Category Archives: Iran

Iran’s foreign minister describes moment of attack that killed Khamenei

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Abbas Araghchi says he has kept on the move since being pulled from rubble after strike on first day of war

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has described how he was pulled from the rubble of a leadership compound after the US-Israeli airstrike that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war, and has survived since by constantly moving around the capital, Tehran, by car.

In an interview with the Iranian journalist Javad Mogouyi, Araghchi confirmed Israel and the US had accurate intelligence on the location of Khamenei and other officials, enabling them to target Iran’s senior leadership.

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Zendaya faces backlash for wearing ancient Iranian jewellery at Odyssey event

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Film star promotes Christopher Nolan film epic wearing gold artefacts dating back almost 3,000 years

The Odyssey is a story about a Greek king’s long journey home. But a pair of earrings worn on the new film adaptation’s press tour – and their long separation from their homeland – is sparking controversy.

At a photocall in London, Zendaya, who plays the goddess Athena in the Christopher Nolan film, wore a pair of earrings fashioned from Iranian artefacts dating back to 700BC.

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US identifies soldier killed destroying downed Iranian drone in Iraq

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Sgt Michael Emmanuel Swinton died during controlled detonation, bringing total of US personnel killed in war to 17

The US military has identified an army soldier killed recently during a “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone in Iraq as Sgt Michael Emmanuel Swinton, of Fayetteville, North Carolina.

According to a press release from the US defense department on Tuesday morning, the 30-year-old Swinton was supporting overseas contingency operations in Iraq – and he was “killed in action during a controlled detonation of a downed One-Way Unmanned Aerial System” on Saturday at Erbil airbase in northern Iraq.

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‘It needs to end now’: Democrats urge Trump to halt Iran war after US troop deaths

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President accused of having ‘lost control of this war’ as deaths of trio in Iranian military strikes fuel rising concern

Democrats have seized on the deaths of three US troops killed in Iranian strikes to urge Donald Trump to urgently reverse his resumption of the war with Iran amid widespread anxiety over climbing casualties.

Even as US forces launched a 10th consecutive wave of attacks against Iranian targets, concern over the deaths of American service personnel threatened to complicate moves to escalate the conflict, which has reignited after he last week walked away from a memorandum of understanding agreed with Iran in June.

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Iran vows not a ‘single drop’ of oil or gas will pass strait of Hormuz as US carries out ninth night of strikes – Middle East crisis live

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Revolutionary Guard says it targeted US aircraft in Jordan and stopped two tankers in strait while American military says it is ‘holding Iran accountable’

The price of oil jumped in early Asian trade on Monday after the US carried out its latest wave of strikes on Iran and a vessel caught fire in the strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude for September delivery rose 2.72% to $90.50 a barrel by around 0100 GMT, after briefly crossing $91 – its highest price since June.

CENTCOM assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction.

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US launches 10th round of strikes as Iran says it is in ‘full-scale war’

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Diplomats say de-escalation talks continue as Trump vows retaliation over US soldier deaths

The US military said it has launched its 10th consecutive round of strikes on Iran to force the reopening of the strait of Hormuz.

Earlier on Monday, Iran’s president said the country is in a “full-scale war” after the US expanded its aerial campaign and Tehran struck Washington’s Gulf allies, even as diplomats said talks to de-escalate were continuing.

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US says another troop killed as Israel warns Tehran’s attacks coming close

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US military says service member was killed in Iraq during ‘controlled detonation’ as it launches more airstrikes at Iran

The US military announced another death of a service member as it launched more airstrikes at Iran on Sunday in response to the killing of American troops , and Iran fired missiles toward Jordan that risked widening the conflict into neighboring Israel.

The US military said the service member was killed in Iraq on Saturday during the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone.

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Two US troops killed and one missing in Jordan after Iranian attacks

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Sirens sound in Bahrain and Kuwait accuses Tehran of targeting civilian sites and infrastructure as Iran strikes US allies

The US retaliated against Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) after two American troops were killed and one was missing in Jordan when Tehran launched a wave of attacks against US allies in the Middle East.

Iran’s attacks came as the renewal of US strikes on Iran entered a second week and fighting escalated over the strait of Hormuz.

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Why is Trump risking midterm disaster by resuming an already unpopular war with Iran?

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Less than a month after hailing a ceasefire, Trump resumed strikes on Iran, a move experts warn could prolong the war and hurt Republicans ahead of midterms

For half a century, Donald Trump has performed a public high-wire act based on high-stakes risks and shattering time-honored norms to get what he wants.

The approach has paid off handsomely, helping him survive multiple bankruptcies to reach billionaire status and numerous legal and political scandals to be elected US president twice.

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Iran proves it can still inflict damage despite waves of US attacks

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Leaked US intelligence report concluded Iran retained 70% of missiles and launchers after 38-day spring campaign

Iran and the US have been trading blows for six consecutive nights and there are no shortage of signs that the renewed fighting will worsen further. Tehran and Washington remain far apart diplomatically, and though the US retains a significant military overmatch, Iran has more than enough capability to inflict damage.

Friday’s developments are a case in point. A wave of US attacks, with missiles launched from jets, drones and warships, targeted Iranian ports and the south of the country, collapsing a tower at Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman, and highways and bridges into the strait of Hormuz port of Bandar Abbas, perhaps in an effort to cut it off.

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Marines board tanker amid blockade of Iranian ports as US expands strikes with attacks on bridges

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Boarding of M/T Wen Yao in Gulf of Oman comes as expanded airstrike campaign hits five bridges in southern Iran

American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said.

US Marines boarded the M/T Wen Yao “to ensure full compliance with the ongoing US naval blockade,” US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on X.

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US intensifies attacks on Iran as Tehran hits back at Gulf states

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Sixth day of fighting threatens to turn into all-out war and casts serious doubt on peace deal struck last month

The US has intensified its attacks on Iran, hitting targets near Tehran and striking a ship it accused of trying to break its blockade, while Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at US allies in the region.

Six consecutive days of back-and-forth attacks threaten to pull the region back into a total war and cast serious doubt about an interim deal reached last month meant to achieve a permanent peace.

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Chaos and confusion bring US no closer to resolution on strait of Hormuz

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Five months of U-turns and false boasts leave Donald Trump in worse position than when he started

Donald Trump has taken the war with Iran into a new, murkier phase as the two sides move further and further from the vague memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on 17 June.

And as during the opening phase of the conflict, the US leader’s objectives and methods are clouded in confusion, daily U-turns and boasts that within hours are revealed to be false.

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Iran threatens to halt all Middle East energy exports amid renewed US blockade

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Tehran shuts strait of Hormuz and carries out retaliatory strikes as Trump threatens to attack site linked to Iran’s nuclear programme

Iran threatened to halt all energy exports from the Middle East after the US reimposed a blockade of its ports and ships, as the two countries traded strikes for a fifth day and Donald Trump threatened to attack a site linked to Iran’s nuclear programme while he weighed further expanding US strikes next week.

The US blockade came into force early on Wednesday, and was followed by a 90-minute wave of strikes against Iran’s coastal defence systems and missile sites, according to the US military. Iranian authorities said the previous day of US strikes had killed at least seven troops, and wounded more than 300 people – the highest casualty count of any recent round of violence between the two countries.

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Trump withdraws Hormuz tolls threat but says US will continue to blockade Iran

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US hits targets in port cities of Bushehr and Bandar Abbas while Iran targets Bahrain and Jordan in retaliation

Donald Trump has backed down from a threat that ships would have to pay a 20% fee to the US for “security” in the strait of Hormuz, replacing it with what he described as investment and trade deals with Gulf Arab states as US and Iranian airstrikes resumed for a third day.

The US president said he had decided to scrap the toll “based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership”, and touted “massive” investments, just five hours before the toll was due to come into effect. He said the US would continue to blockade Iranian ports.

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Iranian flights to Yemen are violation of sovereignty, says Yemeni official

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Plane bringing Houthi delegation home from Tehran had to divert after Yemeni government bombed Sana’a airport

Iranian flights to and from Yemen are an unacceptable violation of the country’s sovereignty, the vice-president in Yemen’s Saudi-backed, UN-recognised government has said.

Abdullah al-Alimi said in an interview that the planes contained equipment for the Houthi movement, which he said had transformed from merely a domestic threat into a regional and international threat to global security and the global economy.

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US launches third night of strikes on Iran as Trump announces Hormuz blockade

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American president says ships will be charged for safe passage through strait in apparent policy reversal

The US has launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after Donald Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparent policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz,” the US military’s Central Command said.

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Israel courted Iran’s former hardline president for post-regime role, reports claim

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly wooed by Mossad agents after distancing himself from Khamenei

Israel tried to recruit Iran’s intensely anti-Zionist former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lead a new post-Islamic regime in Tehran, and even sent its top spy to Budapest to meet him, according to media reports.

The remarkable quest to turn a leader who had denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s erasure began in 2022, according to reporting by the New York Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and continued even after Israel became engaged in a brutal campaign in Gaza against Hamas, a key Iranian ally.

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Iran launches retaliatory attacks after fresh US strikes – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed – you can read our latest report from the Middle East here

Bahrain’s interior ministry instructed residents to take shelter after attacks on the island nation as Iran targets US interests in the Gulf.

The siren has been sounded... citizens and residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place,” the ministry posted on X.

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US launches new wave of strikes against Iran as Tehran says diplomacy has proven ‘futile’

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American and Iranian forces exchange heavy missile and drone attacks over control of strait of Hormuz, increasing pressure on truce

The US military has launched a new wave of attacks against Iran amid the escalating standoff over the strait of Hormuz, with Tehran saying the latest strikes had “rendered futile” all the diplomatic efforts of the past few months.

The US military began launching more strikes against Iran at 9pm GMT on Sunday, US Central Command (Centcom) said on X, “to continue degrading their ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the Strait of Hormuz”.

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