Several explosions heard over Qatar capital Doha, Reuters witness says
June 23 (Reuters) - Sounds of several explosions were heard over Qatari capital Doha, a Reuters witness said on Monday, following Tehran's threats to retaliate against the U.S.'s strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
10 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump is still ‘stinging' from brutal TACO jibe, a member of his family claims, so he decided to attack Iran
The estranged niece of President Donald Trump has accused him of bombing Iran because he 'wasn't getting enough attention' and claims he was likely still 'stinging' as a result of his brutal new nickname from critics. 'As a country, we are at war and the man who led us into this war is a corrupt, degraded, ignorant know-nothing who acted illegally to plunge us into a potentially catastrophic situation without the consent of Congress because, despite the fact that he is the president of the United States of America and arguably the most recognized figure on the planet, he wasn't getting enough attention,' Mary Trump wrote Sunday on Substack. Mary Trump, a psychologist and writer who has long been critical of her uncle, notes it's time Americans 'stop imputing some deeper or reasonable motives to Donald Trump.' 'Despite being depraved and cruel, much like his cohort (Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu, he is driven by the most primitive impulses that center almost solely around protecting his fragile ego from humiliation (about which he has a pathological terror) and himself from the reality that he is a complete fraud,' she continued. She continued: 'Donald is still no doubt stinging from the acronym recently coined to mock his inability to follow through on anything – TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out.' The nickname TACO, short for, 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' stems from the president's habit of making tariff threats, resulting in a drop in the markets, only for him to change course and see the markets rebound. In the post, Mary Trump called out her uncle for backing off Israel after it bombed Iran, prompting criticism from some of his most ardent defenders, before he ordered the U.S. attack just days later. 'His allies would have us believe that Donald, a brilliant strategist, was faking us out. Sure. An infinitely more plausible explanation is that, on the one hand, he hates being challenged or contradicted, especially from those who almost always fall in line; therefore, he felt the need to double down on his threats by carrying them out,' she wrote. 'On the other hand, Donald is a desperate black hole of need – by changing the narrative, he could make sure the spotlight turned back on him,' she continued. Mary Trump has long been a vocal critic of her uncle, sharing in a recent interview that she was 'devastated' by his rise to power in 2016 and said he 'never evolved' from the man she knew growing up as a child. 'I handled the 2016 election badly. I was devastated by it. I took it really personally because I felt like the worst person on the planet was being elevated at the expense of better people,' she told the BBC last month. 'How I responded to the election prefigured how I responded to everything else [later in his term] because I knew it was going to be unspeakably awful,' she continued. 'And I saw the specific policies and the ways in which those policies were designed to be cruel and to have a devastating impact on the most vulnerable people in the country.'
Telegraph
14 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Spy chiefs feared Trump would blow Iran strikes with Truth Social posts
US spy chiefs feared that Donald Trump would reveal top secret plans to strike Iran with his Truth Social posts. The US president is said to have almost blown Operation Midnight Hammer, the high-stakes mission to strike three nuclear plants in Iran, by issuing threats on his social media platform. Mr Trump, who writes on Truth Social more than a dozen times a day, was the 'biggest threat to operational security' as he hinted at military action, an official told the New York Times. In a series of posts last week, expectations around the world grew that the United States was on the verge of joining Israel's strikes against Tehran in an effort to decapitate its nuclear programme. Mr Trump wrote days before the strike: 'Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran! 'What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CANNOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.' His public announcements began to worry military planners and officials at the Pentagon, given the success of the mission relied solely on the element of surprise. Three of Tehran's most critical enrichment facilities, including its underground facility at Fordow, were pummelled by B-2 stealth bombers and a barrage of submarine-launched missiles early on Sunday morning. Decoy deployed Fearing that the president had given too much away, the military decided to have a set of B-2 bombers fly to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy. Following the strikes on the bases, Iran claimed that it had smuggled almost all of the country's highly enriched uranium to a secret location in the days before. Satellite images showed a convoy of trucks outside the Fordow base on Thursday June 19. Mr Trump had informed Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, of US plans to bomb Iran the same day, although there is no suggestion that the two were linked. Refuelling tankers and fighter jets had been moved into position and bases in the region were preparing for retaliation. At the same time, Mr Trump issued his 'two weeks' statement, which brought more time for last minute diplomacy. Alongside the decoy bombers, the ruse helped clean up the mess of telegraphing the attack, which was partly of the president's making, officials added. The president had spent Friday night and much of Saturday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. But in a sign of a fast developing situation, he flew back to the White House just before 5pm. He did not speak to his travelling press pool at any point. Hours later, seven B-2 stealth bombers were dispatched from American soil to drop massive bunker-busting bombs on the heavily fortified enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz. They pummelled Iran's nuclear programme with 14 GBU-57 bombs, each weighing 30,000lbs, while a US submarine launched a further two dozen Tomahawk missiles, also striking the Isfahan atomic site. After 18 hours of flying, the bombers arrived at their target completely undetected with the element of surprise intact. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told the New York Times that the president and his team 'successfully accomplished one of the most complex and historic military operations of all time'. Mr Trump himself lauded it as a 'spectacular military success'. The president's position on striking Iran had changed by the morning of Friday June 13, hours after the first Israeli attacks, the New York Times reported. After the first missiles began to drop, Mr Trump later took calls from reporters on his cellphone, hailing the operation as 'excellent' and 'very successful' while hinting he had more to do with it than people realised. Later that day, Mr Trump is said to have asked an ally how the strikes were playing out. He said 'everyone' was telling him he needed to get more involved, including dropping the 30,000-pound GBU-57 bombs. In the 24 hours that followed, the president told another adviser that he was leaning toward using 'those bunker buster' bombs on Fordow. By then, it seems Mr Trump had already decided on striking the site. The president was closely monitoring Fox News, his favourite channel, which was airing wall-to-wall coverage of Israel's military operation. 'We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,' he posted on Truth Social on Tuesday, June 17. 'We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.' He demanded, in all-caps, adding: 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!' By this point, several people in the anti-interventionist Trump camp realised that a strike was inevitable and that the president's mind could not be changed. JD Vance, the vice president, wrote a series of posts on social media that appeared to seed the ground for a potential US military operation. He wrote: 'He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. 'And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy. But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.'
Telegraph
14 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Macron: Trump air strikes against Iran ‘illegal'
Emmanuel Macron has branded Donald Trump's air strikes against Iran 'illegal'. The French president said it could be considered legitimate to bomb nuclear facilities that pose a potential threat but that there was no legal framework, so strikes conducted by the United States and Israel were not legal. His intervention came as Sir Keir Starmer and a succession of ministers declined to explicitly state the US president had acted within international law or in a correct manner. Sir Keir was warned by Lord Hermer, his Attorney General, last week that joining a US attack on Iran could breach international law. However, the Prime Minister is coming under increasing pressure to 'get off the fence' and say whether the UK backs Mr Trump's action. The strike on Saturday evening came after a week of public and private lobbying from European leaders urging Mr Trump not to unilaterally strike Iran. Instead, the US carried out a stealth bombing raid on three Iranian nuclear sites, with the president later declaring the mission a success with the targets ' obliterated '. Mr Trump's decision to strike has led to fresh questions about the ability of Sir Keir and other Western leaders to influence his approach to international issues. The US president walked out of the G7 summit in Canada last week halfway through. He is expected to gather with many of the same leaders again at the Nato summit in the Hague on Wednesday. Mr Macron said of the US attacks: 'It may be considered legitimate... to neutralise nuclear facilities in Iran, given our objectives. 'However, there is no legal framework, no. And so we must say it as it is: there is no legality to these strikes. 'Even though France shares the objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, we have consistently believed from the outset that this can only be achieved through diplomatic and technical means. 'I say this because I hear many commentators who basically accuse you of inefficiency when you defend the diplomatic route on these issues. But when you are consistent, you can claim to be effective. He added: 'We continue to believe that it is through negotiation and re-engagement that we can achieve our goals.' Speaking alongside Mr Macron, the Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Store echoed the sentiment. 'International law has some clear principles on the use of force. It can be granted by the Security Council or it can be in pure self-defence,' he said, noting that this meant the strikes were 'outside the realm of international law'. Mr Macron's comments were at odds with both Germany and Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, who said that pre-emptive US air strikes on Iran were not illegal. Asked twice about whether they breach international law as Russia did by attacking Ukraine in 2022, Mr Rutte said: 'My biggest fear would be for Iran to own and be able to use and deploy a nuclear weapon to be a stranglehold on Israel, on the whole region and other parts of the world. 'This is a consistent position of Nato: Iran should not have its hands on a nuclear weapon,' he added. 'I would not agree that this is against international law – what the US did.' In contrast Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor, said on Monday there was 'no reason to criticise' Israel or America over their actions, adding: 'It is not without risk. But leaving it as it was wasn't an option either.' However, Government figures in Westminster echoed Mr Macron on Monday, with several ministers repeatedly refusing to say explicitly that the US bombing was either legal or the correct course of action. Instead, they said it was a 'good thing' that Iran was prevented from getting a nuclear bomb and talked about the importance of finding a diplomatic solution. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, was asked about the lawfulness of the strikes on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He said: 'Well, we weren't involved, it's for the Americans to discuss those issues.' When reminded that the UK had publicly deemed Russia's invasion of Ukraine as illegal without being involved, Mr Lammy insisted: 'There isn't a moral equivalence here.' Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, batted away similar questions on Sky News, saying: 'It is up to the US to make that case. We weren't involved in those actions and of course we would never comment on the legal advice that the Government receives.' Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said that preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear bomb was a 'good thing' for the UK, but also declined to comment on whether the US strikes complied with international law. Sir Keir is facing growing criticism for failing to clarify the UK's position. Kemi Badenoch said the Government was showing a 'complete absence of moral clarity and in fact moral courage' by failing to offer a verdict on the US strikes against Iran. The Conservative leader said: 'They clearly don't think it is lawful because if they did they would have come out and said so.' Priti Patel, the Conservative shadow foreign secretary, said: 'Once again David Lammy and the Labour Government have tried to hide and obfuscate on whether or not they support the US's action to ensure that the despotic regime of Iran never obtains nuclear weapons. 'Hiding behind the weak pretences of legal advice and vague language is simply not good enough – the British public deserve to know if their government supports degrading the threat of Iran to us and our allies, or whether it is all too happy to sit on the moral fence.' Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, said he was 'pleased that the Americans have intervened', calling the Iranian regime 'brutally evil'. Richard Tice, the Reform deputy leader, questioned why Mr Lammy was not 'thanking the United States and Israel for degrading the Iranian nuclear weapons programme'. Criticism also came from within Mr Lammy's own party, with Labour Left-wingers calling for a more critical stance towards Washington. Richard Burgon, the Labour MP for Leeds East, said: ' Iraq showed the grave dangers of following a Right-wing US president into an illegal war for regime change. 'The consequences were hundreds of thousands dead, mass destruction, mass devastation, regional chaos and wasted resources. Many fear that the same thing is happening now.' On Monday evening, explosions were witnessed over Qatar as an apparent Iranian attempt to hit a US air base in retaliation was intercepted by anti-air strike defences. Iran was thought to be targeting Al Udeid, the US air base that has been used by British military personnel in the past. The Foreign Office was monitoring the situation on Monday night, but one senior Government insider said there was relative 'calm' because no British soldiers were stationed at the base.
