The Latest: Trump says all of Tehran should evacuate ‘immediately'
U.S. President Donald Trump posted an ominous message on his social media site Monday calling for the immediate evacuation of Tehran but later denied reports he had rushed back to Washington to work on a ceasefire.
Israel's air campaign on the Iranian capital appeared to broaden on the fourth day of an intensifying conflict after it issued warnings on Monday for about 300,000 people in Tehran to evacuate ahead of airstrikes.
People were seen leaving the city Tuesday morning as shops and the historic Grand Bazaar were closed. Iranian authorities insist everything is under control and no guidance has been issued.
Here's the latest:
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People seen leaving Tehran
As the sun rose Tuesday on Iran, the downtown area of Tehran, the country's capital, appeared to be beginning to empty out.
Many shops in the capital stood closed. The city's ancient Grand Bazaar was closed, something that's rarely done, like during demonstrations or during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the roads out of Tehran to the west, traffic stood bumper to bumper. Many appeared to be heading to the Caspian Sea area, with local reports suggesting there were some diversions.
Long lines also could be seen at gas stations operating in Tehran.
Iran's capital, Tehran, is home to some 10 million people. That's roughly the same population for the entirety of Israel.
It remained unclear how the city could be evacuated.
Authorities within Iran's government continued to insist everything was under control and did not offer any guidance for the public on what to do.
G7 leaders call for de-escalation but insist Iran must not get nukes
Leaders of the Group of Seven countries meeting in Canada signed a joint statement calling for de-escalation of fighting between Israel and Iran while reaffirming that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear bomb.
The statement reads:
'We, the leaders of the G7, reiterate our commitment to peace and stability in the Middle East.
'In this context, we affirm that Israel has a right to defend itself. We reiterate our support for the security of Israel.
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'We also affirm the importance of the protection of civilians.
'Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror.
'We have been consistently clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.
'We urge that the resolution of the Iranian crisis leads to a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza.
'We will remain vigilant to the implications for international energy markets and stand ready to coordinate, including with like-minded partners, to safeguard market stability.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
28 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
What to know about bunker-buster bombs and Iran's Fordo nuclear facility
BANGKOK (AP) — If the U.S. decides to support Israel more directly in its attack on Iran, one option for Washington would be to provide the 'bunker-buster' bombs believed necessary to significantly damage the Fordo nuclear fuel enrichment plant, built deeply into a mountain. Such a bomb would have to be dropped from an American aircraft, which could have wide-ranging ramifications, including jeopardizing any chance of Iran engaging in Trump's desired talks on its nuclear program. Israeli officials have also suggested that there are other options for it to attack Fordo as it seeks to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. But aside from a commando attack on the ground or a nuclear strike, the bunker buster bomb seems the most likely option. What is the bunker-buster bomb? 'Bunker buster' is a broad term used to describe bombs that are designed to penetrate deep below the surface before exploding. In this case, it refers to the latest GBU-57 A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb in the American arsenal. The roughly 30,000 pound (13,600 kilogram) precision-guided bomb is designed to attack deeply buried and hardened bunkers and tunnels, according to the U.S. Air Force. It's believed to be able to penetrate about 200 feet (61 meters) below the surface before exploding, and the bombs can be dropped one after another, effectively drilling deeper and deeper with each successive blast. The bomb carries a conventional warhead, but the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran is producing highly enriched uranium at Fordo, raising the possibility that nuclear material could be released into the area if the GBU-57 A/B were used to hit the facility. However, Israeli strikes at another Iranian nuclear site, Natanz, on a centrifuge site have caused contamination only at the site itself, not the surrounding area, the IAEA has said. How tough a target is Fordo? Fordo is Iran's second nuclear enrichment facility after Natanz, its main facility. So far, Israeli strikes aren't known to have damaged Natanz's underground enrichment hall, nor have the Israelis targeted tunnels the Iranians are digging nearby. Fordo is smaller than Natanz, and is built into the side of a mountain near the city of Qom, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) southwest of Tehran. Construction is believed to have started around 2006 and it became first operational in 2009 — the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence. In addition to being an estimated 80 meters (260 feet) under rock and soil, the site is reportedly protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems. Those air defenses, however, likely have already been struck in the Israeli campaign. Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the goal of attacking Iran was to eliminate its missile and nuclear program, which he described as an existential threat to Israel, and officials have said Fordo was part of that plan. 'This entire operation … really has to be completed with the elimination of Fordo,' Yechiel Leiter, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., told Fox News on Friday. Why does the U.S. need to be involved? In theory, the GBU-57 A/B could be dropped by any bomber capable of carrying the weight, but at the moment the U.S. has only configured and programed its B-2 Spirit stealth bomber to deliver the bomb, according to the Air Force. The B-2 is only flown by the Air Force, and is produced by Northrop Grumman. According to the manufacturer, the B-2 can carry a payload of 40,000 pounds (18,000 kilograms) but the U.S. Air Force has said it has successfully tested the B-2 loaded with two GBU-57 A/B bunker busters — a total weight of some 60,000 pounds (27,200 kilograms). The strategic long-range heavy bomber has a range of about 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) without refueling and 11,500 miles (18,500 kilometers) with one refueling, and can reach any point in the world within hours, according to Northrop Grumman. Whether the U.S. would get involved is another matter. At the G7 meeting in Canada, Trump was asked what it would take for Washington to become involved militarily and he said: 'I don't want to talk about that.' In a weekend interview with ABC News, Israeli Ambassador Leiter was asked about the possibility of the U.S. helping attack Fordo and he emphasized Israel has only asked the U.S. for defensive help. 'We have a number of contingencies … which will enable us to deal with Fordo,' he said. 'Not everything is a matter of, you know, taking to the skies and bombing from afar.'
Vancouver Sun
28 minutes ago
- Vancouver Sun
Why are Iranian missiles hitting Israel? What to know about Iron Dome and other defence systems
It's not just the so-called Iron Dome that's protecting Israel from hundreds of Iranian missiles. The term Iron Dome has become 'a stand-in for Israeli missile defence more broadly; so, it's kind of like how we use Kleenex to describe every type of facial tissue,' said Wes Rumbaugh, a fellow in the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Defence systems known as David's Sling and The Arrow are also both helping Israel to intercept and destroy long-range missiles fired from Iran. But even Israel's vaunted missile defence system can't stop everything. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. The Iranian missile attacks began June 13 after Israel launched what it called a pre-emptive strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Operation Rising Lion targeted Iranian nuclear sites and military installations, killing hundreds, including several of the country's top military leaders. 'Iran retaliated by firing waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, where explosions flared in the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below,' the Associated Press reported Saturday. The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that the Israeli Defence Force 'provided its first statistics of the war on its shoot down success against Iran's ballistic missiles, setting it at 80-90 per cent, with only about 5-10 per cent of ballistic missiles hitting actual residential areas.' Per the Post, 'eight more Israeli civilians were killed in Iran's Sunday-Monday middle-of-the-night attacks, bringing the total number of deaths to 24, with one more missing person expected to be declared dead in the coming hours.' Here's what we know about Israel's missile defence systems, including how they work and why some missiles are still getting through. Israel fields three tiers of missile defence systems, Rumbaugh said. 'At the lowest tier is Iron Dome, which has gotten more popularity just because it gets used a lot more often against rocket and maybe lower-tier cruise missile attacks. Every time that Hamas shoots rockets at Israel, that's where Iron Dome comes in.' Recent exchanges with Iran 'are more illustrative of some of the higher tier systems — that's The Arrow missile defence system or the David's Sling missile defence system,' he said. 'Those systems intercept longer range missiles coming from Iranian territory. The Arrow system intercepts them' outside of the earth's atmosphere, Rumbaugh said. 'When it comes to missile defence systems, all of them work in a similar way,' Rumbaugh said. They all have radar systems that detect the incoming threat, some sort of control system that manages data coming in from all the various sensors 'that allows them to form a track and then translate that information to a watcher system that then engages the threat,' he said. 'In all of these cases, the engagement system is a surface-to-air missile that goes up and intercepts the threat through kinetic energy.' It reportedly costs about $50,000 to fire one interceptor from the Iron Dome system, and each missile fired from the other two would likely cost more than that, Rumbaugh said. Rumbaugh noted that the U.S. contributes about $500 million a year toward Israel's missile defence. 'Right now, I think you're getting a lot of engagements for, most likely, The Arrow system,' he said, noting Germany is acquiring the Israeli-developed system for its own protection. 'We're seeing long-range missiles fired from Iranian territory to Israel, and so to engage those at the higher speeds, you want to engage them a little bit farther away.' The further a missile travels, the faster it will be moving 'because it goes up to a higher apogee and then is coming down at a quicker rate, and so you need an interceptor that is just a little bit more capable. The Iron Dome is designed to be able to intercept smaller rocket systems like the Katyusha rockets that Hamas fields.' While the Iron Dome isn't much use against long-range missiles, it would be capable of defending against Iranian drone attacks, Rumbaugh pointed out. 'It is far too soon to have a conclusive assessment of effectiveness of the systems,' he said. 'We saw multiple examples of reasonable effectiveness of Israeli missile defence systems against Iranian attack last year. The question going forward … will be just when do the inventories start to deplete of interceptor missiles? There's not an infinite supply of these capabilities.' There are also reports, he said, of the U.S. Navy intercepting Iranian missiles with their Standard Missile 3, a ship-based surface-to-air missile. It's difficult to determine 'from grainy Twitter videos' what Iranian missiles are getting through to Israel, he said. 'There's no such thing as a perfect air and missile defence system,' Rumbaugh said. 'It's not going to stop every single missile…. Because it's just a very technical, challenging mission set, it's going to be a challenge to have a perfect defence. And as inventories sort of deplete, Israel is going to have to get more choosy and will have to make more difficult decisions about its interceptor usage and it's going to have to prioritize certain target sets or certain areas for defence over others.' Some Israeli citizens might be surprised to see missiles making it through the country's defences, Rumbaugh said. 'But I think the Israeli military probably knew and would have … factored into its decision to launch these strikes that at least some are going to get through. Even when Iron Dome is defending against rocket attacks, some of those rockets get through and, to some degree, that's occasionally a decision of the system.' If the Iron Dome detects a missile or a rocket 'isn't going toward a highly populated area, they'll preserve interceptors by not engaging that particular missile,' Rumbaugh said. The Israeli defence establishment is obliged to let the public know about casualties and what they can expect in terms of missile attacks, he said. 'The Israeli public does not want to live near their bomb shelters for an indefinite period of time,' Rumbaugh said. Rumbaugh couldn't say when Israel will run out of interceptors. 'Those sorts of inventory numbers are pretty tightly held secrets for a reason. You don't want to say how many missiles it takes to exhaust your inventory' because that would help Iran plan its attacks, Rumbaugh said. Though he noted Israel has 'managed to make the defensive task more tractable with some of their efforts to destroy Iranian missile production bases as well as destroying Iranian missiles and launchers through some of their air strikes.' But it's 'difficult to get them all,' he said. 'Both the United States and Israel have tried to eliminate the Houthis' abilities to launch missiles in the Red Sea over the last couple of years with limited success.' This is likely 'the most sustained and long-term defence' Israel has mounted against ballistic missiles, Rumbaugh said. 'They've dealt with periods where there has been lots of rocket fire from Hamas and other groups in the area,' including Hezbollah, he said. Those might have involved deploying more interceptors, Rumbaugh said. 'But the technical sophistication of the long-range missiles that Iran is firing, combined with the period over which Israel is having to defend (itself) over multiple days,' means this has been one of the 'longer range air and missile defence engagements that Israel has seen.' Israeli air bases are likely on Iran's top list of targets, he said. 'They probably need to disrupt Israeli air operations as much as possible, considering that those are what are delivering the majority of the weapons on Iranian territory right now that are destroying some of the nuclear infrastructure and are being used to carry out the attacks on Iranian military leadership,' Rumbaugh said. 'But then as the (supply of) Iranian missiles gets lower and lower, do you start to shift your focus toward civilian areas to sort of start inflicting punishment on civilian areas in an attempt to create pressure on the Israeli government to stop becomes one of the considerations that Iran's leadership has to make.' Israel hasn't been able to hit some Iranian nuclear facilities 'because they're buried deep in the mountains and they would need certain munitions types that they don't have and that the United States fields in terms of the massive ordnance penetrator type weapons,' known as Bunker Busters, Rumbaugh said. 'But is the goal to entirely roll back Iran's civilian nuclear industry? Or is Israel's goal to weaken (and) reduce the capacity of Iran's missile capabilities?' He questions whether regime change in Iran is the goal of Israeli air strikes. 'I'm not seeing Israel being able to mobilize the sort of ground forces they would need to impose regime change militarily, so will air strikes be sufficient is sort of an unclear picture for me.' Israel has said this could be a 'multi-week' set of operations, according to Rumbaugh. 'So, we might just be at the start of this.'
Edmonton Journal
30 minutes ago
- Edmonton Journal
Why are Iranian missiles hitting Israel? What to know about Iron Dome and other defence systems
Article content Defence systems known as David's Sling and The Arrow are also both helping Israel to intercept and destroy long-range missiles fired from Iran. But even Israel's vaunted missile defence system can't stop everything. The Iranian missile attacks began June 13 after Israel launched what it called a pre-emptive strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Operation Rising Lion targeted Iranian nuclear sites and military installations, killing hundreds, including several of the country's top military leaders. 'Iran retaliated by firing waves of ballistic missiles at Israel, where explosions flared in the skies over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and shook the buildings below,' the Associated Press reported Saturday. The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that the Israeli Defence Force 'provided its first statistics of the war on its shoot down success against Iran's ballistic missiles, setting it at 80-90 per cent, with only about 5-10 per cent of ballistic missiles hitting actual residential areas.'
