said B-2 stealth bombers hit Iranian ballistic missile facilities with 2,000-pound bombs. This mirrors the approach the military took in June, when Trump approved the deployment of B-2 bombers to attack three major Iranian nuclear sites.

Trump claimed in his State of the Union address last week that Iran was building ballistic missiles that could reach American soil — a justification he repeated again on Saturday when he announced that a bombing of Iran was underway.

Iran has not admitted that it is building or seeking to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, the US Defense Intelligence Agency said in an unclassified report last year that Iran could develop a military-usable ICBM by 2035 “if Tehran decides to pursue this capability.”

Before the attacks, the CIA had for months tracked the movements of senior Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to a person familiar with the operation.

The intelligence was shared with Israeli officials, and the timing of the strikes was adjusted in part because of that information about the location of Iranian leaders, according to the person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The intelligence sharing between the United States and Israel reflects preparations for the strikes, which continued for a second day on Sunday after the killing of Khamenei threw the future of the Islamic Republic into uncertainty and increased the risk of escalation in the regional conflict.

The New York Times had previously published a report on the CIA’s efforts before the Israeli-American strikes.

Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, declined to discuss details Sunday when asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation” about intelligence sharing with Israel. But he said that tracking the movements of the Supreme Leader and heads of other hostile states “is clearly one of the highest priorities of our intelligence community.”

“It is clear that this operation was driven by intelligence collected by Israel and the United States that proved once again that our two countries possess capabilities that no other country on Earth possesses,” said Cotton, R-Ark.

The United States regularly exchanges intelligence information with its allies, including Israel. These partnerships, and the accuracy of the intelligence they produce, are often critical not only to the success of a military operation but also to the public’s support for it.

“The working relationship between us and Mossad and Israel is historically strong,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the committee’s senior Democrat, told The Associated Press. Mossad is the Israeli spy agency.

Warner said he has serious concerns about the justification for the strikes, Trump’s long-term plans for the conflict and the risks American service members will face. The army announced on Sunday that three American soldiers were killed and five others were seriously injured in the Iranian operation.

“No tears will be shed over the liquidation of their leadership but the question is always: Well, what next?” Warner said.

Associated Press writer Ben Finley contributed to this report.