EAM Jaishankar talks to Israeli, Iranian counterparts amid tensions
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday spoke with his counterparts in both countries on the latest situation.
Jaishankar shared the update in two late night posts on X.
Follow LIVE updates on the Israel Iran strikes here
In one post, the EAM wrote that he received a call from Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Sa'ar.
"Received a call this afternoon from FM @gidonsaar of Israel regarding ongoing developments," he posted.
Also Read: Iran strikes Israel: Explosions, smoke and sirens as Tel Aviv reels from attack
Later, in another post, the EAM said he also had a telephonic conversation with Iran's Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi.
"Spoke to Iranian FM @araghchi this evening on the latest situation," he wrote on X.
Also Read: Iran issues cryptic 'we are ready' warning as tensions with US rise
Earlier in the day, as Israel conducted strikes at Iran's nuclear, missile and military complexes, mounting tension in West Asia, India said it is "deeply concerned" over the recent developments between the countries and is "closely monitoring" the evolving situation, even as New Delhi urged both nations to avoid any escalatory steps.
The MEA issued the statement on Friday as tensions between Iran and Israel escalated following the strikes.
Israel on Friday launched Operation Rising Lion to strike at multiple sites in Iran, which left key military commanders and nuclear scientists dead, according to reports.
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Mint
8 minutes ago
- Mint
Israel's attacks leave Iran's supreme leader exposed—with no good options
Israel's devastating attack on Iran has put the Islamic Republic in existential peril and exposed deep vulnerabilities in the intelligence services that have kept Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in power for nearly four decades. Tehran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv Friday after Israeli warplanes carried out waves of strikes across Iran a day earlier, targeting the country's nuclear facilities and killing several of its highest-ranking commanders and senior scientists. Israel's attacks amounted to the most serious blow struck in a confrontation that erupted between the two longtime foes on Oct. 7, 2023. Iran has so far been unable to respond in kind. Most of the missiles it fired at Tel Aviv were intercepted or caused little damage. Now, Khamenei faces stark choices—and no good options. Iran's bruising fight with Israel has left its military weakened. Further retaliation risks being insufficient to deter future attacks and prompting Israel to hit back harder. Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea or other U.S. interests or personnel will likely draw an American response, something Khamenei has historically tried to avoid. Yielding to pressure and striking a nuclear deal with the U.S. that severely curbs Iran's enrichment capability will be seen among Khamenei's hard-line supporters, whom he has increasingly come to rely on, as an unacceptable capitulation. For decades, Khamenei was the architect behind Iran's military and political expansion in the Middle East, using the Revolutionary Guard and its network of allied Shiite militias. He secured his rule at home by building fierce loyalty among those who supported him, and a pervasive surveillance state to suppress those who didn't. Now, the octogenarian ruler who has led Iran since 1989 will likely spend the autumn of his life fighting—not to expand, but to salvage the Islamic Republic he helped build into a regional powerhouse. 'If he is honest with himself, he will admit that he has lost. Everything he has worked for is crumbling before his eyes," said Afshon Ostovar, associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. 'The ship that he stewarded has run aground." Khamenei has flaunted Iran's military might, but until recently, it remained untested. That changed with the attack by Hamas—an Iranian ally—on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, while waging war in Gaza, Israel has killed nearly a dozen senior Iranian military commanders, including, on Friday, the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces chief of staff and the commander who oversaw its ballistic missile program. Israel also crippled Iran's chief regional allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, while a third, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was toppled in December. Iranian Major Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was killed in Israel's attack on the Islamic Republic. After building up a military presence in the region, including heavily armed militia fighters on the border with Israel, Khamenei and his senior advisers gravely underestimated Israel's willingness to confront it with force, said Hamidreza Azizi, visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, or SWP. Even as tensions rose so high that the U.S. earlier this week withdrew diplomatic personnel from Iraq, the top echelon of Iran's security establishment were apparently not placed in secure facilities. 'Most of them were targeted in their homes. It shows a level of overconfidence that is not comprehensible, really, in a situation like this," Azizi said. The way Israel has been able to penetrate Iranian intelligence and seemingly target its top officials at will is a problem for the supreme leader. Firstly, it makes Khamenei himself vulnerable to being targeted. 'If Netanyahu's goal actually is to eradicate the part of the nuclear program that can be weaponized, and to topple the regime, that will require a lot more," said Rasmus Christian Elling, associate professor of Iranian studies at the University of Copenhagen. 'And perhaps that's what we're going to see in the coming weeks," he said. Secondly, Khamenei's rule partly depends on being a guarantor of national security. For all its unpopularity at home, the Islamic Republic has for decades provided relative safety for its citizens from the wars and terrorist attacks that ravaged neighboring countries. Since Khamenei came to power shortly after an eight-year war with Iraq, one of the worst global wars of the past century, Iran has kept hostile forces away from its soil. Over the past decade, while Islamic State killed tens of thousands in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, the extremist group carried out four major attacks in Iran that killed roughly 150 people—fewer than it killed over the same period in France. The security structure that is now crumbling around Khamenei has been in place since the early days of the Islamic Republic. The revolutionaries behind the 1979 ouster of the American-backed shah vowed to protect their new theocratic state from the kind of uprising that they had just pulled off. To that end, they established the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a pervasive intelligence service. Israel has exposed both as increasingly fragile. Between 2010 and 2012, Tehran accused Israel of killing four nuclear scientists inside Iran. In 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, regarded as the father of Iran's nuclear weapons program in the 1990s and 2000s, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun in an audacious, suspected Israeli attack. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed several top Iranian commanders in Syria. It blew up Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a guesthouse in Tehran by placing a bomb in his room. And on Friday, it targeted several of Iran's most prominent commanders simultaneously. Part of the attack on air-defense systems and missile launchers was carried out with explosive drones and other guided weapons, smuggled into Iran by agents from Israel's spy agency Mossad, according to an Israeli security official. Still, Iranians are unlikely to seize the moment to foment an uprising, largely because their leaders will do what it takes to protect their rule, said Ostovar. 'Even though Iran has lost its ability to wage a serious war against its adversaries, it can still wage a serious war against its citizens," he said. 'I think it's actually a very dangerous time for people in Iran." Iran is in a much weaker position beyond its borders. Its longtime tool of deterrence—its regional militias—have been decimated. Its two missile attacks against Israel over the past year were largely unsuccessful. Yet, Khamenei hard-line supporters, who he relies on, will demand a defiant response to what they see as a continuing Israeli campaign, said Azizi, of SWP. They are unlikely to favor an immediate continuation of nuclear negotiations with the U.S., which were scheduled to resume for a sixth round on Sunday. 'It's a choice between continuing this war, engaging full-force, or surrender," he said. 'It's already clear to people within the system that regardless of whether and how they respond, Israel is going to continue." Write to Sune Engel Rasmussen at
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First Post
9 minutes ago
- First Post
Is Netanyahu aiming for a regime change in Iran with Operation Rising Lion?
The strikes early on Friday hit not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile factories but also key figures in the country's military chain of command and its nuclear scientists, blows that appear aimed at diminishing Iran's credibility both at home and among its allies in the region read more Israel's surprise attack on Iran had an obvious goal of sharply disrupting Tehran's nuclear programme and lengthening the time it would need to develop an atomic weapon. But the scale of the attacks, Israel's choice of targets, and its politicians' own words suggest another, longer-term ambition: toppling the regime itself. The strikes early on Friday hit not just Iran's nuclear facilities and missile factories but also key figures in the country's military chain of command and its nuclear scientists, blows that appear aimed at diminishing Iran's credibility both at home and among its allies in the region - factors that could destabilize the Iranian leadership, experts said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'One assumes that one of the reasons that Israel is doing that is that they're hoping to see regime change,' said Michael Singh of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior official under President George W. Bush. 'It would like to see the people of Iran rise up,' he said, adding that the limited civilian casualties in the initial round of attacks also spoke to a broader aim. In a video address hours after Israeli fighter jets began striking Iranian nuclear facilities and air defence systems, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appealed to the Iranian people directly. 'The Islamic regime, which has oppressed you for almost 50 years, threatens to destroy our country, the State of Israel,' Netanyahu said. Israel's objective was to remove the nuclear and ballistic missile threat, he said, but added: 'As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom. 'The regime does not know what hit them, or what will hit them. It has never been weaker. This is your opportunity to stand up and let your voices be heard,' Netanyahu said. But despite the damage inflicted by the unprecedented Israeli attack, decades of enmity toward Israel - not only among Iran's rulers but its majority-Shi'ite population - raises questions about the prospect for fomenting enough public support to oust an entrenched theocratic leadership in Tehran backed by loyal security forces. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Singh cautioned that no one knows what conditions would be required for an opposition to coalesce in Iran. Friday's assault was the first phase of what Israel said would be a prolonged operation. Experts said they expected Israel would continue to go after key Iranian nuclear infrastructure to delay Tehran's march to a nuclear bomb - even if Israel on its own does not have the capability to eliminate Iran's nuclear program. Iran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only. The U.N. nuclear watchdog concluded this week that it was in violation of its obligations under the global non-proliferation treaty. Israel's first salvoes targeted senior figures in Iran's military and scientific establishment, took out much of the country's air defence system and destroyed the above-ground enrichment plant at Iran's nuclear site. 'As a democratic country, the State of Israel believes that it is up to the people of a country to shape their national politics, and choose their government,' the Israeli embassy in Washington told Reuters. 'The future of Iran can only be determined by the Iranian people.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Netanyahu has called for a change in Iran's government, including in September. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, while acquiescing to Israel's strikes and helping its close ally fend off Iran's retaliatory missile barrage, has given no indication that it seeks regime change in Tehran. The White House and Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York also did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter. Ending nuclear programme beyond reach for now Israel has much further to go if it is to dismantle Iran's nuclear facilities, and military analysts have always said it might be impossible to totally disable the well-fortified sites dotted around Iran. The Israeli government has also cautioned that Iran's nuclear programme could not be entirely destroyed by means of a military campaign. 'There's no way to destroy a nuclear programme by military means,' Israel's National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel's Channel 13 TV. The military campaign could, however, create conditions for a deal with the United States that would thwart the nuclear programme. Analysts also remain sceptical that Israel will have the munitions needed to obliterate Iran's nuclear project on its own. 'Israel probably cannot take out completely the nuclear project on its own without the American participation,' Sima Shine, a former chief Mossad analyst and now a researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, told reporters on Friday. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD While setting back Tehran's nuclear programme would have value for Israel, the hope for undermining the regime could explain why Israel went after so many senior military figures, potentially throwing the Iranian security establishment into confusion and chaos. 'These people were very vital, very knowledgeable, many years in their jobs, and they were a very important component of the stability of the regime, specifically the security stability of the regime,' said Shine. 'In the ideal world, Israel would prefer to see a change of regime, no question about that,' she said. But such a change would come with risk, said Jonathan Panikoff, a former U.S. deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East who is now at the Atlantic Council. If Israel succeeds in removing Iran's leadership, there is no guarantee the successor that emerges would not be even more hardline in pursuit of conflict with Israel. 'For years, many in Israel have insisted that regime change in Iran would prompt a new and better day - that nothing could be worse than the current theocratic regime,' Panikoff said. 'But history tells us it can always be worse.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
NDTV
17 minutes ago
- NDTV
"We Felt The Land Shake, We Are Scared": Indian Students In Iran Seek Evacuation
Indian students in Iran have urged the government for evacuation in the backdrop of Israeli strikes that targeted nuclear and military sites in Tehran and other areas near the capital of the country. "Right now the situation is calm and we are safe, but we are feeling scared. The attack started at around 3:30 am and we felt the land shake. It was a concerning experience," Tabiya Zahra, a second-year MBBS student from Kashmir at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), told PTI. Zahra said the university officials visited them and advised them to remain calm. However, they had been given no information regarding areas that might be safer. She raised issues about the uncertain security situation and limited communication because of internet disruptions. Another student, Alisha Rizvi from Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh, said "the embassy asked us to email our local addresses and contact details for emergency purposes". "They are trying to collect data in case evacuation is needed," she added. Both the students are in their second year of a 5.5 year MBBS program, and had gone to Tehran in 2023. They also confirmed that the airspace over Tehran had been closed and flights from Imam Khomeini International Airport had been suspended after the strikes. On Friday, Israel attacked multiple Iranian nuclear and military sites. The Israeli leaders said that the attack was necessary as there was an imminent threat of Iran building a nuclear weapon. Iran and the US were already having discussions related to a nuclear deal that could have resulted in the US lifting some of its crushing economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran drastically limiting or ending its enrichment of uranium. In response to Israel's offensive, Iran launched a retaliatory attack sending a swarm of drones toward Israel. The Jammu and Kashmir Students Association had written to External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, requesting for assistance. Jammu and Kashmir Students Association national convenor Nasir Khuehami said that students have reported hearing air raid sirens and feeling tremors. "We are receiving calls from the students and their families, requesting assistance. We urge the government to stay prepared and take necessary steps if evacuation becomes unavoidable," he said.
