Iranian parliament has passed a “double-urgency” bill to increase the level of uranium enrichment to weapons-grade, Jerusalem Online reports. The move follows the recent assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Damavand, east of Tehran on November 27.
The Trump administration ordered a drawdown of diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq until some time in January due to risks of a potential attack, according to a new report.
Iranian officials have taken a major step to suspend U.N. inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities.
Members of Iran’s parliament Tuesday chanted “death to Israel,” and they voted to increase the level of uranium enrichment to 20% and to halt U.N. nuclear inspections in reaction to the killing Friday of the country’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. At the same time, Arab and Iranian media reported the killings of two more high-level Iranian military and intelligence officials within the past 48 hours.
A former head of Israel’s military intelligence service has said it will be almost impossible for Iran to replace top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was assassinated Friday in an operation attributed to Israeli spy agency Mossad, World Israel News reports. Moreover, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanon-based Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah, has reportedly gone underground out of concern he may be targeted next.
A senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was killed in an apparent drone strike along the Syrian-Iraqi border, according to widely circulated reports in Arabic-language media Monday.
Six former European diplomats are calling on European governments to coordinate efforts to urge an incoming Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, from which President Trump withdrew in 2018, and to agree with the regime in Tehran on steps for mutual compliance.
Iran made clear Sunday it was considering attacking Israel’s port city of Haifa to avenge the killing of its top nuclear scientist.
White House adviser Jared Kushner will travel to Saudi Arabia this week, in an apparent last-ditch effort to broker a normalization deal between the kingdom and Israel, according to a report on Sunday.
Amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said Sunday that the army will continue to operate forcefully as needed against Iranian entrenchment in Syria.
The U.S. ordered the U.S.S. Nimitz and its strike group to return to the Persian Gulf to serve in a defensive capacity as U.S. forces in the region continue to drawdown during the final weeks of the Trump administration. The action coincides with rising tensions in the region between U.S. allies and Iran after a top Iranian nuclear scientist was taken out in a highly coordinated hit this week.
An Iranian nuclear scientist, who Israel alleges was in charge of Iran’s military nuclear program until the early 2000s, has been assassinated, the Associated Press reports. Iranian state media have reported that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed on Friday. Israel has not immediately commented on the death.
Airstrikes likely carried out by Israel killed at least 19 pro-Iran militia fighters in war-torn eastern Syria, a war monitor said Thursday.
The Trump administration plans to tighten sanctions on Tehran during its final months in power, the top US envoy on Iran said on Wednesday, as he urged President-elect Joe Biden to use the leverage to press for a deal that reduces the regional and nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic.
The Israel Defense Forces have in recent weeks been instructed to prepare for the possibility that the U.S. will conduct a military strike against Iran before President Trump leaves office, senior Israeli officials tell me.
The United States this week rapidly deployed several heavy bombers to the Middle East this week in an apparent threat to Iran, amid swirling speculation that US President Donald Trump plans to take military action against Tehran before President-elect Joe Biden enters office.
Iran on Sunday vowed to defeat any Israeli attempt to harm its role in Syria, saying the era of “hit and run” attacks by Israel there was over, days after Israel carried out airstrikes on the Syrian army and Iranian paramilitary targets in the country.
Iran has instructed allies across the Middle East to be on high alert and avoid provoking tensions with the US that could give an outgoing Trump administration cause to launch attacks in the US president’s final weeks in office, Iraqi officials have said.
The United States hit Iran with new sanctions on Wednesday, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the case that undoing the actions of the Trump administration would be foolish and dangerous.
The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday night released footage of some of its predawn airstrikes against Iranian and Syrian military sites in southern Syria, which came in response to an attempted attack on Israeli troops that was thwarted the day before.