Iranian State TV confirms death of senior advisor Ali Shamkhani
Iranian state television has confirmed the death of Ali Shamkhani, a senior advisor to the country's Supreme Leader, after succumbing to injuries sustained following Israeli strikes.
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LBCI
3 hours ago
- LBCI
Fresh blasts heard in Iran's capital: AFP
Fresh blasts were heard on Sunday in the Iranian capital, an AFP journalist said, as Israeli attacks continued for the third day. Iranian news outlets Khabar Online and Ham Mihan reported that air defense systems over the west and northwest Tehran were activated "to counter new attacks," while Shargh Daily shared a video of columns of smoke in the city's east. AFP
Nahar Net
6 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Israel-Iran conflict: Latest developments
by Naharnet Newsdesk 15 June 2025, 11:53 Israel and Iran traded fire for a third straight day on Sunday, with rising casualties and expanding targets marking a sharp escalation in the conflict between the longtime adversaries. Overnight Iranian strikes killed at least ten people in Israel, adding to the growing toll in both countries since Friday when Israel launched a massive wave of attacks targeting Iranian nuclear and military facilities, sparking retaliation. The exchange of strikes is the first time the arch-enemies have traded fire with such intensity, triggering fears of a prolonged conflict that could engulf the Middle East, even as international leaders urge de-escalation. Here are the latest developments: - Deadly Iranian strikes - Iran unleashed deadly barrages of missiles at Israel overnight Saturday into Sunday, killing at least ten people, including children, and wounding around 200, according to Israeli emergency services. Air raid sirens and booms rang out in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv early Sunday as Israel's military said millions of Israelis were "running for shelter as sirens sound" in dozens of cities and communities around the country. The first wave of Israeli strikes on Iran killed 78 people and wounded 320, according to Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, but Iranian authorities had not provided an updated toll as of early Sunday. Iran also struck sites used by Israeli warplanes for refueling, the Revolutionary Guards said early Sunday. Israel said it had also intercepted seven drones launched towards its territory, as it worked to head off attacks while carrying out further strikes on Iran. Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels on Sunday said they had launched several missiles at Israel. - Israel expands targets - After targeting Iranian military and nuclear facilities, including killing top brass and scientists, Israel expanded targets to air defenses and oil infrastructure. Israeli strikes hit two fuel depots in Tehran, the Iranian oil ministry said Sunday, with AFP journalists reporting seeing fire at the oil depots in Shahran northwest of the Iranian capital. On Saturday, Israel's military said it was attacking dozens of missile launchers in Iran after announcing it had targeted air defenses with a wave of strikes in the Tehran area. Iranian news agency Tasnim reported early Sunday that an Israeli strike had also targeted the country's defense ministry headquarters in Tehran and damaged one of its buildings. The defense ministry did not comment. - Faltering nuclear diplomacy - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Israel had "crossed a new red line" by targeting Iran's nuclear sites, after Tehran on Saturday had pledged to limit its cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog, criticizing it for its silence over Israeli strikes. "It is entirely clear that the Israeli regime does not want any agreement on the nuclear issue. It does not want negotiations and does not seek diplomacy," Araghchi told foreign diplomats, saying the attack launched on Friday was an "attempt to undermine diplomacy and derail negotiations". The fiercest ever exchange of fire between the arch foes came amid ongoing talks between Tehran and Washington seeking to reach a deal on Iran's nuclear program. Before the Israeli strikes, the two sides had been set to hold a sixth round of negotiations in Oman on Sunday. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday that Tehran would not attend nuclear talks with the United States so long as Israel kept up its attacks on the Islamic republic. Western governments have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, which it denies. - International unease - Others states have urged restraint and warned against a larger conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed in a phone call on Saturday that the conflict between Iran and Israel "should end." But on Sunday morning, Trump issued a warning to Iran saying it would experience "the full strength" of the US military if it attacks the United States, reiterating that Washington "had nothing to do" with Israel's strikes on Tehran's nuclear and intelligence facilities. Iraq -- a close ally of Tehran, but also a strategic partner of Iran's arch-foe the United States -- has approached the Iranian and U.S. governments in a bid to prevent being caught up in a regional escalation.
Nahar Net
6 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Why are Hezbollah and other allies staying out of Israel-Iran conflict?
by Naharnet Newsdesk 15 June 2025, 12:16 Hezbollah has long been considered Iran's first line of defense in case of a war with Israel. But since Israel launched its massive barrage against Iran this week, the Lebanese group has stayed out of the fray. A network of powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq has also remained mostly quiet — even though Israel used Iraq's airspace, in part, to carry out the attacks. Domestic political concerns, as well as tough losses suffered in nearly two years of regional conflicts and upheavals, appear to have led these Iran allies to take a back seat in the latest round convulsing the region. - The 'Axis of Resistance' - Hezbollah was formed with Iranian support in the early 1980s as a guerilla force fighting against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon at the time. The militant group helped push Israel out of Lebanon and built its arsenal over the ensuing decades, becoming a powerful regional force and the centerpiece of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the " Axis of Resistance." The allies also include Iraqi Shiite militias and Yemen's Houthi rebels, as well as Palestinian militant group Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. At one point, Hezbollah was believed to have some 150,000 rockets and missiles, and the group's former leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah once boasted of having 100,000 fighters. Seeking to aid its ally Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian militants' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel and Israel's brutal offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border. That drew Israeli airstrikes and shelling, and the exchanges escalated into full-scale war last September. Israel inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah, killing Nasrallah and other top leaders and destroying much of its arsenal, before a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire halted that conflict last November. Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and to carry out near-daily airstrikes. For their part, the Iraqi militias occasionally struck bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, while Yemen's Houthis fired at vessels in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and began targeting Israel. - Condolences to Iran, condemnations of Israel - Hezbollah and its new leader Sheikh Naim Qassem have condemned Israel's attacks and offered condolences for the senior Iranian officers who were killed. But Qassem did not suggest Hezbollah would take part in any retaliation against Israel. Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia — a separate group from Lebanon's Hezbollah — released a statement saying it was "deeply regrettable" that Israel fired at Iran from Iraqi airspace, something that Baghdad complained to the U.N. Security Council over. The Iraqi militia called on the Baghdad government to "urgently expel hostile forces from the country," a reference to U.S. troops in Iraq as part of the fight against the militant Islamic State group, but made no threat of force. Hezbollah was weakened by last year's fighting and after losing a major supply route for Iranian weapons with the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key ally, in a lightning rebel offensive in December. "Hezbollah has been degraded on the strategic level while cut off from supply chains in Syria," said Andreas Krieg, a military analyst and associate professor at King's College London. - A changing attitude to Iran - Many Hezbollah members believe "they were sacrificed for Iran's greater regional interests" since Hamas' attack on Israel triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war, and want to focus on "Lebanon-centric" interests rather than defending Iran, Krieg said. Still, Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said a role for the militant group in the Israel-Iran conflict should not be ruled out. "This depends on political and field developments," he said. "Anything is possible." Both the Houthis and the Iraqi militias "lack the strategic deep strike capability against Israel that Hezbollah once had," Krieg said. Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iraq's Iran-allied militias have all along tried to avoid pulling their country into a major conflict. Unlike Hezbollah, whose military wing has operated as a non-state actor in Lebanon -- although its political wing is part of the government -- the main Iraqi militias are members of a coalition of groups that are officially part of the state defense forces. "Things in Iraq are good for them right now, they're connected to the state -- they're benefitting politically, economically," Mansour said. "And also they've seen what's happened to Iran, to Hezbollah and they're concerned that Israel will turn on them as well." That leaves the Houthis as the likely "new hub in the Axis of Resistance," Krieg said. But he said the group isn't strong enough — and too geographically removed — to strategically harm Israel beyond the rebels' sporadic missile attacks. Krieg said the perception that the "axis" members were proxies fully controlled by Iran was always mistaken, but now the ties have loosened further. "It is not really an axis anymore as (much as) a loose network where everyone largely is occupied with its own survival," he said.
