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Sunday, July 6, 2025

Alarm grows after the US inserts itself into Israel’s war against Iran

by

GUARDIAN MEDIA NEWSROOM
12 days ago
20250623
This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows damage at the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran after U.S. strikes, Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows damage at the Fordo enrichment facility in Iran after U.S. strikes, Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

Uncredited

The U.S. mil­i­tary’s strike on three sites in Iran raised ur­gent ques­tions about what re­mains of Tehran’s nu­clear pro­gram and how its weak­ened mil­i­tary might re­spond.

The de­ci­sion to di­rect­ly in­volve the U.S. comes af­ter more than a week of strikes by Is­rael on Iran that have moved to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly erad­i­cate the coun­try’s air de­fens­es and of­fen­sive mis­sile ca­pa­bil­i­ties, while dam­ag­ing its nu­clear en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ties.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, who has warned of ad­di­tion­al strikes if Tehran re­tal­i­ates against U.S. forces, has mused about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of “regime change ″ in Iran, de­spite ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials ear­li­er in­di­cat­ing they want­ed to restart talks with Iran.

Here are the lat­est de­vel­op­ments…

Iran was an ‘im­mi­nent threat,’ Leav­itt tells ABC

By CHRIS MEGERIAN

White House Press Sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt told ABC News on Mon­day morn­ing that Iran was an “im­mi­nent threat” and Don­ald Trump is the “first pres­i­dent with the guts to ac­tu­al­ly do some­thing about it.”

She was de­fin­i­tive about the out­come of U.S. strikes, say­ing they “took away Iran’s abil­i­ty to cre­ate a nu­clear bomb.”

Leav­itt al­so said the ad­min­is­tra­tion has a “high de­gree of con­fi­dence” that en­riched ura­ni­um was stored at the sites that were at­tacked by the U.S.

“The pres­i­dent would not have launched the strikes if we weren’t con­fi­dent in that,” she said.

US Em­bassy in Qatar urges Amer­i­can cit­i­zens to shel­ter in place

By JON GAM­BRELL

The U.S. Em­bassy in Qatar is­sued an alert on its web­site Mon­day urg­ing Amer­i­can cit­i­zens in the en­er­gy-rich na­tion to “shel­ter in place un­til fur­ther no­tice.”

The em­bassy did not elab­o­rate and did not re­spond to mul­ti­ple re­quests for com­ment from The As­so­ci­at­ed Press on the mes­sage, which comes as ten­sions are high in the Mid­dle East af­ter the U.S. bombed Iran­ian nu­clear sites on Sun­day.

Qatar, across the Per­sian Gulf from Iran, is home to Al Udeid Air Base, which hosts the for­ward head­quar­ters of the U.S. mil­i­tary’s Cen­tral Com­mand. Iran has threat­ened Amer­i­can forces at Al Udeid in the past, but not af­ter Sun­day’s strike, though state tele­vi­sion has men­tioned Amer­i­can bases in its broad­casts.

Qatar main­tains diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Iran and shares a mas­sive off­shore nat­ur­al gas field with Tehran.

Af­ter the U.S. strikes in Iran, se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers at all U.S. em­bassies and con­sulates had been in­struct­ed to con­duct re­views of their post’s se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture and re­port back to the State De­part­ment by late Sun­day. It wasn’t im­me­di­ate­ly clear if that was con­nect­ed to the alert.

Al­ge­ria con­demns US strikes on Iran

By SAM METZ

Al­ge­ria con­demned the Unit­ed States’ de­ci­sion to strike Iran’s nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties, say­ing the es­ca­la­tion “threat­ens to desta­bi­lize the re­gion and ex­pos­es it to un­prece­dent­ed and in­cal­cu­la­ble risk.”

The Al­ger­ian For­eign Min­istry in a state­ment on Sun­day called for a re­turn to diplo­ma­cy and a peace­ful so­lu­tion, ar­gu­ing that mil­i­tary so­lu­tions had nev­er re­solved com­plex prob­lems in the Mid­dle East.

Al­ge­ria is Iran’s clos­est al­ly in North Africa but al­so main­tains mil­i­tary and trade re­la­tions with the U.S. As one of the world’s pri­ma­ry nat­ur­al gas providers out­side the Strait of Hor­muz, it could ben­e­fit great­ly should Iran elect to tem­porar­i­ly close the wa­ter­way.

Is­rael con­firms strikes on For­do ac­cess routes

By JON GAM­BRELL

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary con­firms it struck routes lead­ing to Iran’s For­do en­rich­ment fa­cil­i­ty to ob­struct ac­cess

Iran says Evin Prison un­der con­trol af­ter Is­raeli at­tack

By JON GAM­BRELL

The sit­u­a­tion at Tehran’s no­to­ri­ous Evin Prison is un­der con­trol, Iran’s ju­di­cia­ry said, fol­low­ing an at­tack by Is­raeli forces.

“The sit­u­a­tion in the prison is un­der con­trol and all means have been used to man­age the prison com­plex,” the ju­di­cia­ry an­nounced via its Mizan news agency.

It said parts of the prison had been dam­aged, with­out elab­o­rat­ing. Video footage showed a gate be­ing blast­ed open at the site.

Putin meets Iran­ian for­eign min­is­ter and con­demns US strikes

By ELISE MOR­TON

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin met with Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi in the Krem­lin on Mon­day, call­ing the U.S. airstrikes on Iran an “ab­solute­ly un­pro­voked ag­gres­sion.”

Rus­sia’s For­eign Min­istry said Sun­day that it “strong­ly con­demned” U.S. airstrikes on Iran­ian nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties, call­ing the at­tacks “a gross vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law, the UN Char­ter, and UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions.”

“This is an ab­solute­ly un­pro­voked ag­gres­sion against Iran; [it] has no ba­sis or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” Putin said at Mon­day’s meet­ing.

“We, for our part, are mak­ing ef­forts to pro­vide as­sis­tance to the Iran­ian peo­ple,” Putin said, not­ing Rus­sia’s “long-stand­ing, good, re­li­able re­la­tions with Iran.”

Araghchi thanked Rus­sia for con­demn­ing the ac­tions of Is­rael and the U.S. against Iran, say­ing that “Rus­sia to­day is on the right side of his­to­ry and in­ter­na­tion­al law.”

“These ag­gres­sive ac­tions by Is­rael and the U.S. are com­plete­ly il­le­git­i­mate and vi­o­late in­ter­na­tion­al rules and in­ter­na­tion­al norms. We are de­fend­ing our sov­er­eign­ty and coun­try, and our de­fense is le­git­i­mate,” he said.

Araghchi said that Rus­sia has al­ways been Iran’s part­ner in the peace­ful nu­clear en­er­gy sec­tor and played a pos­i­tive role in ne­go­ti­a­tions on Tehran’s nu­clear pro­gram.

“In the sphere of Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram, Rus­sia has al­ways been a part­ner for us. It built the Bushehr nu­clear pow­er plant,” he said.

As it at­tacks Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram, Is­rael main­tains am­bi­gu­i­ty about its own

By SAM MED­NICK

TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP) — Is­rael says it is de­ter­mined to de­stroy Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram be­cause its arch­en­e­my’s furtive ef­forts to build an atom­ic weapon are a threat to its ex­is­tence.

What’s not so se­cret is that for decades Is­rael has been be­lieved to be the Mid­dle East’s on­ly na­tion with nu­clear weapons, even though its lead­ers have re­fused to con­firm or de­ny their ex­is­tence.

Is­rael’s am­bi­gu­i­ty has en­abled it to bol­ster its de­ter­rence against Iran and oth­er en­e­mies, ex­perts say, with­out trig­ger­ing a re­gion­al nu­clear arms race or invit­ing pre­emp­tive at­tacks.

Is­rael is one of just five coun­tries that aren’t par­ty to a glob­al nu­clear non­pro­lif­er­a­tion treaty. That re­lieves it of in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure to dis­arm, or even to al­low in­spec­tors to scru­ti­nize its fa­cil­i­ties.

Iran says at­tacks on nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties dam­age non-pro­lif­er­a­tion ef­forts

By STEPHANIE LIECHT­EN­STEIN

Iran’s am­bas­sador to the In­ter­na­tion­al Atom­ic En­er­gy Agency, Reza Na­jafi, con­demned the “un­prece­dent­ed act of ag­gres­sion” against Iran­ian nu­clear fa­cil­i­ties by Is­rael and the U.S. and said that this act “de­liv­ered a fun­da­men­tal and ir­repara­ble blow” to the in­ter­na­tion­al non-pro­lif­er­a­tion regime, in­clud­ing the frame­work of the Non-Pro­lif­er­a­tion Treaty.

Na­jafi was speak­ing to re­porters at an emer­gency meet­ing of the U.N. nu­clear watch­dog board that ad­dressed the sit­u­a­tion in Iran.

He said Iran re­serves its right to self-de­fense. “As long as the source of the threat per­sists, the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic of Iran will con­tin­ue to un­der­take the nec­es­sary, res­olute and pro­por­tion­ate mea­sures to neu­tral­ize it at the time, place and man­ner of its own choos­ing.”

Is­rael says it is strik­ing tar­gets in­clud­ing Evin Prison

By MELANIE LID­MAN

Is­rael’s De­fense Min­istry said Is­rael is cur­rent­ly at­tack­ing Iran­ian gov­ern­men­tal tar­gets deep in­side the Iran­ian cap­i­tal of Tehran, in­clud­ing the no­to­ri­ous Evin prison.

Oth­er tar­gets in­clude the se­cu­ri­ty head­quar­ters of the para­mil­i­tary Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guards, Pales­tine Square, and the para­mil­i­tary Basij vol­un­teer corps, which is a part of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard.

“The Iran­ian dic­ta­tor will be pun­ished with full force for at­tack­ing the Is­raeli home front,” the De­fense Min­istry said.

Rus­sia says it’s ready to help Iran

By ELISE MOR­TON

Rus­sia is ready to help Iran in var­i­ous ways, de­pend­ing on what Tehran re­quests, Krem­lin spokesman Dmit­ry Peskov said Mon­day.

“Every­thing de­pends on what Iran needs,” Peskov said in re­sponse to a ques­tion at a brief­ing. “We have of­fered our me­di­a­tion ef­forts. This is con­crete.

Peskov added that Rus­sia has open­ly de­clared its stance on the Iran-Is­rael war, call­ing it an im­por­tant form of sup­port for Tehran.

“We have stat­ed our po­si­tion. This is al­so a very im­por­tant man­i­fes­ta­tion, a form of sup­port for the Iran­ian side,” he said.

He al­so not­ed that Iran has been a re­cur­ring sub­ject in re­cent talks be­tween Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

“The top­ic of Iran it­self was re­peat­ed­ly dis­cussed by the pres­i­dents dur­ing their re­cent con­ver­sa­tions,” Peskov told re­porters.


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