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.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday met said during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s foreign minister that regional normalization deals leave Iran “ever more isolated”.
Saudi Arabia has announced it will consider obtaining nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them, the Times of Israel reports. The Saudi Minister for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir made the announcement during a recent interview with the German news agency DPA.
Israel carried out a round of airstrikes in Syria early Wednesday morning in what military officials said was a message to Iran to get out of the country, the Times of Israel reports. The strikes followed a thwarted Iran-backed attempt to set off anti-personnel mines against Israeli troops on the Golan Heights this week.
The Israel Defense Forces attacked Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria early Wednesday morning in response to explosives troops uncovered on Israel’s border with Syria on Tuesday.
Iran warned on Tuesday of a “crushing response” in the wake of reports US President Donald Trump convened top advisers last week to ask if he had options to strike Iranian nuclear sites during his final weeks in office.
This would seem to be all the truer about the most radical and fanatical Sunnis, al-Qaeda, and their counterpart fanatical Shi’ites, the Iranian regime.
Hungary’s anti-migration government has warned that surging Christian persecution must end worldwide, including in Europe, which faced several Islamic terror attacks.
The United States and Israel could have some potential surprises waiting in store for Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, in the final weeks of the Trump administration, including the possibility of launching strikes against a nuclear facility.
The United States and Israel worked together to track and kill a senior Al Qaeda operative in Iran earlier this year, a bold intelligence operation by the two allied nations that came as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Tehran.
Iran will reduce the access international nuclear inspectors have to its sites following a new watchdog report indicating Tehran is stockpiling more than 12 times the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the 2015 nuclear agreement.
The speculation has a number of catalysts. First was the firing of Mark Esper as secretary of defense this past week and the replacement of him and other top Pentagon officials with Trump ideologues. Some media outlets in the US have raised the possibility that Trump wanted to get Esper out of the way, so he could more easily carry out controversial military moves.