Baghdad US embassy evacuated amid fears of Israeli strike on Iran
The United States has told embassy staff in Iraq to evacuate amid fears Israel could be poised to strike Iran within days, regardless of American support. Non-essential US embassy staff in Baghdad are set to leave due to heightened security risks, US government sources have warned without elaborating.
President Donald Trump told media on Wednesday that 'they are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place and we'll see what happens'. Asked why family members of military personnel were allowed to voluntarily leave the region, he ominously replied: 'You'll have to see.' White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said that the decision was taken 'as a result of a recent review' by the State Department, without mentioning a possible attack.
But fears of an Israeli attack on Iran have escalated dramatically in recent days, with delicate nuclear talks between Iran and the United States appearing to stall. Multiple sources told CBS that US officials have been warned that Israel is fully ready to launch an operation into Iran, having long opposed any deal. Trump acknowledged the perceived threat in comments on Wednesday, saying 'we are not going to allow' Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Iranian defence minister Aziz Nasirzadeh warned, meanwhile, that if talks do fail and 'a conflict is imposed on us', Iran 'will target all US bases in the host countries'. A strike on Iran would disrupt the ongoing talks with the United States, now approaching their sixth round. Oman confirmed this morning that it would host the expected US-Iran talks in Muscat on Sunday.
Israel is said to have become more serious about a strike on Iran as the talks approach a preliminary or framework agreement that includes provisions about uranium enrichment that Israel views as unacceptable, NBC reports, citing five people with knowledge of the situation. A lingering concern is that Iran could retaliate against US personnel or assets in the region for any action by Israel, the report notes. Sources told the outlet that they were not aware of any planned US involvement in the possible action.
The US could - in theory - support Israel with aerial refuelling or intelligence sharing, rather than direct action against Iran, but the sources were not aware of plans for that, either. Israel has long been wary of any nuclear deal with Iran, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says that Israel has conducted multiple operations to restrain Iran's nuclear programme. Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons already. Trump, who has already told Israel it would be 'inappropriate' to strike Iran as 'we're very close to a solution', is now waiting on Iran's response to its latest proposals.
Tehran said on Monday it would present a counter-proposal on a nuclear deal, suggesting Washington's offer still contained 'ambiguities'. It is also seeking relief from sanctions. Iran and the US have been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran's uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a 'non-negotiable' right and Washington describing it as a 'red line'. Iran assures that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. But the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has not been able to verify this and in May published a damning report that claimed Iran had carried out secret nuclear activities with undeclared material.
Today, the IAEA found that Iran has failed to meet its nuclear non-proliferation obligations for the first time in 20 years, likely to set back any talks. U.S defence secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that there were 'plenty of indications' that Iran is moving towards developing a nuclear weapon, and political opponents of the regime claimed this week to have uncovered evidence that Tehran was intensifying efforts to acquire long-distance nuclear weapons. 'There are plenty of indications that they have been moving their way towards something that would look a lot like a nuclear weapon,' Hegseth said at a hearing on Wednesday. A US defence official said Hegseth authorised the voluntary departure of military dependants from locations across the Middle East.
Non-essential personnel and their family members have been allowed to leave in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait - all sitting between Israel and Iran. In Israel, Netanyahu's hard-right government survived an opposition bid to dissolve parliament on Thursday, as lawmakers rejected a bill that could have paved the way for snap elections. Out of the Knesset's 120 members, 61 voted against the proposal, with 53 in favour. The opposition had introduced the bill hoping to force elections with the help of ultra-Orthodox parties in the governing coalition angry at Netanyahu over the contentious issue of exemptions from military service for their community.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘No doubt' Trump will back nuclear submarine deal, says Starmer
There is 'no doubt' that Donald Trump will end up backing the Aukus nuclear submarine deal, Sir Keir Starmer has said during his trip to Canada ahead of the G7 summit. The pact between Australia, the UK and the US, known by its acronym, was thrown into doubt last week when the Pentagon announced a review into it. The agreement was signed in 2021 and is worth £176 billion, giving Australia nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. It is designed to counter the influence of China in the Indo-Pacific. The US president has appointed Elbridge Colby to head up the review. The former US deputy assistant secretary of defence questioned the deal in a speech last year, asking why the US was giving away 'this crown jewel asset when we most need it'. Both the US and the UK are under pressure to boost defence spending from Mr Trump, who has demanded Western allies do more to protect their own security. Sir Keir is expected to hold talks with Mr Trump during the G7 summit in Canada, giving him the opportunity to sway his counterpart to remain committed to the Aukus pact. Travelling with reporters on a plane to Canada, Sir Keir was asked what his message would be to Mr Trump about the importance of the alliance. Sir Keir said: 'Aukus is really important. We're fully committed to it. 'It's not unusual for an incoming government to do a review of a project like that. We, of course, looked into the issue when we came into government... and they're doing their own review. 'But I'm 100 per cent committed to it. I'm really clear about that.' Asked if he was confident Mr Trump would end up backing Aukus, Sir Keir said: 'Yeah, I think so. It's a really important project. So I don't have any doubt that this will progress.' The public optimism has been echoed in Australia, where Richard Marles, the defence minister, recently said of the review: 'I'm very confident this is going to happen.' Concerns about whether Mr Trump would remain fully behind Aukus were flagged early internally by Downing Street when he won the US presidential election last November. The agreement was signed by Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated Mr Trump in the 2020 presidential election and has often been a focus of his criticism. Indeed, the other two leaders who signed the pact have also changed, with Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison long gone as the leaders of the UK and Australia respectively. Mr Trump appeared not to know what the acronym Aukus meant when it was mentioned in the Oval Office during Sir Keir's first visit to the new US president in February. But the Prime Minister seems hopeful that, like the deal to hand sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius that was waved through by Mr Biden, Mr Trump will eventually give it his backing. A Pentagon official told the BBC last week when the review was announced that the process was to ensure Aukus meets 'common sense, America First criteria'. Australia is buying up to five nuclear-powered submarines at a huge expense from the US, potentially making it easy to frame the deal as a boost for the American economy. Meanwhile, the date for implementation of the UK-US free trade deal, signed off by Sir Keir and Mr Trump in May, appears to be days away. It is possible Sir Keir will announce that the agreement is finally kicking in during the G7 summit, should he hold a formal bilateral meeting with the US president.
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The mountain fortress Israel must destroy to topple Iran's nuclear programme
The events of the past few days appear to have proved that Israel has near-total air superiority over Iran. Iranian armed forces have been powerless to counter the Israeli airstrikes that have destroyed critical buildings and wiped out swathes of the Islamic Republic's military leadership. At least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists have also been killed by the unilateral operation, codenamed Rising Lion, which appears aimed at decapitating the country's nuclear programme. One key site remains unscathed, however: the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Located 20 miles from the ancient, central city of Qom, and about 100 miles south of Tehran, Fordow is one of two nuclear enrichment sites in the country. The other, in Natanz, was reportedly partially destroyed in the attacks. Hidden in the mountains, its key buildings buried deep underground, Fordow is an altogether more challenging target. Ringed by anti-air defences, it has become a symbol of Iranian defiance as well as its technological ingenuity. If Israel is truly to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities, it must disable Fordow. That's because here, uranium is enriched in centrifuges at up to 60 per cent, a shade under the purity needed to build a nuclear weapon. 'The entire operation… really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordow,' the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, told reporters on Friday. A day later, Iranian sources reported that Fordow had been attacked, but with limited damage. 'The be-all and end-all of Iran's nuclear operation' Analysts have described the mountainous fortress, which sits within an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base, as 'the be-all and end-all of Iran's nuclear operation'. 'If you don't get Fordow,' said Brett McGurk, who has worked as Middle East coordinator for several American presidents, 'you haven't eliminated their ability to produce weapons-grade material.' The problem for Israel is that it seems to lack the weapons to do the job. It is thought that Fordow's heavily fortified facilities could only be destroyed with so-called 'bunker busters', enormous bombs designed especially to penetrate buildings below ground. Israel is not believed to have such munitions, nor the heavy bombers needed to deliver them. The US, its key ally, has both positioned within striking distance of Iran. But Washington has been clear about its intent not to get directly involved in the current conflict. The result is what Peter Wildeford, a respected commentator and forecaster, calls 'The Fordow Paradox'. In an article on Saturday he wrote: 'The US possesses the military capability to destroy Fordow but lacks the political will, while Israel has the will but not the capability.' 'This fundamental misalignment between America's power and Israel's urgency explains why we're watching not just another round of strikes, but potentially the first act in nuclear proliferation's next wave.' Israel will keep looking for ways to destroy Fordow, in other words, while Iran will keep enriching uranium. 'Inconsistent with a peaceful nuclear programme' The Islamic Republic, which has long denied seeking to develop nuclear weapons, began enriching uranium at Fordow in September 2011. The site's existence had been revealed two years earlier, when declassified British, French and US intelligence reports detailed a secret facility 'inconsistent with a peaceful [nuclear] programme.' The news was so shocking that it provoked censure from China and Russia, which usually support Iran, and meant Fordow became a central point of focus in attempts to curtail the country's nuclear programme. At first, Iranian officials said the Islamic Republic would enrich uranium to 20 per cent purity for medical purposes. (The silvery-grey, radioactive metal is a critical component in the making of isotopes used in imaging and radiotherapy.) Under the terms of the landmark JCPOA nuclear deal brokered by Barack Obama in 2015, Fordow was to stop enriching uranium for 15 years and Tehran agreed to keep its level of uranium enrichment more widely at 3.67 per cent – a level considered suitable for civilian nuclear power and research purposes, but not nuclear weapons – in return for sanctions relief. By 2018, however, and the US's withdrawal from the JCPOA at Donald Trump's direction, the facility was reported to be producing enriched uranium once again. In March 2023, the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed reports that 83.7 per cent, near weapons-grade U-235, had been found at Fordow. Last week, in its latest quarterly report, the IAEA said that Iran had produced enough 60 per cent purity uranium – capable of being further enriched in a matter of days to 90 per cent weapons grade material – to potentially manufacture nine nuclear bombs. It was a 'matter of serious concern', it concluded. The rise of the bunker buster Evidently, Israeli leaders agreed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Operation Rising Lion is aimed at rolling back 'the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival', adding the operation will 'continue for as many days as it takes to remove the spread'. Meanwhile, satellite images have shown extensive damage to the nuclear facilities at Natanz and another site, Isfahan. The IAEA confirmed that critical buildings at the latter facility had been damaged. Experts believe Israel could have used bunker-busting munitions in these attacks, albeit smaller ones than those which would be needed for a meaningful strike on Fordow. Justin Bronk, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told the BBC that the pattern of explosions 'would fit with penetrating bombs being used', such as 'GBU-31(V)3s or even possibly more specialised penetrating GBU-28s'. Modern bunker busters were developed after the first Gulf War in 1990, when coalition forces came across Iraqi fortifications too strong and deeply buried for conventional munitions to damage them. The new weapons had a heavily hardened nose, initially made from an artillery barrel, and a delayed fuse, meaning they would not explode until after they had penetrated their target, rather than on initial impact. While the bombs the Israelis already possess are effective through up to six metres of reinforced concrete, the American GBU-57A/B is thought to be the only munition that could deal a serious blow to Fordow. Also known as MOP, or Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the GBU-57 is more than six metres long and weighs 14,000kg, with a 2,400kg warhead and a GPS guidance system. It can reportedly penetrate through up to 61 metres of concrete. The only plane capable of delivering it is the B-2 stealth bomber, which can carry two at a time. Another plant even more deeply fortified is under construction Still, Israel has other methods at its disposal. Some have suggested that conventional munitions, if repeatedly dropped on the same target, might be able to damage Fordow. Or it could use special forces on the ground to try to destroy the facility from inside. In April 2021, Israeli reports claimed Mossad was involved in an explosion that caused a blackout at the Natanz facility. In 2010, the Stuxnet cyber virus damaged several nuclear centrifuges. Such operations are risky, however, especially now that Iran will be on its highest alert. And even were they to successfully target Fordow, it would not represent the end of Iranian nuclear ambition. Another facility is under construction a few miles south of Natanz, at Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, nicknamed Pickaxe mountain. It will be even more deeply fortified than Fordow. Without a dramatic change in US policy, or more ingenuity, then, the Fordow Paradox is unlikely to be resolved any time soon. Iran's nuclear mountain will continue to loom large in Israeli thinking.
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Israeli spies smuggled munitions into Iran in suitcases
Israel spent months smuggling drone parts, munitions and precision equipment in suitcases, shipping containers and lorries into Iran in preparation for Friday's surprise attacks. Similar to Ukraine's recent covert operation in which agents launched kamikaze drones hidden in trucks at Russian bombers, Israel's spy agency had laid the groundwork to launch the bombings from inside Iran, people familiar with the operation told the Wall Street Journal. Mossad smuggled explosive-rigged quadcopter drones and other precision-guided equipment over sea and land to cripple Iran's anti-aircraft missiles before the strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. Citing former Mossad intelligence officers, Israeli military sources and unnamed persons familiar with the operation, the Wall Street Journal reported that small teams already in position near strategic sites took out a number of Iran's air-defence systems. They targeted dozens of missile launchers after they had emerged from shelters and were preparing to fire on the more than 200 Israeli warplanes racing across Iran's skies. F-35 jet fighters would eventually drop more than 330 munitions on over 100 targets, killing top military leaders and scientists in a strike Israel claimed was pre-emptive in order to damage the Islamic Republic's nuclear capacities. On Saturday, Israel released footage purporting to show its agents on Iranian soil deploying the attack systems that it said managed to severely limit Iran's immediate response. The exact date or location of the videos could not be independently verified. 'This is the deepest distance that we have operated so far in Iran,' Effie Defrin, Israeli military spokesman, told the Wall Street Journal. 'We created aerial freedom of action.' Mossad teams reportedly began preparing for the current drone operation years ago, using commercial trade to smuggle munitions and equipment into Iran, often without the knowledge of businesses whose cargo was being used as cover. A secret drone base was set up near Tehran, and Mossad commando team leaders trained in third countries were then returned to Iran where they prepared with small teams on the ground in central Iran at various strategic anti-aircraft sites when Israel's attack began. Iran has many more missiles than it does trucks to transport them, a battlefield bottleneck that Mossad took advantage of by hitting the surface-to-surface missile launchers while on trucks, or in the phase of being set up for launch.
