Important Takeaways:
- Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday summoned the ambassadors of Britain, France, and Germany to question what it referred to as their “irresponsible stance” regarding Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, Reuters reported, citing Iranian media.
- The three European countries condemned Iran’s drone and missile attack against Israel, which went through Saturday night into Sunday and were in retaliation for a bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1, which has been blamed on Israel.
- Later, the director for Western Europe at Iran’s foreign ministry accused the three countries of “double standards”, noting they opposed earlier this month a Russian-drafted UN Security Council statement that would have condemned the alleged Israeli attack in Syria.
- Tehran Warns Against Israeli Counterstrike, Threatens US Bases If Washington Assists
- Just hours after the unprecedented Iranian missile and drone attack against Israel, top Iranian military leaders threatened to launch even larger attacks if the Jewish state decides to launch a counterstrike.
- Bagheri further warned the U.S. that Iran would attack U.S. military bases in the Middle East if Washington took part in facilitating an Israeli counterstrike on Iranian soil.
- IRGC Commander Hossein Salami indicated a shift in strategy when he stated that Saturday’s attack has created a “new equation.” He warned that Iran would launch similar attacks from its territory in response to any future Israeli military actions that threaten Iranian interests in the Middle East and beyond.
- Israeli President Calls Iran’s Attack A ‘Declaration Of War’ Says Israel Is ‘Considering All Options’
- While emphasizing that Israel is not seeking war, Herzog characterized the attack as a “declaration of war” and underscored the need for a firm response to Iranian aggression.
- While expressing Israel’s restraint and ongoing dialogue with international partners, Herzog stressed that all options are being considered to address the threat posed by Iran. He reiterated that Israel’s primary objective is the protection and defense of its people and reiterated that the country is not seeking to escalate the conflict into full-scale war.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. government is intensifying a manhunt for an Iranian intelligence operative who the Federal Bureau of Investigation believes has been plotting to assassinate current and former American officials, including one-time Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
- The FBI’s Miami field office on Friday issued a public alert seeking information on Majid Dastjani Farahani, a suspected member of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, who the Bureau alleged has been recruiting “individuals for operations in the U.S., to include lethal targeting of current/former USG officials.”
- The Iranian government has repeatedly vowed over the past four years to avenge the 2020 death of Major General Qasem Soleimani – a commander of Iran’s elite Qods Force – whom the Trump administration assassinated in Baghdad using a drone strike on his convoy.
- The DoJ indicted members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) in 2022 for allegedly plotting to murder Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton
- U.S. officials told Semafor they believe Pompeo and Trump’s special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, are also on Tehran’s hit list. The U.S. government is currently providing both men with around-the-clock security due to the severity of the threat.
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Important Takeaways:
- Tehran warns Biden that if US strikes Iranian soil in retaliation for death of three soldiers the Islamist regime will hit back at American targets across the Middle East – sparking all-out war between the foes
- Tehran has told Washington, via intermediaries, that it will attack U.S. targets in the Middle East if the Pentagon launches strikes on Iranian soil
- The grim warning came as the world holds its breath to see how Joe Biden will respond to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by Iranian-backed militias.
- Joe Biden on Tuesday said that he had made up his mind about how to respond to Sunday’s killing of three U.S. service members by an Iranian-backed militia
- The strikes are expected to take place over time, and in waves: targets could include Iranian naval vessels in the Persian Gulf, or a cyberattack
- The Pentagon has existing plans for potential strikes on Iranian missile sites and air bases, in case a conflict broke out between Iran and Israel. Israel has been carrying out high-profile bombing runs, practicing attacks on the Natanz nuclear site and the underground facility at Fordow.
- The cyberattack would disable Iran’s air defenses, communications systems and crucial parts of its power grid.
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Important Takeaways:
- GOP hawks press Biden to target Iran directly over soldiers’ deaths
- “Last night, three U.S. service members were killed —and many wounded — during an unmanned aerial drone attack on our forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syria border,” Biden said in a statement on Sunday morning.
- Biden said the U.S. is “still gathering the facts of this attack,” but “we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”
- According to U.S. central command, 25 service members were wounded in the attack.
- What they’re saying: Senate Minority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called for “serious, crippling costs” to Iran, “not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor.”
- Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said in a statement the attacks the U.S. has carried out on Iranian proxies outside Iran “will not deter Iranian aggression,” calling to “strike targets of significance inside Iran.”
- “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief.”
- John Cornyn, in a post on the social media site X, said: “Target Tehran,” later specifying that he wants the U.S. to strike Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. and its Quds Force branch.
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Important Takeaways:
- Top Israeli minister says Iran is a ‘legitimate target’ for missile strikes as fears grow of an all-out war between the countries
- Iran is now a ‘legitimate target’ for missile strikes, a top Israeli minister has said, as fears grow of an all-out war between the countries.
- Israel’s economy minister, Nir Barkat, told The Telegraph that Palestinians from the West Bank would never be permitted to work in the country again and imported foreign workers would take their place.
- He also argued that the war against Hamas has not been aggressive enough
- Barkat, who is the favorite to take over from Benjamin Netanyahu as head of the ruling Likud party, said Israel has the means to pursue the conflict and open up a new front with Lebanon.
- Barkat told the newspaper: ‘Iran is a legitimate target for Israel. They will not get away with it. The head of the snake is Tehran.
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Important Takeaways:
- According to the IRNA news agency, the Fattah-2 missile is equipped with a hypersonic glider warhead that places it “in the HGV… class of hypersonic weapons.”
- Iranian media reported that the Islamic Republic had become only the fourth nation in the world to make use of such technology.
- A hypersonic glide vehicle, or HGV, is a type of warhead that allows a rocket to maneuver and glide at hypersonic speeds
- Very few nations have operational HGV missiles to date. One of them is Russia, which possesses the ‘Avangard’ gliders mounted on its silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles like the ‘Sarmat’.
- The Russian HGV is capable of flying between 20 and 27 times faster than the speed of sound or between 24,000 and 33,000 kilometers per hour. It has a potential explosive yield of to two megatons, which is more than 100 times greater than the explosion produced by the US nuclear bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
- In 2019, China officially put its DF-ZF HGV missile into service. Mounted on a road-mobile medium-range ballistic missile, the Chinese hypersonic glider can travel up to 10 times faster than the speed of sound at a speed of 12,360 kilometers per hour and carry a nuclear charge.
- The US was expected to have its ‘Dark Eagle’ Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) enter service in September…
- Little is known about Iran’s Fattah-2 missile, as the national media provided very few details on the projectile’s technical characteristics. Its predecessor, the Fattah missile that was officially unveiled less than six months ago, had a range of 1,400 kilometers and could travel between 13 and 15 times faster than the speed of sound.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Biden administration on Tuesday reapproved a sanctions waiver that will allow Iran to access upward of $10 billion in frozen assets, the State Department confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon.
- The sanctions waiver, which was set to expire today after first being authorized for a period of 120 days in July, allows Iraq to transfer payments for multibillion-dollar electricity imports from Iran into accounts outside of the country that can be used by Tehran.
- While Iran can only use the funds related to the sanctions waiver for the purchase of humanitarian goods, critics of the administration’s policy argue that by freeing up this cash, Iran can allocate other financial resources to its global terrorism operation, which has been in overdrive since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Analysts place the amount of cash accessible by Iran at upward of $10 billion
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- IRGC Aerospace Commander: Iran May Increase Range of Indigenous Hypersonic Ballistic Missile to 2,000km
- Gen. Hajizadeh stated that despite sanctions and pressures, Iran has managed to achieve “all sophisticated technologies in the field of defense industry” by relying on domestic capabilities.
- He stressed that in order to make progress Tehran should look to the domestic capabilities and might, adding, “We should not look toward abroad for progress within the country. Power grows in the IRGC on a daily basis.”
- The commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division also added that the next version of the missile may have a range of 2000 kilometers, compared to its current range of 1,400 kilometers.
- In early June, the IRGC showcased a domestically-developed hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed “Fattah”, with a range of 1,400 kilometers and the speed of Mach 13-15, which enjoys advanced high-tech to penetrate and destroy all anti-missile defense systems.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Smoldering Iran nuclear crisis risks catching fire
- The threat, made last year in a previously unreported letter sent by the countries’ foreign ministers, underscores Western fears that Iran could produce bomb-grade uranium of 90% purity.
- Those concerns intensified in February after U.N. inspectors revealed their discovery of uranium particles of 83.7% purity at an Iran nuclear facility built deep underground to protect it from air strikes.
- A renewed crisis over Iran would come at a bad time for U.S. President Joe Biden who is focused on maintaining allies’ support for the war in Ukraine and on rallying Western countries to push back on China’s military and diplomatic ambitions.
- But while some White House aides may prefer to keep Iran off the president’s desk, officials and analysts suggested they may not have that luxury.
- ‘FACE A CRISIS AT SOME POINT’
- Deterrence has a downside: it could give Tehran time to creep toward a nuclear weapons capability.
- Dennis Ross, a veteran U.S. diplomat now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, suggested Biden may have to do more to make Iran fear the consequences of enriching to higher levels.
- “If you don’t do enough to persuade the Iranians of the risks they are running, you will face a crisis at some point because they will go to 90%” or move toward weaponization, he said. “What you are seeing is an effort to walk that tightrope.”
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Iran has built a hypersonic weapon that can fly five times the speed of sound, move in and out of the atmosphere and strike advanced anti-missile systems, Tehran claims
- Iran has built a hypersonic ballistic missile, General Amirali Hajizadeh claimed
- Weapon can travel at high speed and maneuver to avoid defenses, he said
- Achievement is ‘generational leap’ in Iran’s missile technology, general bragged
- Until now, only Russia was known to possess hypersonic technology. China is thought to have tested a similar weapon last year, while the US is also in testing.
- North Korea has shown off what appear to be hypersonic missiles at military parades but it is unclear if the technology is functional. Iran had not publicly acknowledged working on such a weapon before now.
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