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The son of Iran’s late shah appealed Friday to the country’s security forces to abandon the cleric-run state, voicing hope for toppling the Islamic republic after Israel launched military strikes.Reza Pahlavi blamed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for having “dragged Iran into a war” with Israel and described the government in Tehran as “weak and divided.””It could fall. As I have told my compatriots: Iran is yours and yours to reclaim. I am with you. Stay strong and we will win,” he said in a statement.”I have told the military, police, and security forces: break from the regime. Honor the oath of any honorable serviceman. Join the people.””To the international community: do not throw yet another lifeline to this dying, terrorist regime,” he said.Pahlavi was crown prince in Iran’s pro-Western monarchy, which collapsed in 1979 in a mass revolution that quickly brought to power the clerical establishment that declared an Islamic republic.Pahlavi, who lives in exile near Washington, says he is not necessarily looking for the restoration of the monarchy and wants to use his name to support the movement for secular democracy.Israel sees the Islamic republic as an existential threat but was allied with Iran under the late shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.Reza Pahlavi has also enjoyed warm relations with Israel, which he toured two years ago.Iranian diaspora pro-monarchists, waving the old imperial flag, have figured prominently in protests in support of Israel since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.Pahlavi has repeatedly described the Islamic republic as frail, including after mass protests broke out in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police who enforce modest dress on women.

Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit dozens of targets across Iran, including nuclear sites, as well as killing several top military commanders and nuclear scientists. Iran called the attack “a declaration of war” and launched missiles at Israel hours later.US President Donald Trump — insisting his country was not involved — warned Iran the next planned attacks will be “even more brutal”.International calls for restraint are multiplying, as fears grow the Middle East could be on the threshold of a broader conflict.Here is what we know:- Nuclear sites hit -The attacks started in the early hours of Friday, a day of rest and prayer in Iran, and continued through the day, on various sites.A key target was a vast underground nuclear site in Natanz, which Israel hit several times, Iranian state television said.Radiation levels outside the facility “remain unchanged”, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said.Israel said it struck another important nuclear site in Isfahan, where Iranian news agency Mehr reported a “massive explosion” late Friday.- Commanders killed -Top brass killed included the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, and the chief of staff of its armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri, with replacements swiftly named by supreme leader Ali Khamenei.The Revolutionary Guards said that its aerospace commander, Amirali Hajizadeh, was also killed. He was in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile forces.Iranian media said several nuclear scientists were killed.State media said senior Khamenei adviser Ali Shamkhani was hurt in one of the strikes.- Ongoing strikes -Additional strikes hit sites in Iran’s northwestern East Azerbaijan province, with 18 people killed there, state news agency IRNA said.The Israeli raids will “continue as many days as it takes”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.A military spokesman said “more than 200 targets” were hit.Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said “there is currently no plan to kill” Khamenei and other political leaders.Internet restrictions were imposed across Iran, the country’s communications ministry said, adding they would be lifted “once normalcy returns”.- Iran’s response -Iran launched dozens of missiles, the Revolutionary Guards and Israeli official said, hours after the Israeli military said “most” of the 100 drones fired by Iran were intercepted outside Israeli territory.Khamenei warned Israel faces a “bitter and painful” fate over the attacks.His newly appointed Revolutionary Guards chief, Mohammad Pakpour, said that “in retribution… the gates of hell” will be opened on Israel.Netanyahu said: “We expect to be exposed to several waves of Iranian attacks.”There was a state of emergency declared in Israel, and the country closed many of its embassies around the world, including in Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.- ‘Declaration of war’ -Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called the Israeli attacks “a declaration of war” and urged action from the UN Security Council, which is due to hold an emergency meeting at 1900 GMT.Iran had previously warned it would hit US military bases in the Middle East if conflict occurred. The United States pulled out non-essential personnel from several sites days ahead of the Israeli attack.Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the United States would protect its forces in the Middle East.”Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel,” Rubio said.- US involvement? -Trump said Israel fully informed him of its raids ahead of time, but insisted the United States was not involved.He warned Iran that the “next planned attacks” will be “even more brutal” and said Tehran should cut a deal to roll back its nuclear programme “before there is nothing left”.The US leader has repeatedly said he will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.Trump came to power vowing not to drag the United States into more wars in the Middle East, but some of his domestic political allies are worried the turn of events could lead to that.- Nuclear programme -Tehran has long denied seeking atomic bombs, but had been enriching uranium to a level close to weapons-grade.The United States and Iran had been holding talks on the issue. The next round, scheduled for Sunday in Oman, now looks to be cancelled.- Reactions -The attack, and likely Iranian response, is fuelling international alarm.Many capitals were urging restraint, fearing the consequences if the Israel-Iran conflict widened and drew in the United States, and if Middle East oil production and shipments were impacted.The leaders of France, Germany and Britain were to hold a call to discuss the Israeli strikes, Berlin said. The UN’s atomic energy agency planned an emergency meeting for Monday.Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Syria closed their airspaces.Several airlines cancelled flights servicing the region, including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Air France and Lufthansa. Others flying through the Middle East, such as Air India, had to turn planes back or reroute.- Oil prices -Oil prices leapt dramatically on Friday, trading sharply up to around $75 a barrel before falling back a little.Analysts underlined the risk to the 20 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies that are shipped through the narrow Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.burs/rmb/gv/ami/jsa

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nearly 20-year-old threat to strike Iran came true on Friday, as US President Donald Trump warned Tehran of further “brutal” attacks if it refuses to negotiate.In its largest military action against Iran to date, Israel’s strikes hit about 100 targets including nuclear facilities and military command centres, and killed the armed forces’ chief, top nuclear scientists and other senior figures.The strikes came as the United States and Iran were due to meet in Oman Sunday to pick up negotiations towards an agreement on the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.”We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, hours before news broke of the Israeli attacks.”I don’t want them going in, because I think it would blow it,” Trump added, speaking of the Israelis.But on Friday, Trump seemed unbothered by Israel’s action, and on his Truth Social platform urged Iran to make a deal.”There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” he wrote.- Timing ‘makes sense’-Netanyahu, who has always scorned talks with Iran, paid no heed to Trump’s original warning and took advantage of the seismic changes in the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.”I doubt Israel would do this if the US told it not to,” Menachem Merhavy, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told AFP.Merhavy said that the timing of the attack “makes sense because Israel has been clipping the wings of Iran for the last year and a half”, in actions against Tehran-aligned groups and proxies in the region, many of whom Israel has significantly weakened.Netanyahu said he had “ordered” the attack on Iran’s nuclear programme months ago.”It was necessary to act and I set the implementation date for the end of April 2025,” Netanyahu said. “For various reasons, it did not work out.”But his obsession with Iran goes back much further than the ongoing Gaza war, sparked by an unprecedented attack by Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas.After Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused international uproar in 2005 when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, Netanyahu — then an opposition leader following his first term as premier in 1996-1999 — called Tehran’s nuclear programme “a serious threat for the future”.He said at the time Israel “must do everything” to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, even if it meant striking the country’s nuclear facilities as Israel had in Iraq in 1981.Iran has consistently denied seeking atomic weapons, but after his return to power in 2009, Netanyahu repeatedly dismissed Tehran’s assurances that its nuclear programme was meant for civilian purpose only, and advocated a “military option”.Netanyahu called the UN Security Council’s 2015 approval of an agreement with world powers lifting sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities a “historic mistake”.In 2018, he applauded Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement, effectively scrapping it.Iran’s reaction was to gradually abandon its commitments, enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade material and in unprecedented quantities.This gave Netanyahu a justification to keep up the fight against Iran’s nuclear programme.- ‘Reshape the Middle East’ -All the while, Israel’s Mossad spy agency worked in secret to undermine Iran’s nuclear programme.Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has said on several occasions he was seeking to “reshape the Middle East”.In late 2024, Israel dealt a hard blow to Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance”, by crippling Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.The fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, another Iranian ally, helped cement the regional dominance of Israel — the Middle East’s only, if undeclared, nuclear power.But it was an Israeli response to 200 Iranian missiles in October 2024 that “changed the balance of power” between the two foes, according to statements at the time by then defence minister Yoav Gallant, after a series of Israeli strikes inside Iran — a rare direct confrontation.In February, Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that with the Trump administration’s support “I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job”.Danny Citrinowicz, of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told AFP that Trump most likely viewed Israel as “serving his interests”.”Trump really thinks that as long as Iran is weaker, he will be able to achieve a deal on the nuclear file,” said Citrinowicz.Holly Dagres, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that “if the Trump administration somehow thinks it’s going to be having a sixth round of talks with the Iranians in Oman on Sunday, then it truly doesn’t understand the Islamic republic and how it operates”.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged the US and Iran to resume nuclear talks following a wave of Israeli strikes against Iran.”Iran bears a heavy responsibility in the destabilisation of the whole region,” he said after Western nations in recent days accused Tehran of deliberately escalating its nuclear programme, despite several rounds of US-Iran talks.  “We call for the resumption of dialogue and the reaching of a deal.”US President Donald Trump’s Middle East pointman Steve Witkoff had been set to hold a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday in Oman.After Israel’s deadly strikes early on Friday, Trump afterwards urged Iran to “make a deal, before there is nothing left”, warning of “even more brutal” attacks to come.Macron, who earlier on Friday defended Israel’s right to protect itself, said France could help in the case of an Iranian retaliation against Israel.”If Israel were to be attacked in retaliation by Iran, France, if in a position to do so, would take part in protection and defence operations,” he said.Macron earlier in the day spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Elysee said, following a spike in diplomatic tensions.The French presidency said the phone conversation took place but did not provide details.Relations between Macron and Netanyahu have been strained in recent months over Israel’s blockade of Gaza and France’s plans to recognise a Palestinian state.- UN meeting postponed -France and Saudi Arabia have been planning to co-chair a UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians next week in New York.But Macron said on Friday evening that meeting had been postponed.”While we have to postpone this conference for logistical and security reasons, it will take place as soon as possible,” Macron said at a press conference.Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids, striking 100 targets including nuclear and military sites, as well as killing the armed forces’ chief of staff.In the aftermath of the strikes, Macron also spoke with leaders including Trump and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.Earlier Friday, Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself and ensure its security but also called for de-escalation.”To avoid jeopardising the stability of the entire region, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate,” he said on X.Macron spoke after convening a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council.”All necessary steps will be taken to protect our nationals and our diplomatic and military missions in the region,” Macron said.Iran has gradually broken away from its commitments under the nuclear deal it struck with world powers including the United States and France in 2015.The landmark deal provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme, but it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States during Trump’s first term in 2018.

War, tariffs and the Air India crash will cast a shadow over the Paris Air Show as the aerospace industry’s biggest annual gathering opens on Monday.More than 2,400 companies from 48 countries are showing off their hardware at the week-long event at Le Bourget airfield on the outskirts of Paris.The sales rivalry between Airbus and …

War, trade and Air India crash cast cloud over Paris Air Show Read More »

Israel’s unprecedented strikes on its archfoe Iran Friday are a resounding blow for Tehran that has thrown into doubt its ability to respond militarily, analysts said.Israel said it hit 100 targets including Iranian nuclear and military sites in the attack. The airstrikes killed senior figures, among them leaders of the Revolutionary Guards, the armed forces’ chief and top nuclear scientists.Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Israel of a “bitter and painful” fate over the attacks. But analysts say the Islamic republic’s options are limited, after Israel showed itself capable of precisely locating and taking out high-ranking Iranian officials.”This is an intelligence defeat of existential proportions for the Islamic Republic,” said Ali Fathollah-Nejad, director of the Berlin-based Center for Middle East and Global Order (CMEG) think tank.”It exposes the vital vulnerability of the regime’s military and security apparatus and its key infrastructures — including nuclear — as well as its top political and military leadership,” he told AFP.”All this is meant, inter alia, to cripple Tehran’s command and counter-strike capacities.”The United States and other Western countries, along with Israel, accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon.Tehran denies that, but has gradually broken away from its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal it struck with world powers, after the United States pulled out of it.The landmark accord provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme, but it fell apart after President Donald Trump halted US participation in 2018, during his first term.- Tehran ‘in a bind’ -Western nations in recent days accused Tehran of deliberately escalating its nuclear programme, despite several rounds of US-Iran talks for a new accord. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said Thursday it would “significantly” increase production of enriched uranium, after the UN’s nuclear watchdog found Tehran in breach of its obligations.Israel has previously carried out attacks in the Islamic republic, including against military targets in October last year.But Friday’s attacks were unprecedented.”The Israel campaign is sweeping in scope and sophistication,” said Ali Vaez, of the International Crisis Group.”We may still only be in the early stages of a prolonged operation that continues to expand, disrupting Iran’s ability to either formulate or execute a response.”Friday’s strikes killed Iran’s highest-ranking military officer, armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami, Iranian media reported.A senior adviser to Khamenei was also wounded, state television said.Israel hit a key underground nuclear site in Natanz several times, it also said, reporting that most damage was at “surface level”.British intelligence firm Janes said, however, that hitting Natanz will “have almost certainly dealt a significant blow to Iran’s enrichment capabilities and facilities”.Clement Therme, of the Sorbonne University, said that “to retaliate, the regime seems to be in a bind”.”Either it targets US bases in the region and jeopardises its future, or it targets Israel, but we see that its military capabilities are limited,” he said.The Israeli military said Iran launched around 100 drones against it, but its air defences intercepted “most” of them outside Israeli territory.- Iran’s ‘cataclysmic’ economy -Israel, which relies on US diplomatic and military support, carried out the attack despite Trump’s public urging for it to give time for diplomacy.Trump’s Middle East pointman Steve Witkoff had been set to hold a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday in Oman.Iran wants a new deal that would ease the sanctions that have battered its economy.A Western diplomat earlier this year described Iran’s economy as “cataclysmic”, saying the country had “a gigantic need for the lifting of sanctions, reforms, a cleanup of the banking system, foreign investments”.Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the strikes were “designed to kill President Trump’s chances of striking a deal to contain the Iranian nuclear programme”.”It is highly unlikely that in these conditions, Iran will proceed with the Omani-mediated talks scheduled for Sunday,” she added.But, after the strikes, a US official said Washington still hoped the Sunday talks would go ahead.Trump urged Iran to “make a deal, before there is nothing left”, warning of “even more brutal” attacks to come.Vaez said the strategy may not work.”Rather than prompt Iranian concessions it could also lead to a doubling down by Tehran,” he said.”Setbacks could lead Iran to reconstitute their operations with a more determined effort to obtain a nuclear deterrent.”jr-cf-dla-ah/as/rmb

Establishment Republicans have backed Israel’s strikes on Iran, but the crisis is forcing President Donald Trump to walk a political tightrope between the hawks in his base and the isolationists who helped sweep him to power.Trump ran for reelection as a peacemaker who distained the foreign adventures of his predecessors, boasting that he would have little difficulty ending conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.Many Trump followers see Israel’s offensive as the sternest test yet of his “America First” credentials, fearing that he will allow the United States to get dragged into the hostilities.The announcement of strikes was applauded by Mark Levin, a rightwing political analyst and longstanding Trump loyalist, who crowed: “The Iranians are about to get their asses kicked.””They think this is Joe Biden’s administration, that they would get away…. Thank God we have Donald Trump as president of the United States,” he thundered on Fox News.Beyond the government buildings and TV studios of Washington, however, Trump’s Make America Great Again, or MAGA, activists oppose US boots on the ground abroad and warn against shows of support for Israel.- ‘Sticky one for Trump’ -“This is a sticky one for Trump, who has long pledged to end ‘forever wars’ and keep the US away from dangerous foreign entanglements,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, told AFP.”Trump’s America First base is divided. There’s a strong strain of isolationism there, and yet Israel and efforts to tamp down anti-Semitism pull Trump in the other direction.” Levin received blowback from Tucker Carlson, a leading voice on the American far right, who posted on X that his former Fox News colleague was “hyperventilating” to distract from the real goal — regime change in Iran.Secretary of State Marco Rubio, normally a foreign policy hawk, was quick to distance the United States from Israel’s “unilateral” strikes, which hit uranium-enrichment facilities and killed top Iranian military officials.Trump himself had repeatedly insisted that Iran could not be allowed to have nuclear weapons — but made clear before the strikes that he was against military action.He appeared to have changed tack by Friday, with ABC quoting the president describing the attack as “excellent.” That won’t sit well with many of his supporters.Saagar Enjeti, a populist right-wing anchor on the Breaking Points YouTube show, accused Trump of letting down the “America First” isolationists in his base.- ‘Disastrously split’ -“Trump has now praised Israel’s strike, affirmed US material support, and Israeli media is reporting his public opposition was a disinformation campaign to mislead Iran,” he said.”So in other words Trump, not Israel, has made a mockery of all of us wanted to avoid this war.”Charlie Kirk, a pro-Israel online MAGA star and one of Trump’s staunchest allies, went live on his podcast to find out how his pro-Trump audience was reacting to events.”The emails are so largely overwhelmingly against Israel doing this, I’d say it’s probably a 99 to one,” Kirk said.Kirk went on to ask how the “America First” foreign policy doctrine can “stay consistent with this,” before concluding: “This, right now, is going to cause, I think, a major schism in the MAGA online community.”Kirk asked his five million X followers if America should “get involved in Israel’s war against Iran” and almost 90 percent of the 300,000+ people who had responded by Friday morning said no.Fellow MAGA activist Jack Posobiec warned before the strikes that they would “disastrously split” Trump’s coalition. “Trump smartly ran against starting new wars, this is what the swing states voted for,” he said.”The midterms are not far and Congress’ majority is already razor-thin. America First!”

The timing of Israel’s plan to attack Iran was top secret. But Washington pizza delivery trackers guessed something was up before the first bombs fell.About an hour before Iranian state TV first reported loud explosions in Tehran, pizza orders around the Pentagon went through the roof, according to a viral X account claiming to offer “hot intel” on “late-night activity spikes” at the US military headquarters. “As of 6:59 pm ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity,” the account “Pentagon Pizza Report” posted on Thursday.Not confining its analysis to pizza, the account noted three hours later that a gay bar near the Pentagon had “abnormally low traffic for a Thursday night,” and said this probably pointed to “a busy night at the Pentagon.”While far from scientific, the Pentagon pizza theory “is not something the internet just made up,” The Takeout, an online site covering restaurants and food trends, noted earlier this year.Pentagon-adjacent pizza joints also got much busier than usual during Israel’s 2024 missile strike on Iran, it said, as there are “a multitude of fast food restaurants in the Pentagon complex, but no pizza places.”Pizza deliveries to the Pentagon reportedly doubled right before the US invasion of Panama in December 1989, and surged again before Operation Desert Storm in 1991.President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal he was fully aware in advance of the bombing campaign, which Israel says is needed to end Iran’s nuclear program. “We know what’s going on.”For the rest of Americans, pepperoni pie activity was not the only way to tell something was about to happen.Washington had already announced it was moving some diplomats and their families out of the Middle East on Wednesday.And close to an hour before Israel unleashed its firepower on Iran, the US ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, sent out a rather revealing X post: “At our embassy in Jerusalem and closely monitoring the situation. We will remain here all night. ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!'”

French President Emmanuel Macron, who on Friday defended Israel’s right to protect itself, spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following a spike in diplomatic tensions, the Elysee said.The French presidency said the phone conversation took place but did not specify the content of the exchange with the Israeli leader.Relations between Macron and Netanyahu have been strained in recent months over Israel’s blockade of Gaza and France’s plans to recognise a Palestinian state.Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids, striking 100 targets including nuclear and military sites as well as killing the armed forces’ chief of staff.In the aftermath of the strikes, Macron also spoke with leaders including US President Donald Trump and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.France and Saudi Arabia have been planning to co-chair a UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians next week in New York.Macron was expected to speak on the issue on Friday, but his speech was cancelled. Instead, he will address reporters Friday evening.Earlier Friday, Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself and ensure its security but also called for de-escalation.”To avoid jeopardising the stability of the entire region, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate,” he said on X.Macron spoke after convening a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council.”All necessary steps will be taken to protect our nationals and our diplomatic and military missions in the region,” Macron said.France’s foreign minister also urged restraint.”We call on all sides to exercise restraint and avoid any escalation that could undermine regional stability,” Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.Iran has gradually broken away from its commitments under the nuclear deal it struck with world powers including the United States and France in 2015.The landmark deal provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme, but it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States during Trump’s first term in 2018.