Qom is considered Iran’s holy city – home to its largest and most famous Shia seminary, where Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei once studied.

The surrounding Qom province is also where the Fordow nuclear site is located, deep in the mountains – one of the three nuclear facilities targeted by US strikes last weekend.

When CNN’s Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen visited the city this week, several clerics condemned the strikes, and expressed defiance.

Another said: “If Trump ever has goodwill, do not mess with countries and let people live their lives.”

The status of the Fordow plant, like that of the other two sites, is still not clear. Iran has acknowledged that the US strikes caused “serious” damage. Democratic and Republican senators at the classified briefing gave differing accounts of exactly how much the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program. And the Trump administration has repeatedly insisted the program was “obliterated,” but has not shared new intelligence supporting this claim.

The Iran-Israel ceasefire that ended 12 days of conflict appears to still be holding. The Pentagon held a widely anticipated briefing giving new details on the US strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but did not provide new intelligence supporting President Donald Trump’s assertion that the strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

Meanwhile, sources tell CNN the Trump administration is engaged in secret diplomatic efforts to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table – even as Iran’s foreign minister said the country has no plans to resume nuclear talks with the US.

And after the classified Senate briefing on Operation Midnight Hammer on Thursday, Democrats and Republicans came away with different narratives.

Here are the latest developments:

The White House declined to say Thursday how it will limit the classified information it shares with Congress, or how it will respond to lawmakers who insist their oversight duties necessitate access to the information.

The comments came shortly before the classified briefing on Iran by Trump administration officials for the Senate.

“And unfortunately, clearly, someone who had their hands on this — and it was a very few people, very few number of people in our government who saw this report… That person was irresponsible with it,” Leavitt added, referring to the early Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that found US strikes on Iran did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.

“We need to strengthen that process to protect our national security and protect the American public,” Leavitt said.

The Trump administration is planning to limit what it shares with Congress, a senior White House official told CNN on Wednesday, believing that the report came out after it was posted on Monday to CAPNET, a system used for sharing classified intelligence with Congress.