Britain ‘may have to inform Iran ally Mauritius' before air strikes from Chagos
Britain will be required to inform Mauritius about any future air strikes on Iran because of Sir Keir Starmer's Chagos Islands deal.
The Iranian ally may have to be given advance warning about such strikes, after the Government decided to give away the Indian Ocean territory and lease back the Diego Garcia military base there.
The base, which is jointly used by the UK and US, has previously been used for bombing runs on Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US Air Force (USAF) has recently stationed B-2 long-range bombers there, which could be used if Donald Trump decides to launch an attack on Iran.
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Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Israel strikes Iranian nuclear reactor
Israel struck an Iranian reactor in the central city of Arak on Thursday in its latest efforts to destroy the regime's nuclear programme. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it targeted Iran's heavy water nuclear reactor, striking what it described as 'a key component in plutonium production'. A black-and-white video, circulated online by the IDF, showed a missile crashing into the target, followed by a large explosion. Both sides have been fighting for nearly a week since Israel launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and killed several top generals and nuclear scientists. On Thursday, Israel said its warplanes also struck a facility at Natanz, a key Iranian nuclear site, which was being used to develop nuclear weapons, a military spokesman said. 'The site houses unique components and equipment used for the development of nuclear weapons, and hosts projects that enable the acceleration of the nuclear weapons programme,' the IDF said. Earlier on Thursday, the IDF announced it had struck a nuclear site in Bushehr, which sits on the Gulf coast and is understood to be Iran's only operating power plant. The announcement caused concern among neighbouring Gulf states because of the contamination risk to the surrounding air and water. But Israel was forced to retract the statement admitting it had been a 'mistake'. When pushed, the spokesman said it could 'neither confirm nor deny' whether the reactor was attacked. Israel has said its goal for the war is to demolish Iran's nuclear programme, which the West fears is close to building a bomb. Some officials signalling that the attacks are also aimed at forcing the collapse of the Iranian regime, with possible US support in the near future. The Arak nuclear reactor has been a key feature of Iran's nuclear programme for decades, with Tehran insisting that it is only used for civilian purposes and not for the creation of nuclear bombs. Iran agreed in 2016 to remove the core of the Arak reactor and fill it up with concrete, under the now-defunct Iran nuclear deal, which eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbing the nuclear programme. The first Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear pact in 2018. In 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's nuclear programme chief, said Tehran had replaced a calandria, a key component in the reactor, so that work on the programme could resume. The IDF said: 'The reactor is designed to produce high-yield plutonium, which would enable the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The attack was carried out against the component intended for producing plutonium, thus preventing its ability to be reused to produce nuclear weapons.' It added that it had also carried out overnight strikes involving 40 aircraft and 100 munitions against several Iranian military facilities. Later on Thursday, Zohar Palti, a former senior Mossad officer, said he believed Israel 'should declare victory' after successful attacks on most of Iran's nuclear sites. 'Now that Israel has succeeded in striking most of its nuclear targets in Iran, Israel has a window of two or three days to declare the victory and end the war,' he told The New York Times. Israel is rapidly burning through missile interceptors to counter Iranian attacks, and may have to make difficult decisions about which areas to prioritise for air defence if the war drags on at length, The New York Times report suggested.
Telegraph
34 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Hezbollah commander assassinated as calls grow for terror group to join war on Israel
A leading Hezbollah commander has been assassinated in Israel's deadliest attack on Lebanon in recent days. Amid its latest conflict with Iran, the Israeli military said it had eliminated a 'threat' by killing Mohammad Ahmad Khreiss in an air strike. An official said he headed an anti-tank unit in southern Lebanon, where the border with Israel remains disputed. Israel's near-daily attacks have been a breach of a ceasefire agreed with Hezbollah and brokered by the US and France last year. It came as Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria and ambassador to Turkey, told Hezbollah not to get involved in the fight between Iran and Israel, saying that doing so 'would be a very bad decision'. He issued the warning during an official visit to Beirut, Lebanon's capital, where the conflict with Iran has raised fears of a renewed war with Israel. However, Hezbollah, the centrepiece of Iran's 'axis of resistance', has so far resisted getting involved. The terror group has been decimated by Israeli attacks, including one which killed Hassan Nasrallah, its leader, last September. But supporters say the group is ready to fight if called upon. Even with its reduced operational capacity, Hezbollah could still mount attacks that would distract and expend Israeli military resources that would otherwise be used in its war against Iran – partly because the group's Lebanon base is the closest in terms of physical proximity to Israel. Israel's air strikes have hit densely populated urban areas, including Dahieh, a stronghold of Hezbollah, as recently as June 5. At least nine buildings were levelled in the bombing. The Telegraph visited the area earlier this week under the supervision of a representative from Hezbollah. 'We are with Hezbollah in our hearts,' said Abbas Rachiiene. 'If it gets to a point where we need to get involved, physically and materially, then we will do so. Every time the Israelis hit us, our love for Hezbollah grows even bigger.' 'Israel keeps hitting us despite ceasefire' Mr Rachiiene, 39, lost his home two weeks ago when Israeli bombs rained down from the sky, levelling the multi-story apartment block where he lived. He now climbs atop the rubble daily to assess the progress of the cranes tasked with clearing away the debris so that rebuilding can eventually begin. 'Israel keeps hitting us despite the ceasefire, and I don't know why,' said Amal al-Zeinn, 39, who is overseeing the clean-up operation. 'Israel has no regard for the feelings of the people who lose their homes.' It is the kind of anger and groundswell of support for Hezbollah that could push its fighters into war against Israel, yet again. The prospect of being 'martyred' is almost glamorised in posters dotted around Dahieh, put up in memory of young men who died in battle against the 'Zionist enemy'. There are also pictures of the late Nasrallah too, showing him beam down on the public while flanked by Hezbollah's yellow-and-green flag. 'When the community sees that there is a need for us to get involved, I'm sure we will take it,' said Fauzi Ahmar, 28, a salesman at a shop across the street from where Mr Rachiiene's home was. 'Hezbollah has the power to fight' 'Yes, I believe Hezbollah has the power to fight. We are sure,' said Faten Kheir, 34, a school teacher, who lived in the same building as Mr Rachiiene, and also lost her home. 'Many people will say outwardly – I wish that Hezbollah will not share in the fighting [now], but really, they wish on the inside for Hezbollah to join,' she said, emphasising her point by waving her phone, the back of which held a picture of Nasrallah's hands, instantly recognisable by the iconic ring he used to wear. On Thursday, Hezbollah issued a statement pledging its continued commitment to Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and stating that it stood by the regime 'in confronting the Israeli-American aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran.' It added: 'America will soon realise it has plunged into a deep abyss due to its tyrannical support for the brutal Israeli aggression against Gaza, the resistance in the region, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.' However, Lebanese ministers have made thinly veiled overtures to Hezbollah to hold fire because the country needs time to rebuild after a crippling economic crisis and two years of an interim government due to political deadlock. Both Joseph Aoun, the country's president, and Nawaf Salam, the prime minister, who has only been in place since January, underscored this week that Lebanon needed to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict. But ideology alone may not be enough to push Hezbollah into the fray, given broader concerns regarding its political future. On top of its militant activities, the organisation is also active politically, with members in parliament and responsibilities to supporters – including paying contributions to families who lost sons and husbands at war, and to farmers whose livestock and crops were burnt in battle. Such pledges have been increasingly tough for Hezbollah to abide by as the group has been hit by Lebanon's sweeping economic crisis and disruption to its Iran-supported funding networks. The air strikes earlier this month in Dahieh came as many families were sitting down to their evening meal. Mr Rachiiene was manning his shop when the first alert came that an attack was incoming, prompting him to rush home to check on his family. 'I was so worried about them,' he said, running upstairs, throwing open the front door to thankfully find that they had all already gone downstairs to shelter. In survival mode, he did not think to save anything from home, instead hurrying back down to find his car, into which he gathered as many elderly people and children as he could fit as he helped them get out of the area. In the end, nobody in his family was killed. 'At first, I was so mad the Israelis took our home,' Mr Rachiiene said. 'But now, Iran took theirs, and that makes me feel better. We feel that Iran took revenge for us; right now, we feel Israel is living what we have lived.'
Times
38 minutes ago
- Times
Who is Iran's ruthless supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?
Tehran's bitter winter had penetrated the dungeon and left the frail inmate shivering with cold. Houshang Asadi, a communist dissident, took pity on his cellmate and gave him his sweater. The man refused it at first before tearfully accepting the gift. 'Houshang,' the man said, 'when Islam will come to power, not a single tear will be shed.' That memory of Ali Khamenei in 1975 as an idealist who suffered for his opposition to the Shah stayed with Asadi for decades to come. Years later, in 2003, Khamenei, now the undisputed dictator of Iran who threw young men and women into those same dungeons, repaid Asadi's kindness by forcing him into exile. 'He changed from a man who fought for freedom into a dictator,' Asadi told an interviewer. 'Now Mr Khamenei is more of a dictator than a shah.' If he met him again, he said, he would ask: 'Who are you, Mr Khamenei?' • Israel-Iran conflict: follow the latest news Khamenei might answer that he is a survivor, born to an impoverished cleric, Javad Khamenei, in the religious Iraqi city of Najaf in 1939. He began his religious studies at four, studying under various jurists, until one day in 1958 he came across Ruhollah Khomeini — later supreme leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989 — in the Iranian seminary city of Qom. That encounter set Khamenei down a path that almost led to his death this week, when Israel spotted an opportunity to kill the leader — although the US vetoed the plan. If Khamenei escaped assassination, it would not be the first time. He had become a confidant of Khomeini, who began sending him on missions across Iran to agitate against the Shah, leading to his arrest and eventual exile. He returned to Iran triumphantly in 1979 with his mentor, and quickly rose up the ranks of the new Islamic regime. Two years later, a bomb hidden in a tape recorder blew up in his face as he gave a religious lecture, leaving him with a paralysed right arm. • Does Iran have nuclear weapons? Why Israel is attacking now In a picture taken at his hospital bed, Khamenei peers out from behind his thick spectacles, his arm in a sling, with a faint smile hidden by his bushy moustache and beard. Three months later, he became the president of Iran. Iran in the 1980s was torn by revolutionary fervour, purges and war. Opponents of the new Islamic regime were 'disappeared' and executed, as Khomeini sought to plant the seeds of Islamic revolution — and Iran's influence — in the region by backing militants from Lebanon to Kuwait. Iraq, backed by the US and Gulf countries, invaded Iran, setting off a ruinous war. The Iraqis were beaten back fairly quickly but Khomeini and Khamenei decided to counter-invade Iraq, a decision Khamenei later rued as Iran became bogged down in a war attrition that only ended in 1988. Before Khomeini died a year later, he had chosen Khamenei to succeed him. It was a controversial choice. Khomeini had been widely expected to be replaced by the relatively moderate Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, with whom he had fallen out shortly before his death. • Inside the Iranian opposition, from a rapper to the Shah's son Unlike Montazeri, Khamenei was not a Shia religious authority, a prerequisite to become the supreme leader. But Khomeini's confidence in him — and his own uncanny ability to build a network of alliances throughout the state — thrust him onto the voting council. As with Asadi's sweater on that winter's day in 1975, Khamenei made a show of declining the gift. 'My nomination should make us all cry tears of blood,' he said. He spent the following three decades ruthlessly entrenching himself, often at the expense of the state, by planting loyalists in the Islamic Republic's power centres and playing them off each other, weakening all but him. A self-professed admirer of western literature with the affectations of a philosopher, Khamenei had doubled down on Khomeini's hatred of the US and Israel. On his watch, Iran turned into an undisputed regional power, building allies and proxies in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, while building the region's largest missile arsenal and furthering its nuclear programme. He occasionally allowed reformist presidents to be elected, only to undermine them publicly and privately. • The Iran-Israel conflict in maps, video and satellite images His police and soldiers periodically put down protests, and his regime is more unpopular than ever. In recent years, Khamanei has busied himself with preparations for his succession. After President Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash last year, he appears to have settled on one of his six children, Mojtaba. Those plans are in disarray. Iran's allies in the region have been devastated by war with Israel over the past two years, and Khamenei, who had predicted the Jewish state's demise by 2030, may not survive this one.
