Brigadier General Mohammad Akrami-Nia, an Iranian Army spokesman, stated that the country's air defence systems had grown stronger relative to both pre-conflict and active-conflict periods, with his remarks coming as diplomatic friction with the United States deepened and President Donald Trump raised the prospect of renewed strikes on Iranian territory.
Akrami-Nia maintained that Iran's air defence capabilities had grown beyond both pre-war and wartime levels, pushing back against what he characterised as repeated unsubstantiated claims to the contrary. Separately, on Thursday, Trump indicated he would not authorise nuclear weapons use against Iran and showed little appetite for committing ground forces, even as the military continued developing additional strike options directed at Iranian energy and nuclear sites.
During a televised interview, Trump stated that the munition under discussion — referred to as the "mother of all bombs" — was a conventional rather than nuclear device, adding that military objectives against Iran did not require nuclear weapons to be achieved. Trump stated that nuclear weapons would not be an option he would pursue. "That isn't something we need to do," he said.
The GBU-43/B is described as an exceptionally large explosive. The device is a conventional munition; atomic weapons pack equivalent or greater destructive capacity into a substantially more compact configuration.
When a reporter put the question of stationing ground forces in Iran to Trump, he indicated that he did not foresee that happening. He also asserted his intent to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, pointing to prior US strikes that he said had set back the country's nuclear programme.
Reporting from one broadcast outlet indicated that Trump had instructed military planners to draw up expanded strike options — among them the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, known as the MOAB — with Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear installations listed as potential targets, including a suspected underground facility at Pickaxe Mountain.
Doubts about the MOAB's ability to reach and destroy deeply buried installations have been raised by personnel with knowledge of the planning. Tipping the scales at around 21,600 pounds, the weapon holds the distinction of being the heaviest conventional munition in the US military's arsenal, yet its design is not suited to penetrating fortified underground targets.
In a separate action, the Treasury Department placed sanctions on 26 people and organisations — 16 individuals alongside 10 entities — over their alleged roles in sustaining the financial infrastructure, parallel banking arrangements, and funding pipelines that support Iran's armed forces and affiliated proxy groups across the region. The sanctions targeted banks, oil traders, and money-transfer networks alleged to have channelled funds through channels that circumvent current restrictions, representing one strand of a wider effort by US regulators to deepen financial pressure on Iran at a time when diplomatic relations between the two nations remain strained.
