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Iran says Shahran oil depot targeted in Israeli attack

Iran says Shahran oil depot targeted in Israeli attack

Reuters14-06-2025
June 14 (Reuters) - Iran said the Shahran oil depot in Tehran was targeted in an Israeli attack on Saturday but that the "situation was under control".
"The fuel volume in the targeted tank was not high, and the situation is fully under control," Iran's oil ministry's SHANA news agency reported.
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Taliban hands over Afghans on ‘kill list' to Iran
Taliban hands over Afghans on ‘kill list' to Iran

Telegraph

time2 hours ago

  • Telegraph

Taliban hands over Afghans on ‘kill list' to Iran

The Taliban is handing over three Afghans that it suspects of spying for Britain to Iran. The transfer follows a secret deal between the two Islamist regimes to cooperate in arresting people who worked with British forces in Afghanistan. The three are understood to have been included on a leaked list that contained names of Afghans who applied for asylum in Britain. It included soldiers who worked with the British Army, as well as intelligence assets and special forces personnel. British officials have now urged the Islamist regime to 'honour' a general amnesty that it announced in 2021 after taking over the country. Newspapers including The Telegraph were banned from revealing the leak under an unprecedented two year High Court super-injunction that was finally lifted in July, following a legal challenge. The handing-over of suspected British spies to Iran follows high-level negotiations between Taliban leadership and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officials who flew to Kabul last week to formalise an intelligence-sharing arrangement. The agreement allows both governments to pursue individuals identified in the compromised British database. Senior Taliban officials said the suspected spies are being held in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and that their transfer to Tehran is awaiting approval from the interior ministry. Sources claimed that the men had been named in a leaked spreadsheet containing the details of 25,000 Afghans who applied to the British Government to be resettled out of Afghanistan. While it has not been possible to verify their identities, Iran wants to obtain the 'kill list' because it contains the identities of more than 100 MI6 agents and British special forces personnel. Iran seeks to use the suspected spies as leverage in ongoing negotiations with Western powers over its nuclear programme, while the Taliban hopes to secure diplomatic recognition of its government in exchange for the cooperation. So far, only Russia has officially recognised the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan since they returned to power four years ago. The Taliban has been holding at least 13 people said to be named on the leaked list at a house in Kandahar over the past few weeks. Taliban officials have shared their names with Iranian intelligence forces, who then selected three they believed worked as British agents during the two-decade US-led invasion of Afghanistan. 'Blindfolded and put on plane to Kabul' A senior Taliban official in Kandahar said: 'The names of those in the house were sent to Tehran after the IRGC officers' visit, and they then responded that they believed three of them were spies and wanted them.' He added: 'On Saturday, the three were blindfolded, taken from the house, and put on a plane to Kabul.' The Taliban's decision to share the database followed internal deliberations within its leadership in Kandahar. A second senior Taliban official in Kabul said some faction members opposed cooperation with Iran because of Tehran's mistreatment of Afghan refugees. However, the prospect of Iranian diplomatic recognition ultimately swayed the decision. The agreement between the IRGC and the Taliban has deepened divisions between the Taliban administration in Kabul and top clerics in Kandahar. Ministers in Kabul such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban interior minister, argue that the Taliban should be seeking bargaining chips against Britain rather than sending 'valuable assets' to Tehran. He is in conflict with the Taliban establishment in Kandahar over his hardline views and a crackdown on women in recent months. The Taliban official in Kabul told The Telegraph that the interior minister is not satisfied with the handing-over of the three alleged British spies, saying: 'I don't even think Haqqani himself is happy about it as he's in conflict with the supreme mullah.' He added: 'When an order comes from Kandahar, [Haqqani] has no choice but to say yes. 'Haqqani wants to use them against the West, but the supreme mullah and the people are more focused on gaining recognition from as many countries as possible, even if it means cooperating with Iranians.' The Islamic Republic's foreign ministry attacked The Telegraph on Tuesday over its coverage of the leaked list, branding reports of the fact that the IRGC were meeting the Taliban an attempt to 'divert the public from the genocide happening in Gaza'. The security breach happened when a Royal Marine accidentally emailed the complete database to Afghan contacts in Britain instead of sending a limited extract. The spreadsheet included names, telephone numbers and email addresses of Afghan soldiers, government workers and family members who had applied to relocate under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy following the Western military withdrawal in August 2021. The Government imposed a super-injunction in September 2023 preventing media coverage of the data breach, which has been described as one of the most damaging intelligence leaks in recent history. Johnny Mercer, the former veterans' minister who served in Afghanistan, called the leak 'gut-wrenching'. Taliban officials told The Telegraph that the British cover-up of the list was pointless because it already possessed all the victims' details. The total relocation programme for Afghans could cost up to £7bn of taxpayers' money. The leaked database has created ongoing security risks for thousands of Afghans who assisted British forces during the war. Some individuals identified in the documents are believed to have fled to Iran to escape Taliban reprisals, only to face arrest by Iranian authorities. Several people whose names appeared on the leaked list have been arrested by Iranian border forces in recent days, The Telegraph understands. 'Focus on British spies' An Iranian official said: 'Many were released because they were only former Afghan soldiers, while others are being held for further checks. The focus is just on British spies.' The cooperation agreement between the Taliban and Iran represents a shift in regional dynamics. Both governments, isolated by international sanctions and lacking widespread diplomatic recognition, appear to be leveraging their shared hostility toward Western intelligence operations to strengthen bilateral ties. The agreement follows threats from Britain, France and Germany to impose crippling economic sanctions if Iran does not resume nuclear talks by the end of August 2025. Under a 2015 deal, Iran received relief from years of trade and banking restrictions in return for limits on its nuclear enrichment programme to prevent weapons development. That deal is due to expire on Oct 18. The Taliban's control of Afghanistan since August 2021 has enabled the group to access government records and pursue former collaborators with international forces. The regime has previously been accused of conducting reprisal killings against Afghans who worked with Western militaries, despite initial promises of amnesty. IRGC, designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, has historically operated extensive intelligence and proxy networks across the Middle East. A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesman declined to comment, but it is understood that the British Government has urged the Taliban to honour its 2021 commitment to an amnesty for Afghans who worked with Western forces. A Taliban official told The Telegraph in July: 'There may be a general amnesty in place, but spies cannot escape justice.'

Revealed: Israeli military's own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war
Revealed: Israeli military's own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war

The Guardian

time2 hours ago

  • The Guardian

Revealed: Israeli military's own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war

Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare. As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or 'probably dead', a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found. At that time 53,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, according to health authorities in Gaza, a toll that included combatants and civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17% of the total. That apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killing, including the Syrian and Sudanese civil wars. 'That proportion of civilians among those killed would be unusually high, particularly as it has been going on for such a long time,' said Therése Pettersson from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which tracks civilian casualties worldwide. 'If you single out a particular city or battle in another conflict, you could find similar rates, but very rarely overall.' 8,900 Named fighters listed as dead or 'probably dead' in Israeli database as of May 2025 In global conflicts tracked by UCDP since 1989, civilians made up a greater proportion of the dead only in Srebenica – although not the Bosnian war overall – in the Rwandan genocide, and during the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022, Pettersson said. Many genocide scholars, lawyers and human rights activists, including Israeli academics and campaign groups, say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing the mass killing of civilians and imposed starvation. The Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the database or dispute the data on Hamas and PIJ deaths when approached for comment by Local Call and +972 Magazine. When the Guardian asked for comment on the same data, a spokesperson said they had decided to 'rephrase' their response. A brief statement sent to the Guardian did not directly address questions about the military intelligence database. It said 'figures presented in the article are incorrect', without specifying which data the Israeli military disputed. It also said the numbers 'do not reflect the data available in the IDF's systems', without detailing which systems. A spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked why the military had given different responses to questions about a single set of data. The database names 47,653 Palestinians considered active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ. It is based on apparent internal documents from the groups seized in Gaza, which have not been viewed or verified by the Guardian. Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said the military viewed it as the only authoritative tally of militant casualties. The military also considers the Gaza health ministry toll reliable, Local Call has reported, and the former head of military intelligence appeared to cite it recently, even though Israeli politicians regularly dismiss the numbers as propaganda. 52,928 Gaza health ministry's overall death toll as of 14 May 2025 Both databases may underestimate casualty numbers. The Gaza ministry of health lists only people whose bodies have been recovered, not the thousands buried under rubble. Israeli military intelligence are not aware of all militant deaths or all new recruits. But the databases are the ones used by Israeli officers for war planning. Israeli politicians and generals have variously put the number of militants killed as high as 20,000, or claimed a civilian-to-combatant ratio as low as 1:1. The higher totals cited by Israeli officials may include civilians with Hamas links, such as government administrators and police, even though international law prohibits targeting people not engaged in combat. They probably also include Palestinians with no Hamas connections. Israel's southern command allowed soldiers to report people killed in Gaza as militant casualties without identification or verification. 'People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death,' said one intelligence source who accompanied forces on the ground. 'If I had listened to the brigade, I would have come to the conclusion that we had killed 200% of Hamas operatives in the area.' Itzhak Brik, a retired general, said serving Israeli soldiers were aware that politicians exaggerated the Hamas toll. Brik advised the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the war and is now among his most strident critics. 'There is absolutely no connection between the numbers that are announced and what is actually happening. It is just one big bluff,' he said. Brik commanded Israel's military colleges, and said he kept in touch with serving officers. He described meeting soldiers from a unit identifying Palestinians killed in Gaza, who told him 'most of them' were civilians. Even though much of Gaza has been reduced to ruins and tens of thousands of people killed, the classified database lists nearly 40,000 people considered by the army to be militants and still alive. Casualty estimates from Hamas and PIJ members also indicated Israeli officials were inflating the militant toll in public statements, said Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian analyst. By December 2024 an estimated 6,500 people from the military and political wings of both groups had been killed, members told him. 'Israel expands the boundaries so they can define every single person in Gaza as Hamas,' he said. 'All of it is killing in the moment for tactical purposes that have nothing to do with extinguishing a threat.' The ratio of civilian casualties among the dead may have increased further since May, when Israel tried to replace UN and humanitarian organisations that had fed Palestinians throughout the war. Israeli forces have killed hundreds of people trying to get food from distribution centres in military exclusion zones. Now starving survivors, already forced into just 20% of the territory, have been ordered to leave the north as Israel prepares for another ground operation that is likely to have catastrophic consequences for civilians. The scale of the killing was partly owing to the nature of the conflict, said Mary Kaldor, professor emeritus at the LSE, director of the Conflict Research Programme and author of New Wars, an influential book about warfare in the post-cold-war era. International humanitarian law was developed to protect civilians in conventional wars, in which states deploy troops to face each other on the battlefield. This is still largely the model for Russia's war in Ukraine. In Gaza Israel is fighting Hamas militants in densely populated cities, and has set rules of engagement that allow its forces to kill large numbers of civilians in strikes on even low-ranking militants. 'In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians,' Kaldor said. The ratio of civilians among the dead in Gaza was more comparable to recent wars in Sudan, Yemen, Uganda and Syria, where much of the violence had been directed against civilians, she said. 'These are wars where the armed groups tend to avoid battle. They don't want to fight each other, they want to control territory and they do that by killing civilians,. 'Maybe that is the same with Israel, and this is a model of war [in Gaza] that is about dominating a population and controlling land. Maybe the objective always was forced displacement.' Israel's government says the war is one of self-defence after the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people. But political and military leaders regularly use genocidal rhetoric. The general who led military intelligence when the war began has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day, adding that 'it does not matter now if they are children'. Aharon Haliva, who stepped down in April 2024, said mass killing in Gaza was 'necessary' as a 'message to future generations' of Palestinians, in recordings broadcast on Israeli TV this month. Many Israeli soldiers have testified that all Palestinians are treated as targets in Gaza. One stationed in Rafah this year said his unit had created an 'imaginary line' in the sand and fired at anyone who crossed it, including twice at children and once at a woman. They shot to kill, not to warn, he said. 'Nobody aimed for their legs'. Neta Crawford, a professor of international relations at Oxford University and co-founder of the Costs of War project, said Israeli tactics marked a 'worrisome' abandonment of decades of practices developed to protect civilians. In the 1970s public revulsion about American massacres in Vietnam forced western militaries to shift how they fought. New policies were imperfectly implemented but reflected a focus on limiting harm to civilians that no longer appeared to be part of Israel's military calculus, she said. 'They say they're using the same kinds of procedures for civilian casualty estimation and mitigation as states like the United States. But if you look at these casualty rates, and their practices with the bombing and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, it is clear that they are not.'

Former Wimbledon champion tells how terrifying knife attack left her battling anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks - after ordeal left her with irreversible damage
Former Wimbledon champion tells how terrifying knife attack left her battling anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks - after ordeal left her with irreversible damage

Daily Mail​

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mail​

Former Wimbledon champion tells how terrifying knife attack left her battling anxiety, nightmares and flashbacks - after ordeal left her with irreversible damage

has opened up about the terrifying knife attack she suffered which put her career in doubt, admitting she was left 'crying on the court' and 'having nightmares'. The Czech Republic tennis star, now 35, is playing her final tournament this month at the US Open after announcing her retirement from the sport earlier this summer. She shot onto the scene more than 14 years ago when she won Wimbledon in 2011, becoming the first player born in the 1990s to secure a Grand Slam title. That first major was followed by a host of tournament victories worldwide, making Kvitova one of the most recognised names in women's tennis. But in 2016 she suffered a huge setback in her career after suffering a horrific knife attack when an intruder entered her home. The man, 33-year-old Radim Kondra, told the sportswoman he was at the house to inspect a boiler before grabbing her from behind and holding a knife to her throat. She's enjoyed a hugely successful career, winning 31 tournaments worldwide and reaching a high of World No 2 As she tried to free herself, Kvitova, then aged 26, suffered severe wounds to her left hand, leaving her fearing her career could be over. Before undergoing surgery, doctors gave her just a 10 per cent chance of taking to the professional court again - but Kvitova made a miraculous return just six months later. She too went on to win a further 12 career titles on her way to a career high of world No 2. Now, ahead of her retirement, the tennis star has reflected on the petrifying ordeal. 'I knew I was a big fighter on the court but at that time I realised how I am an even bigger fighter in a totally different version of myself,' she told The Guardian this week. 'That was great, even though it was very tough to play tennis. I cried on the court, I had really bad flashbacks, I was having nightmares. 'So it wasn't easy, it took a while but it's all good now. There was a question mark, can I play tennis or not? And I could. It was my second career. It was amazing.' Speaking about her retirement this month, the tennis star admitted she has 'no regrets' about her career. 'You still remember how you played before, how everything was smooth and I was hitting winners and suddenly it's not there,' she added. 'I'm totally ready [to retire]. I'm not regretting anything. I still love tennis but everything else, waiting for the practices, waiting for the car, waiting for a match, it's just tiring. 'And having a son, it's a totally different life. I just want to spend more time with him as well. Kvitova welcomed her son, named Petr, with her tennis coach husband in July 2024. She goes into her final ever tournament in New York this week seeded 14th - and will no-doubt be hoping to end her career triumphantly.

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