Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to dispatch Mossad chief Yossi Cohen to Washington in the coming weeks to lay out Israel’s demands of the Biden administration for any new version of the Iran nuclear deal, Channel 12 news reported Saturday night.
The Iranian regime has taken highly dangerous steps in recent weeks that make a military strike by Israel more likely in 2021, and thus forcing the new Biden administration to make Iran its top and most urgent foreign policy priority.
Iran on Tuesday imposed sanctions on President Donald Trump and a number of members of his administration over their alleged role in support of “terrorism,” according to its foreign ministry website.
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Monday that the country was producing almost 500 grams of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity a day, after beginning to do so earlier this month in breach of the 2015 nuclear accord.
The Asharq Al Awsat Arabic international newspaper reported Sunday that Russia hosted a meeting for Syrian and Israeli officials at the Russian airbase in Hmeimim, Syria last month, Jewish Press reports. Neither Damascus nor Jerusalem has confirmed the report.
An Iranian media network has said nine Iraqi army soldiers were killed and dozens were wounded in airstrikes near Baghdad, Iraq on Monday night, Israel National News (INN) reports. Citing an Iraqi security source, the Al-Alam network said the strikes had targeted Iraqi army and Shiite militia positions.
For the second time in as many weeks, the Air Force has flown B-52 bombers over the Middle East in what are known as “presence patrols,” officials said Sunday.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday imposed sanctions on three of his primary targets — China, Iran and Cuba — in a last-minute push aimed in part at boxing in President-elect Joe Biden.
European powers urged Iran to observe a nuclear deal after the Islamic nation test-fired long-range missiles and planned uranium metal production.
Iran has recently sent its Houthi allies in Yemen unmanned aircraft loaded with explosives known as “suicide drones,” which can reach and operate against a variety of targets including Israel, American outlet Newsweek reported.
The United States on Wednesday blacklisted two Iranian foundations controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and their subsidies, saying the institutions enabled Iran’s elite to sustain a “corrupt” system of ownership over large parts of the economy.
Israeli airstrikes in eastern Syria early Wednesday were “extensive, deep in Syrian territory, targeting a wide variety of targets connected to Iran and its proxies,” explained Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin on Twitter after the attacks.
Iran may have moved significantly closer to actually building a nuclear weapon, the Wall Street Journal reports. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a confidential report Wednesday that Tehran has started work on an assembly line for producing a central component of nuclear warheads.
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes in eastern Syria early Wednesday, targeting Iran-backed forces and killing at least 57 fighters and wounding many others, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Airstrikes near the Syria-Iraq border early Wednesday targeted sites used for Iran’s nuclear program, a senior US intelligence official told AlJazeera Wednesday.
Iranian lawmakers have begun debating a bill which includes the goal of destroying Israel in 20 years. Introduced to Iran’s parliament on Dec.30 2020, the bill describes Israel as the “aggressor Zionist regime” and states the Jewish nation constitutes a threat to Iran.
The European Union has warned Iran that its decision to increase uranium enrichment could undermine efforts to keep a nuclear deal alive. The warning comes amid diplomatic efforts to bring the United States back on board under a new administration.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday accused Iran of harboring al-Qaeda, saying the country has become a “home base” for the terror group.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Kremlin Monday, to discuss the reopening of transportation routes that were shut down amid the decades-long regional conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Associated Press reports. The meeting follows the November 10, 2020 peace deal brokered by Russia which ended 44 days of renewed hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The United Nations’ atomic watchdog chief stressed urgency Monday in reviving an Obama-era nuclear deal aimed at thwarting Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, a report says.