Jacqueline Howard & Adam Durbin BBC News Watch: Iran dealt “heavy blow” to US, says Khamenei Iran’s supreme leader has insisted the US “gained no achievements” from strikes on its nuclear facilities, in his first public address since a ceasefire with Israel was agreed on Tuesday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the strikes did not “accomplish...
Brandon Drenon BBC News, Washington DC Watch: Trump says the US will talk with Iran “next week” The head of the CIA has said US strikes “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear facilities and set them back years, diverging from a leaked intelligence report that angered President Donald Trump by downplaying the raid’s impact. John Ratcliffe, the...
The site of Fordo probably is probably the most spied on place on the planet. Western intelligence first went public in 2009 that it was home to a secret nuclear facility and now understanding the damage done by US strikes will be vital in determining where the conflict goes next. A leaked Defence Intelligence Agency...
As Ed wrote earlier today, there’s some level of confidence that the US strike on Fordow succeeded in destroying the underground lab where Iran was using centrifuges to enrich uranium. We won’t know for certain for a long time because at the moment no one can get to Fordow to inspect whether anything is left,...
A continuous flight over 18 hours, multiple mid-air refuelings, and a series of decoys – this is how the mission to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities played out, according to four-star General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the US military. Although the full impact of what the...
Reuters A satelite image of Fordo, one of three Iranian nuclear sites hit by Trump US President Donald Trump says the American military has completed strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing war between Iran and Israel. “We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear...
Israel says it has killed a senior Iranian commander who helped plan Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in a strike on Saturday on the city of Qom. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the killing of Saeed Izadi marked a key point in the conflict. He was “one of the orchestrators” of...
Finally, Iran and Israel agree on one thing. Both of them think this is no time to talk. Iran won’t talk about a ceasefire until Israel unilaterally ceases its fire. And Israel won’t talk about peace until Iran starts acting peacefully, especially in its nuclear-weapons push and terrorist-proxy wars against Israel. Israel’s UN ambassador told...
Wowza. It’s no surprise that Israel has destroyed Iran’s Arak nuclear reactor. After all, it was a key element of Iran’s program to build nuclear weaponry, and a very vulnerable target. The only strategic reason not to attack it was the fact that it could have contained highly radioactive material, and Israel had to balance...
I just thought I’d take a quick post to run down what we’ve heard as far as assets either in or headed towards the Middle East as there seems to be a fair amount of spazzing going on about the potential building for US involvement. By which I mean, a fingers-on-triggers, boots-on-the-ground sort of thing....
Steve Rosenberg Russia Editor Reporting fromSaint Petersburg Reuters While Moscow has talked up its partnership with Iran, the deal does not require Russia to come to Iran’s military aid When Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, officials in Russia described the current escalation in the Middle East as “alarming” and “dangerous.” Still, Russian media were quick...
US President Donald Trump rejected a plan by Israel to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, three US officials have told BBC’s US partner CBS News. Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that assassinating Khamenei was not a good idea, according to one official. The president has not commented publicly on the...
You can only imagine the pep talk given to the Israeli military about to embark on the most ambitious preemptive attack the tiny nation has ever conducted. You can start by translating the Late Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks into Hebrew. “This is your time, Their time is done. It’s over.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...
Not only has Israel’s attack on Iran been more wide-ranging and intense than its two previous military operations last year, but it also appears to have adopted some of the strategy that was used in the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon last November. That is not only to hit Iran’s missile bases – and...
Getty Images Hossein Salami was known for taking a hardline approach against Iran’s rivals, including Israel and the US Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in Israel’s strikes early on Friday, the most senior Iranian leader to die in the attacks. Salami, who was 65, was known for taking...