Security boosted at military facilities in the US, says US military
WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. military has stepped up security at all military installations in the United States "based on world events," U.S. Northern Command said on Saturday, as Israel launched a second day of airstrikes against Iran.
U.S. Northern Command, which oversees the defense of the continental U.S. and Alaska, said in a statement that employees and visitors "should plan for increased security measures" at its installations "and/or longer wait times" to enter them.
Additional security measures at all facilities "will be maintained as long as necessary. We are not aware of specific threats to installations," the statement said.
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Telegraph
32 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Israel is attacking Iran where the regime fears most
A towering inferno blazed where Tehran's main oil reservoir once stood, turning the skies over the city black. Ordure cascaded through the streets from a mysterious rupture in the sewage mains. Cars exploded in rapid succession as onlookers screamed in fright. Many residents fled; others lined up outside petrol stations, desperately trying to source dwindling fuel supplies as they prepared to join the exodus. As Israel's war on Iran raged into a third day on Sunday, rumour and chaos subsumed the capital. Whatever Israel's military objectives, its operation had clearly taken on a broader dimension, targeting not just the economic foundations of the state, but the psyche of its people. For years, Israel has sensed that Iran's restive population was turning on its Islamist masters. Now it is sowing the seeds of mayhem in the hope of pushing them over the edge. Regime change, by Benjamin Netanyahu's own admission, is one of Israel's desired outcomes. It 'could certainly be the result because Iran is very weak,' he told Fox News. Quite what the Israelis were behind – and what they were not – no-one knew for sure. Perhaps the sewage mains had burst of their own accord; maybe some unknown group was exploiting the fraying sense of order to blow up cars. Yet given this is a country whose spies remotely detonated thousands of Hezbollah's pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon last year, anything was possible. Only one thing can definitively be pinned on Israel: a series of attacks on Iran's oil and gas facilities. The likely motive was not hard to discern. After they shivered in the dark through one of the harshest winters in recent memory, exasperated Iranians have increasingly vented their anger at the regime in recent months. It seemed a scandal that a country with a sixth of the world's gas and ten per cent of its oil could be mired in such a cataclysmic power crisis that even major roads were plunged into darkness for lack of electricity. As government offices shut down and school pupils twiddled their thumbs at home, angry Iranians took to the streets in more than 150 towns and cities to denounce the corruption and mismanagement behind the crisis – protests that continued into this month. Little wonder, then, that over the past 24 hours, Israel struck not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile bases, but also its electricity and gas plants. On Sunday, fires raged in the South Pars gas field and a nearby oil refinery in the southern province of Bushehr. A dozen storage tanks at Tehran's main fuel depot exploded one after another, setting the surrounding hills ablaze. There are plenty of reasons why Iran's energy infrastructure is under attack. Israel hopes to deny Iran the fuel it needs to support military operations. It quite possibly also hopes to goad Iran into retaliating against Saudi or Emirati energy assets – thereby potentially drawing the United States, with its bunker-busting bombs, into the war. But perhaps most crucially, Israel appears to have concluded that if it is to fight alone, its best chance of dismantling Iran's nuclear programme lies not in bombing deeply buried enrichment facilities, but in destabilising the regime that built them. Toppling the regime from within may, some officials believe, just be Israel's best bet for survival. If so, Iran's rotting domestic energy sector is arguably its most vulnerable point. The country is seething. Power rationing has shuttered factories, left workers unpaid, prevented bakers from making bread, students from sitting exams and farmers from irrigating their crops. Many blame the mullahs – and the elite Revolutionary Guards who not only protect them but also control much of Iran's power generation and distribution. Fury over reports that electricity has been diverted to power-draining Bitcoin mining operations linked to the Guards has fuelled a popular chant in Iran's cities: 'Crypto for the Guards; Blackouts for the People!' Mr Netanyahu clearly believes that Iran's people can be persuaded to topple the regime themselves. Israeli strikes on their country, he told them on Friday, would 'clear the path for you to achieve your freedom.' Such a move, he told Fox News, would clearly be a justified outcome of Israel's offensive: 'We can't let the world's most dangerous regime have the world's most dangerous weapons.' Rallying around the flag Yet not everyone is convinced the strategy will work. In fact, it could misfire, potentially helping to re-galvanise support for an unpopular regime, warns Sanam Vakil, the Middle East director at Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank in London. 'Iranians tend to be quite nationalistic and as civilian casualties mount and life becomes harder, they are more likely to rally around the flag,' she said. 'The unintended consequence could be the re-legitimisation of the Islamic Republic – a devastating outcome for Iranians and the broader region, let alone Netanyahu.' Whatever they think of the regime, few Iranians will relish seeing destruction on their homeland, says Farzan Sabet, a Middle East security researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute, who hails from the Iranian city of Shiraz. 'In my own city, the electronics industry that contributed to the military's radar systems has been destroyed,' he said. 'It was a military target, but also a centre of technology and an important source of employment. A lot of people who were not especially pro government are quite upset at seeing it destroyed. 'If Israel continues to expand such operations, you're going to see many people who don't like the government offer it begrudging support. They might not like the government, but they don't like what's happening to the country either.' Before the operation began, there was little doubt just how unpopular Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his fellow mullahs were among a large segment of the population. Middle class liberals have always loathed them. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran had one of the most westernised populations in the Middle East: unveiled women wore trousers, danced in nightclubs, drank cocktails and canoodled with unmarried men. Such sophisticates were at the forefront of the first significant anti-government protests in 2009, led by the so-called Green Movement. Later, waves of unrest drew in a more diverse range of Iranians – particularly women – frustrated by the regime's strict Islamic codes, corruption and the economic toll of sanctions and isolation. Yet while these protests alarmed the regime, they ultimately changed little. The ayatollahs successfully crushed the most serious uprising, triggered in late 2022 after a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody for allegedly showing her hair. In part, the regime has survived by relying on a fanatically loyal core of supporters. 'The regime's popularity has steadily declined over time,' Mr Sabet says. 'But its support, at least among its core base, for now remains relatively solid – and this is the core group that the system has relied on to survive.' But this is not the only reason why Israel may struggle to initiate regime change. As the Israeli bombs began to fall, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son and heir to the shah toppled in 1979, urged Iranians to overthrow the regime, blaming it for 'dragging Iran into war.' Yet although many Iranians feel nostalgic for their 2,500-year monarchy, Mr Pahlavi leads what many analysts consider the weakest of five often bitterly divided opposition movements – a fragmentation the mullahs have successfully exploited. Until there is a more unified opposition, calls for a popular uprising, particularly from abroad, are unlikely to have a significant impact, argues Meir Javedanfar, Iran lecturer at Israel's Reichman University. History, particularly in the Middle East, suggests they rarely do. 'Everybody in Israel wants regime change and I think 80 per cent of people in Iran want better leaders,' he said. 'But I'm not sure regime change can be instigated from abroad. It has to come from within. It needs local leadership – and I just don't see the opposition in Iran organising around a single leader or party.'
Telegraph
32 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Minnesota gunman ‘motivated by hatred of abortion'
The gunman suspected of fatally shooting a Democratic politician and her husband in their Minnesota home was an evangelical Christian who had a list of targets of people who advocated for abortion. Vance Luther Boelter, 57, is said to have 'hated' abortion but had kept quiet about it for years, according to a friend of more than five decades. Police are searching for Mr Boelter after Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker in Minnesota's House of Representatives, and her husband were shot dead in the early hours of Saturday. John Hoffman, a Democratic state senator, and his spouse were also shot multiple times. Both have undergone surgery and are expected to survive. Mr Boelter, an evangelical Christian who travelled to Africa and the Middle East to preach, left a list of targets including Democrats and figures linked to Planned Parenthood or the pro-choice movement in his car, according to reports. He is alleged to have impersonated a police officer and drove what appeared to be a police SUV equipped with emergency lights to carry out the attack. Mr Boelter also had fliers for anti-Trump 'no kings' protests in his car. Ms Hortman used her position as speaker in 2023 to champion expanded protections for abortion rights, including legislation to solidify Minnesota's status as a refuge for patients from restrictive states who travel to the state to seek abortions – and to protect providers who serve them. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat senator for Minnesota, said she believed abortion was a motivation for Mr Boelter. 'It was politically motivated, and there clearly was some throughline with abortion because of the groups that were on the list, and other things that I've heard were in this manifesto. So that was one of his motivations,' she told NBC's Meet The Press. 'We believe he's somewhere in the vicinity and that they are going to find him... But right now, everyone's on edge here, because we know that this man will kill at a second', she said. On Saturday morning the suspect texted David Carlson, a long-standing friend who he lived with for part of the week, saying: 'I've made some choices and you guys don't know anything about this, but I'm going to be gone for a while. I'll be dead shortly. So I just want to let you know that I love you guys both. And wish it hadn't gone this way. 'I don't want to say anything more, and implicate you in any way because you guys don't know anything about this, but I love you guys and I'm sorry for all the trouble this has caused.' Mr Boelter was appointed to the workforce development board in 2016 and then reappointed by Tim Walz in 2019 to a four-year term that expired in 2023. Ms Hoffman served on the same board, though it was not clear if or how well they knew each other. Mr Walz, Kamala Harris's former running mate, is also understood to have been on the list of targets. Donald Trump said he 'may' call Mr Walz about the targeted attacks. 'Well, it's a terrible thing. I think he's a terrible governor. I think he's a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too,' he told ABC. Mr Walz spoke with JD Vance, the vice-president, on Saturday. Mr Walz expressed thanks for the coordination between federal law enforcement and state public safety officials, according to CNN. The attacks prompted warnings to other state elected officials and the cancellation of planned anti-Trump demonstrations over fears they could be targeted. Some protests went ahead anyway, including one that drew tens of thousands to the State Capitol. Law enforcement agents recovered several AK-style firearms from the suspect's vehicle, and he was believed to still be armed with a pistol, officials said. The shootings happened at a time when political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions. 'We must all, in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence,' Mr Walz said. 'Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!' Mr Trump said in a statement. Police responded to reports of gunfire at the Mr Hoffman's home shortly after 2 am, Champlin police said, and found the couple with multiple gunshot wounds. Police sent officers to proactively check on Ms Hortman's home. There they encountered what appeared to be a police vehicle and a man dressed as an officer at the door, leaving the house. 'When officers confronted him, the individual immediately fired upon the officers who exchanged gunfire, and the suspect retreated back into the home' and escaped on foot, said Mark Bruley, the Brooklyn Park police chief. Authorities believe the shooter was wearing a mask when carrying out the attacks, according to a law enforcement official. The FBI released photos of the suspect including an image that appears to show him wearing a mask that covered his face and head, a police uniform, and holding a flashlight. Mr Boelter is chief executive of Praetorian Guard Security Services, and has armed security experience across the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and North America, according to a biography on its website.
Sky News
34 minutes ago
- Sky News
Iran's response to Israeli strikes a 'matter of principle', ambassador to UK says
Why you can trust Sky News Iran's response to Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities is "self-defence" and a "matter of principle", the Iranian ambassador to the UK has told Sky News. Speaking to The World With Yalda Hakim, Seyed Ali Mousavi said the "barbaric Israeli regime" is "violating international law" - describing Israel's actions in recent days as "an act of aggression against the Iranian people". The conflict between Israel and Iran - once played out in a series of proxy wars - has escalated in the past three days. 1:42 On Friday morning, explosions hit Tehran as Israel carried out a major attack on its top army leaders, nuclear sites, and nuclear scientists. Iran threatened "severe punishment" and quickly retaliated with a wave of missiles. 0:18 0:31 When questioned about whether Iran could continue fighting Israel, the Iranian ambassador told Yalda Hakim that "it is a matter of principle". He said: "This is about self-defence, there is no doubt about it. "We are a responsible member state of the UN and we do all activities according to our international obligations. "Any activities are only in the framework of self-defence." He added that his country would "do our best to preserve our territorial integrity", and that "with the help of God", Iran will "materialise endeavours concretely against our enemy - the Israeli regime". Mr Mousavi also told Hakim that Iran's nuclear activities are "monitored", and that recent comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were "politically motivated". 0:58 The UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors found Iran was not complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years. Iran said it has "always adhered" to the safeguarding obligations laid down by the watchdog. 15:10 Announcing Operation Rising Lion on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran had recently taken steps to weaponise enriched uranium, which could be used to make nuclear weapons. But Mr Mousavi stressed that Iran's "peaceful activities" at its "nuclear fields" were only for the "generation of electricity, and other peaceful" things. Iran was due to continue its round of negotiations with the US in Muscat - however, this was cancelled, given recent tensions.
