Iran release footage of missile launch after attack on US base in Qatar
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has released video footage showing missile launches ahead of an strike on the US military base at al Udeid in Qatar on Monday (23 June).
The attack came in response to US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz the previous day.
Qatar temporarily closed its airspace during the incident.
In a statement, IRGC spokesman Colonel Iman Tajik described the operation as a 'powerful and destructive missile attack,' warning that Iran 'will under no circumstances leave any aggression against its territorial integrity, sovereignty, or national security unanswered.'
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New Statesman
34 minutes ago
- New Statesman
Chaos engulfs Iran. What can Britain and Europe do?
Whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship, a state that loses a long war usually faces a dangerous reckoning. For four decades the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran were anchored on recurring confrontations with the United States and Israel. This struggle was not only a geopolitical fault line, it also provided a foundational narrative for the domestic legitimacy of Iran's ruling elite. As the prospect of Iran losing that conflict becomes real in the wake of relentless Israeli and American airstrikes, the Iranian state now teeters on the edge of destabilisation that may prove profoundly dangerous for the wider world. In the wake of the Hamas attack on Israeli communities along Gaza's borders on 7 October 2023 and the attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militias in the months that followed, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seized every opportunity to weaken Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's theocratic regime in Tehran. The airpower campaign Israel initiated on 13 June to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons programme cannot topple the Khamenei regime overnight, but economic collapse and public frustration after a military defeat would undermine the foundations of the Islamic Republic. Despite long standing demands for regime change in Iran among American neo-conservatives and Israeli hawks, the US and Israeli governments have not produced a credible plan for what comes next after Iran's social order falls apart. Dreams of victory among Israeli and US policymakers were bolstered by signs of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps overstretch abroad, even as the Khamenei regime's economic mismanagement led to cycles of revolt among a frustrated populace at home. The Israeli military's brutal evisceration of Hamas in Gaza, its decisive victory over Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime to Syrian rebel forces in the autumn of 2024 marked the humiliating collapse of a network of alliances that the IRGC had propped up for decades. But for all these setbacks, there is no sign of an opposition movement strong enough to restore stability if the Khamenei regime does fall apart. Though the pressure Israeli and US airstrikes have exerted on the IRGC has led many commentators to draw comparisons with America's invasion of Iraq in 2003, such analogies are not useful for understanding the distinct geopolitical context of 2025 that will shape Iran's trajectory. The legacy of Colin Powell's so-called Pottery Barn Rule of 'you break it, you own it' underscoring US responsibility for any post war outcome no longer holds. Unlike Iraq twenty years ago, there is no American land army waiting in the wings to occupy and govern Iran. Instead, in his quest to shatter the Iranian state Netanyahu in particular seems intent on using Israel's military advantage to pursue chaos as a strategic goal. If the Khamenei regime is toppled with no viable plan for what comes next, then Syria's recent civil war may prove a more salient precedent. Though central power would eventually reassert itself in a society as urbanised as Iran, a collapse of state structures is less likely to empower reformist elites than military warlords and regional strongmen. If power flows to the peripheries, a society fractured into fiefdoms would face recurring cycles of civil conflict that could generate refugee flows and economic disruption whose impact would be felt far beyond Iran's borders. In such a worst case scenario the consequences for the Middle East and Europe would be disastrous. Yet the US and Israel show no indication of planning for a postwar regional order. The Netanyahu government's backing of the exiled Pahlavi dynasty whose corruption and incompetence brought about the Iranian Revolution and the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979 borders on delusion. What is unfolding instead is a strategy of desiccating the Iranian state, letting it collapse, and then disengaging to leave others to clean up the mess. The EU and the UK will try to keep their distance from such a wild gamble while offering economic incentives to Tehran in the hopes of reviving diplomacy. Yet Europeans have no contingency plans to deal with a collapse of the Islamic Republic. With no answer to the question of how to engage with a fragmenting society in an environment in which Israel and the US pursue chaos as a strategy, the EU and the UK would struggle to prevent such a disaster from exacerbating Europe's other geopolitical and economic challenges. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Israel and America's war with Iran is not just a strategic throw of the dice. It is a fundamental shift in how power operates in a multipolar world. Though a transition toward new models of collective security remains theoretically possible, as the foundations of US global hegemony wither under Donald Trump the current trajectory favours entropy over order. The danger is not merely in acts of war, it is also in the chaos they leave behind. For the EU and UK the escalating crisis in the Middle East means more than diplomatic frustration and higher energy prices. It could shape Europe's strategic environment for decades to come. The Iranian state might not survive its long war, but nor will the illusion that chaos can be contained. [See also: Ayatollah Khamenei faces a nuclear nightmare] Related
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Why Trump's bombing of Iran will only bolster North Korea's nuclear resolve
As Israel and the US hit Iran 's nuclear infrastructure over the past 12 days, the fallout extended beyond the Middle East. Another US adversary, North Korea, was almost certainly watching from the sidelines, quietly analysing the assault and drawing conclusions about its own nuclear programme. The American bombing of three fortified underground nuclear facilities over the weekend in particular would have served as a real-life case study for Kim Jong Un 's regime. The US and its Western and Asian allies have long regarded Iran and North Korea as parallel nuclear threats – two heavily sanctioned states suspected of developing nuclear weapons under the guise of civilian programmes – and used diplomatic and economic coercion as well as international pressure and surveillance by the UN nuclear watchdog to deter them from going nuclear. While North Korea has responded by pushing decisively through the nuclear threshold – testing weapons, developing delivery systems and declaring itself a nuclear power – Iran has not. Pyongyang's decision now appears to have spared it from the kind of military vulnerability Tehran is experiencing. This reinforces its logic, analysts say, that half-measures invite war while full nuclear capability prevents it. 'Watching Iran's nuclear sites being bombed by the United States in all likelihood only reinforces North Korea's thinking that it made the right decision to develop nuclear weapons and that it did not negotiate them away during past talks with the United States, including during the Hanoi summit,' Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior fellow for the Stimson Centre's Korea Program and 38 North, tells The Independent. Kim has always been clear that North Korea could never give up its nuclear weapons, but Pyongyang has still expressed a great interest in Israel 's war on Iran and the US involvement in it. This, Lee says, is 'unusual'. Its foreign ministry has issued two statements so far denouncing the Israeli and US strikes on Iran. On 19 June, it accused Israel, supported by the US and its Western allies, of being a 'cancer-like entity' threatening peace in the Middle East and globally and warned that its actions could risk triggering a 'new all-out war' in the region. "The international community is strictly watching the US and Western forces fanning up the flames of war, taking issue with the legitimate sovereign right and exercise of the right to self-defence of Iran, the victim," it added. In another statement on 23 June, released after the US bombing of the nuclear facilities, it strongly denounced Washington for 'violently trampling down the territorial integrity and security interests of a sovereign state'. The foreign ministry called on the 'just international community' to censure and reject the 'confrontational acts' of Israel and America, blaming them for escalating tensions in the Middle East through Israel's 'ceaseless war moves and territorial expansion' backed by Western powers. 'Interestingly, these statements, while critical of Israel and the US, lack any expression of support for Iran, indicating North Korea is keeping its distance from Iran,' Lee claims. 'This is probably because it feels it has nothing to gain by coming across as too pro-Iran, and it does not see its key ally Russia getting too deeply involved in the conflict.' Pyongyang and Tehran, sharing a fierce anti-West posture, have a long history of ties. They established diplomatic relations in 1973 and first cooperated militarily during Iran's 1980-88 war with a West-backed Iraq when Pyongyang sold Scud B and Scud C ballistic missiles to Tehran. The missiles would become the foundation of Tehran 's current missile arsenal. In more recent times, North Korea has been accused of assisting Iran in developing its missile capabilities despite denials by both nations and efforts by international bodies to curb proliferation. In April this year, a high-level North Korean delegation visited Iran for an undeclared reason. The delegation, led by minister for external economic relations Yun Jong Ho, was speculated to have discussed the sharing of nuclear expertise, given Iran's interest in advancing its programme amid sanctions. 'The Kim regime will be learning from Iran's mistakes,' Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, says. What Iran is suffering now is a textbook example of what can happen when you are not a nuclear weapons state but are getting close, he argues. 'The North Korean case is very different. Pyongyang's nuclear programme is much more advanced, with weapons possibly ready to launch on multiple delivery systems, including ICBMs.' That distinction matters. Iran's programme is vulnerable to strikes, Pyongyang isn't – at least not in the same way. He says that in Iran's case, Israel aggressively exploited Tehran's strategic and tactical errors, using superior intelligence, technology and training to degrade air defences, high-value personnel and retaliatory capabilities. South Korea, Pyongyang's closest adversary, 'is more risk-averse than Israel', he adds, 'and China and Russia are better positioned to help Pyongyang than Tehran'. Pyongyang withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or NPT, in 2003, just two months before the US invaded Iraq on the pretext of dismantling its non-existent nuclear weapons programme, amid concerns Washington was planning an attack on North Korea next. Iran signed the NPT in 1968 and ratified it in 1970 – when it was still ruled by a Western-backed monarch – pledging not to pursue nuclear weapons and accepting International Atomic Energy Agency inspections to maintain the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. Tehran's nuclear capabilities were further limited when it signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with the US under president Barack Obama as well as UK, France, Russia and China. The deal was designed to limit Iran's nuclear programme beyond the requirements of the NPT in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, during Donald Trump's first presidency, the US unilaterally withdrew from the deal. Kim has long regarded nuclear weapons as an existential insurance policy and the West's treatment of Iran over the years would have only hardened that view. 'North Korea has nuclear weapons but Iran does not, making it impossible for the United States and its allies to handle the North Korean nuclear problem the same way that they are handling Iran's,' Lee says. 'When North Korea comes under, or detects an attack, it could use nuclear weapons against South Korea, Japan, and US bases in Guam. North Korea's 2022 nuclear doctrine stipulates that it can use nuclear weapons if a hostile forces' nuclear and non-nuclear attack has been carried out or is imminent." Going forward, North Korea could boost its military ties with Iran and assist Tehran in enhancing its missile capabilities. It could also seek to break its diplomatic isolation by building an anti-US coalition with Iran, Russia, and China. "Pyongyang could provide important assistance in helping Iran reconstitute destroyed missile production facilities, including at new sites to avoid scrutiny, perhaps," Ankit Panda, of the US think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters. Whether it would be interested in substantively cooperating on any effort to rebuild or accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme was less certain, given the political and military sensitivities over such technology, he said.
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Israel PM is 'biggest loser' in broken ceasefire after Trump's f-bomb outburst
A furious Donald Trump used expletive language in a warning to Iran and Israel after the two countries broke ceasefire terms on Tuesday morning - hours into the deal being agreed An expert has warned Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu is the "biggest loser" in the broken Iran ceasefire, after Donald Trump's expletive outburst. An enraged Trump issued a warning to Iran and Israel after the two countries broke ceasefire terms on Tuesday morning. He also declared he was "not happy" with Israel. "I didn't like the fact that Israel unloaded right after we made the deal," the US president said to reporters at the White House. "They didn't have to unload. We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the f**k they're doing." Iran has accused Israel of having carried out strikes on the country after the ceasefire came into effect. It claims Israel struck Iran in three stages up until 9am local time (about 5:30am UK time), according to Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya central military headquarters said, the country's state TV said. An Israeli strike Monday on Iran's city of Karaj near Tehran killed seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, including two generals with the paramilitary force, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Defence Minister Israel Katz had said in a statement that the IDF would "respond forcefully to Iran's violation of the ceasefire with intense strikes against regime targets in the heart of Tehran." Trump, who was departing for the NATO summit at The Hague, said he was "not happy with" with Israel for violating the ceasefire. Anthony Glees, an academic in security and defence and a lecturer at the University of Buckingham, believes Benjamin Netanyahu will be the "biggest loser" following the broken ceasefire. He told The Mirror: "Ceasefires are often broken, it can take time to get the orders to stop firing out to the military, not least for a country that's had its communications severely degraded. "Of course, the question is whether what we're seeing in the past couple of hours is more than a hiccup and whether Iran and or Netanyahu will decide to challenge Trump's surprise declaration of a ceasefire - so surprising we're told it took his own officials by complete surprise. "However, what we can say right now is that the winners here at the moment are the ayatollahs. Not Trump and certainly not Netanyahu who will be spitting blood right now, both literally and metaphorically. He has not got what he's wanted for so many years, an end to the ayatollahs. "Netanyahu is the big loser at this point, this morning and will be hoping the ceasefire breaks down and he can carry on. At the same time, Israel wanted a Blitzkrieg war against the regime in Teheran. The thing they most fear is a re-run of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war which went on for 8 years. There are 9 million Israelis but 90 million Iranians. A war of attrition would be won by Iran."
