United Nations, Jun 22: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned that the "dangerous escalation" of the Iran conflict through US bombing of nuclear sites in that country can catastrophically get out of control.

In a statement minutes before US President Donald Trump's address to the nation on Saturday night, Guterres said the attack was "a direct threat to international peace and security."

He said he was "gravely alarmed by the use of force by the United States against Iran today" and warned that "there is a growing risk that this conflict could rapidly get out of control -- with catastrophic consequences for civilians, the region, and the world."

Trump said his "military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordo, Natanz, and Esfahan."

"Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's No. 1 state sponsor of terror," he said.

The US and Israel, Trump said, worked "as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before."

He warned, "There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days."

There are more targets that the US can hit in Iran, he said.

"But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed, and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes."

However, in an earlier Truth Social post, Trump also said, "Now is the time for peace! Thank you for your attention to this matter."

"There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close," he added.

Israel had started attacking Iran's nuclear facilities on June 13, and Iran retaliated with missiles and drones, some of which managed to penetrate Israel's defence.

Trump, who had been vacillating between restraint and joining Israel, had said on Thursday that he would decide whether to attack in a two-week frame, but it came two days later.

The US attack followed an apparently failed last-minute diplomatic effort by foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France, along with the European Union representative, to de-escalate the situation.

Two of the three sites that Trump said had been hit had been attacked earlier by Israel.

They were Fordo and Natanz, which are uranium enrichment facilities where the element is refined to ultimately reach bomb grade.

The third facility attacked was a storage for the enriched uranium.

(IANS)

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