Trump's B-52s will flatten Mullahs' terror regime if Iran doesn't stop race to nuclear armageddon, ex-Mossad chief warns
It comes as US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz heads towards the Middle East
SEND IN THE BOMBERS Trump's B-52s will flatten Mullahs' terror regime if Iran doesn't stop race to nuclear armageddon, ex-Mossad chief warns
AMERICA will unleash its B-52 bombers on Iran if it accelerates its nuclear scheme to create an atomic weapon, an ex-Mossad chief has warned.
It comes amid growing fears Tehran's furious regime leaders could rush to develop a nuke bomb after vowing bloody revenge on Israel.
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A US B-52 Stratofortress heavy bomber drops bombs. Stock picture
Credit: Getty
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The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept Iranian missiles over Tel Aviv
Credit: AP
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Smoke rises from an oil refinery, northwest of Tehran, Iran
Credit: Getty
Iran was pummeled with an unprecedented blitz on its nuclear bases on Friday by Israel - which wiped out top commanders.
Israel has so far acted alone in its mission to severely deplete Iran's nuclear ambitions after the US stepped back from plans to blitz the rogue state.
The arch-enemy nations have continued to trade blows as the deadly conflict enters its fourth day amid international pleas for de-escalation.
But a former top staffer of Mossad - Israel's intelligence agency - said the US will no doubt join Israel's campaign should Iran succeed in its bid to develop a nuclear bomb.
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The insider warned Donald Trump could even deploy America's nuclear-capable Stratofortress B-52 bombers if Iran creates a nuke weapon.
He insisted "no US president will allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb while he's serving in the White House" and that Tehran would "pay the price".
It comes after the US military stationed several B-2 Spirit stealth bombers on the highly strategic island of Diego Garcia.
Meanwhile today the $4.5billion US aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is heading towards the Middle East as Iran and Israel's deadly conflict risks dragging in other nations.
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Data from ship tracking website Marine Traffic shows the 1,092ft long carrier left the South China Sea this morning and is heading west towards the war-torn region.
A formal reception in Danang City later this week has been called off due to "an emergent operational requirement", a source told Reuters.
Spiralling tensions in the region come as Trump issued a stark warning to Iran's bloodthirsty leaders - avoid striking US targets or face the 'full strength and might' of America's military.
Iran-Israel conflict could spiral into 'forever war' | Major General Chip Chapman
The US president wrote on Truth Social: "If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the US Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before.
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"However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict."
Trump has insisted Iran thrash out a deal aimed at downgrading its nuke programme - but talks, that were supposed to resume on June 15, have so far stalled.
But the Middle East risks exploding into all-out war as Israel and Iran pummel each other with missiles.
The ex-Mossad top brass, however, urged European nations to 'seize the moment' to draw a red line under Iran's nuke programme.
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Sun's trip onboard USS Nimitz
by Ryan Parry, Senior Reporter
AS America sends the flagship USS Nimitz supercarrier to the Middle East amid rising tensions, the Sun reveals what life is like onboard.
The Sun spent two days on board the Nimitz, nicknamed Old Salt, a $4.5billion nuclear-powered supercarrier weighing almost 100,000 tons.
The warship is 1,092ft long and 252ft wide and has a four and a half acre flight deck.
The massive 117,000 sq ft warship boasts four aircraft catapults and jets are brought up to the deck using four giant elevators from the hangar deep below the 4.5 acre flight deck.
The supercarrier, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 11, holds F/A-18 Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers and F-35C stealth strike fighters.
Inside the ten floor, 3,000 room hull underneath the flight deck life is one slick operation.
There are several cafeterias, gyms, a Starbucks coffee shop and 'luxury' state rooms for 'Distinguished Visitors'.
Since it is nuclear-powered, the Nimitz – call sign NMTZ - can operate for up to 20 years without refueling.
The Nimitz is the world's second largest supercarrier, only behind the Gerald R Ford.
Fears have been growing internationally that Iran is on the verge of creating a nuclear bomb, despite the regime's insistence its scheme is for civilian purposes to generate energy.
Last week, the UN's watchdog confirmed Iran is not complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in two decades.
The former intelligence agent has appealed for Western countries to take advantage of the situation for fundamental change while Iran is "completely exposed".
They said: "I think that the Europeans should stand with the Americans and tell Iran enough is enough.
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"Tell the Iranian guys, knock it off.
'Let's do it. Let's take it. Let's seize this moment to do something positive.
'It seems to me that this is an opportunity to have a red line to the Iranians."
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At least eight people were killed when Iranian missiles blitzed Tel Aviv and port city Haifa this morning.
Israel's military meanwhile said it had killed four senior intelligence officials -including the head of the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence unit.
A military spokesman also claimed Israel had achieved aerial superiority over Iran and had destroyed more than a third of Iran's surface-to-surface missile launchers.
At least 100 people were wounded in Israel in the overnight blitz, part of a wave of attacks by Tehran in retaliation for Israel's strikes.
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Israel's defence minister Israel Katz warned that Iran would "pay the price and soon".
He said: "The arrogant dictator of Tehran has become a cowardly murderer who targets the civilian home front in Israel to deter the IDF from continuing the attack that is collapsing his capabilities."
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Daily Mirror
30 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
'Trump let Iran make nukes he's mad about - he's at war for a Nobel Peace Prize'
If there is one disease which lies behind the constant spasms of horror with which our days our currently blighted, it is the human race's inability to remember what happened five minutes ago. Once upon a time, journalists would go to the pub, and then bed. Sometimes they'd go to bed with each other, because they'd been to the pub. But they'd wake up in the morning and go "blimey, an earthquake in Japan. I had better find a good story of my own about this". And they would have to go deeper into a story and its origins. Today they don't drink, barely know their colleagues, and wake up to emails from a 24-rolling news ecosystem that demands constant feeding. Journalists think "blimey, everyone else is ahead of me" and scramble to catch up. No-one has time to think, which is why no-one has told you that Donald Trump just bombed Iran for making nuclear weapons that Donald Trump let them make. I wish I was making this stuff up, but no-one's got time for that. It's imperative people start remembering how we got to the cliff edge, because we did it by skipping about blindfold and if we don't stop soon we're going to go right over. America gave Iran nuclear technology in 1957. The aim was 'atoms for peace', to create wealth, and allies in the Middle East. After years of the world's greatest democracy propping up a cruel monarchy, the shah fell, the mullahs arose, and Iran was in less-friendly hands. The 1980s was taken up with a war against Iraq, but in the 1990s two Gulf Wars and continued US tinkering led the mullahs to the not-entirely-mad opinion that a nuclear weapon was the best way of keeping the Great Satan at bay. Israel, quite reasonably, was less than chuffed. And as technology sped up it became imperative to find ways of stopping Iran getting a weapon that apocalyptic fundamentalists would see very little reason not to detonate, slap-bang in the middle of a resource-rich, conflict-heavy trade route. And so in 2015, six countries signed a deal with Iran. In return for checks that it wasn't building The Bomb, everyone was open for business. And for three years the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action worked. Germany, China, Russia, France, the UK, China and the US lifted economic sanctions, and every 90 days would ratify everything was non-nuclear and tickety-boo. But such a vague agreement could not withstand the arrival of Donald Trump, whose tiny hands happily dismantled everything that made Barack Obama look good. In 2018 when Benjamin Netanyahu - yes it really is all the same people - gave a speech claiming his spy agency Mossad had stolen 100,000 documents showing Iran had lied and was enriching uranium, Trump saw a 30-second clip and decided it must be true. It might have been. The other nations in the deal didn't think so. But rather than renegotiate, send in inspectors, react as any sane human might, Trump just went "nah", and pulled out of the deal. The other countries tried to keep it going. The International Atomic Energy Authority said there was no enrichment. But the US whacked the regime with sanctions, and Iran said it too would pull out unless they were lifted. They were not. In 2020 the IAEA said Iran had tripled its uranium stockpile, a year later it blocked access to inspectors, and by 2023 it had weapons-grade material. Over the same period, Iran's population suffered. A third were ground into poverty. The economic woes weakened the regime just enough to make it lash out. Iran was behind terror attacks worldwide, former Republican Guards were linked to planned assassinations of ex-Trump officials, and it faced internal protests too. Then Iran funded the October 7 massacre by Hamas. Cue Netanyahu, who was leading a rickety coalition and facing jail the moment it fell, cue the war in Gaza, cue pro-Palestine protests, and cue a lot of blaming Iran. This isn't hard to figure out or remember. It's just that the constant churn of new things to hold our attention never scrolls back to the start of the liveblog, or delves into the third page of search results. Iran is definitely run by a bunch of rotten eggs who could well have been pulling the radioactive wool over the world's eyes in return for a financial boost to stabilise their rule. But the best way of fixing that wasn't walking away from the only half-arsed deal anyone had. It was making a better deal, and if Trump had actually written his own biography rather than paying someone else to make him look good, he might have known how to do it. Trump's withdrawal was supported by Israel and Saudi Arabia, with 63% of US voters, most of the planet and his own advisers screaming at him not to. It was "a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made", he insisted. "It didn't bring peace and it never will." And so he destabilised and raised the oil price with sanctions, screwed regional trade which meant the price of wheat rose and people starved across several countries, and gave fresh targets to jihadis. Back in office for a second time, Trump wants a legacy and more than anything he wants the Nobel Peace Prize that Obama got, largely for diplomatic efforts with the Muslim world. Trump pledged to end the war in Ukraine "on day one" and it only got worse; he suggested building a golden beachside golf club in Gaza, and got laughed at. So his eye turned to Ayatollah Khameini, and the country which the US has done so much to make worse, for so long. Anyone with an ounce of realism in their body might wonder at the convenience with which the B-2 bombers and their bunker-busting payload were able to fly in unmolested, after the Israelis had suddenly switched attention from Gaza to take out the Iranian air defences a week earlier. 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The Sun
34 minutes ago
- The Sun
Putin will exploit Middle East chaos to hit Europe with never-seen-before attack, Ukraine warns as tyrant meets Iranians
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EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas last week said Putin's determination to throw huge sums of money at his military suggests he is scheming to use his armed forces elsewhere. She pointed to the fact Russia is spending more on defence than the EU's 27 nations combined. Megalomanic Putin is set to invest more on defence than his nation's heath care, education and social policy combined, Kallas said. She warned lawmakers in Strasbourg, France: "This is a long-term plan for a long-term aggression. You don't spend that much on military if you do not plan to use it. "Europe is under attack and our continent sits in a world becoming more dangerous." Both Kallas and the Ukrainian source noted a series of acts of sabotage and cyberattacks - including Russian airspace violations and attacks on energy grids, pipelines and undersea cables. The insider added: "Russia never misses out on devious and cunning techniques. 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Glasgow Times
35 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Russian attacks on Ukraine kill at least 10 people, most of them in Kyiv
Russia fired 352 drones and decoys overnight, as well as 11 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles, Ukraine's air force said. Air defences intercepted or jammed 339 drones and 15 missiles before they could reach their targets, a statement said. The strikes came nearly a week after a Russian attack killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after a direct missile hit. Russian forces for several months have been trying to drive deeper into Ukraine as part of a summer push along the 620-mile front line, though the Institute for the Study of War said progress has failed to make significant gains. Rescue workers put out a fire of a building damaged by a Russian drone strike on Kyiv (Evgeniy Maloletka/AP) 'Russian forces are largely relying on poorly trained infantry to make gains in the face of Ukraine's drone-based defence,' the Washington-based think tank said late Sunday. Russia also has pounded civilian areas with long-range strikes in an apparent attempt to weaken Ukrainian morale. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said preliminary data indicated that Russian forces used North Korean missiles in the Kyiv strike. He called Russia, North Korea and Iran, which has provided drones to Russia, a 'coalition of murderers'. Mr Zelensky said Ukraine's defence and new ways to pressure Russia will be the two main topics in his visit to the United Kingdom on Monday. Mr Zelensky is set to meet with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer ahead of this week's Nato summit in The Hague. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the latest strikes demonstrated Russia's 'unlimited cruelty' by deliberately aiming at civilian targets, and promised more European sanctions on Moscow. Drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv, emergency services said. The most severe damage was in Shevchenkivskyi district, where a section of a five-story apartment building collapsed. Six people were killed in the district, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ten others, including a pregnant woman, were rescued from a nearby high-rise that also sustained heavy damage. Dozens of vehicles were burned or mangled by flying debris. An Iranian Shahed exploding drone launched by Russia (Efrem Lukatsky/AP) The Russian attack also damaged the entrance to the Sviatoshyn subway station in Kyiv, slightly injuring two people, said Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration. He said more than 30 people were injured across the city. Underground subway stations have served as shelters for those seeking protection from aerial attacks. During almost nightly strikes, stations across Kyiv are often filled with people waiting out the danger. Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian short-range drone attack killed two people and wounded 10 more in the Chernihiv region late on Sunday, authorities said. Three children were among the wounded, according to the regional administration head, Viacheslav Chaus. Another person was killed and eight wounded overnight in the city of Bila Tserkva, around 53 miles south west of the capital. Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 23 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday.
