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Strikes hit uranium enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan; Iran says US has ‘blown up diplomacy’
Middle East crisis – latest updates
Explainer: What is Iran’s Fordow nuclear site and why was a US strike needed?
Donald Trump has announced that the US has bombed three nuclear sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort to destroy the country’s nuclear programme, in a risky gambit to weaken a longtime foe amid Tehran’s threat of reprisals that could spark a wider regional conflict.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump said in a speech from the White House.
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Politicians express ‘grave concern’ and urge all parties to de-escalate and return to talks on Iran’s nuclear programme
Middle East crisis – latest updates
Nations in the Middle East and beyond responded with alarm after US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday night as the EU and the UN called for immediate diplomacy, amid mounting fears that the war could trigger a wider escalation that could spiral out of control.
Qatar, which hosts the biggest US military base in the Middle East, said on Sunday that it feared there could be serious repercussions regionally and internationally.
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Trump has fallen slap bang into the trap laid for him by Netanyahu. His reckless gamble makes a nuclear weapon for Iran more, not less, likely
Bombing will not make Iran go away. US bombs will not destroy the knowhow needed to build a nuclear weapon or the will do so, if that is what Tehran wants. The huge attack ordered by Donald Trump will not halt ongoing open warfare between Israel and Iran. It will not bring lasting peace to the Middle East, end the slaughter in Gaza, deliver justice to the Palestinians, or end more than half a century of bitter enmity between Tehran and Washington.
More likely, Trump’s rash, reckless gamble will inflame and exacerbate all these problems. Depending on how Iran and its allies and supporters react, the region could plunge into an uncontrolled conflagration. US bases in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the region, home to about 40,000 American troops, must now be considered potential targets for retaliation – and possibly British and allied forces, ..

People were starting to laud the US president for his resistance to the Israeli PM’s pull, but what now?
Middle East crisis – live updates
When he was elected, Donald Trump suggested he could hammer out a new relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who was used to getting his way with the White House. But after just over 150 days in office, it appears Trump has fallen into the same trap as his predecessors – and launched the most consequential strike on Iran in generations.
From early suggestions that the Trump administration would rein in Netanyahu’s military ambitions, it now appears that the Israeli PM has manoeuvred the US into striking Iranian uranium enrichment sites directly after a series of military attacks that Washington was unable to deter the Israeli PM from. And the US is now bracing for a retaliation that could easily bring it into a full-scale war.
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Trump has warned of broader US involvement in Israel’s war if Iran attempts to strike back against US military sites in the region
Full report: Trump says US has attacked three Iranian nuclear sites
Live coverage: Iran strikes Israel after US attack
Iran had sought to deter Donald Trump from joining Israel’s bombing campaign with dire threats of retaliation, but its options now are limited and fraught with risk.
Iranian officials have said specifically that US ships and military bases would be targeted, but much of the capacity it had relied on as a deterrent has been stripped away over the past few days by Israeli strikes. Those strikes however, have focused on long-range ballistic missile launchers. Iran still has a formidable arsenal of shorter-range missiles and drones.
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President warned that Tehran must start peace negotiations with Israel and stop enriching uranium
US strikes Iran – follow it live
Explainer: What is Iran’s Fordow nuclear site and why was a US strike needed?
Fresh from ordering military strikes on Iran, Donald Trump on Saturday raised the specter of further attacks against the country if its leadership did not engage in peace talks in a sweeping and at times ominous televised late night address delivered from the White House.
The remarks suggested that the president, who has repeatedly said he wanted to bring peace to global conflicts, at least partly viewed the strikes against Iran’s enrichment facilities as a tactic to force negotiations – just days after he had suggested he would give Iran two weeks before deciding on an attack.
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US president Donald Trump has said the US has successfully struck three nuclear enrichment sites in Iran. This is what we know so far
US strikes Iran: follow it live
Full story: Trump announces strikes on three sites in Iran
Donald Trump announced on Saturday the US had successfully completed strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, and claimed that key enrichment facilities there had been “totally and completely obliterated”. The sites struck were Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
Iranian officials said there was no danger to the residents living near the nuclear facilities hit by US strikes, according to Iranian state media. Quoting the Crisis Management Headquarters in the province of Qom, where the Fordow facility is located, the IRNA news service said “there is no danger to the people of Qom and the surrounding area”. Al Jazeera reported earlier that another official said Fordow has “long been evacuated and has not suffered any irreversible damage”. Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear and Radiologic..

Senior military figures targeted overnight as talks between Iran and Europe in Geneva end with no breakthrough
Israel’s military has said it killed two top Iranian military officials in overnight strikes as European diplomatic efforts to bring the US and Iran back to the negotiating table stalled.
An Israeli military official said on Saturday that Saeed Izadi, the head of the Palestine Corps of al-Quds, the foreign branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had been killed in a strike on a flat in the city of Qom, central Iran.
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Officials tell Reuters bombers moving to Pacific Island but unclear whether deployment tied to Middle East tensions
The United States is moving B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam, two US officials told Reuters on Saturday, as Donald Trump weighs whether the United States should take part in Israel’s strikes against Iran.
It was unclear whether the bomber deployment is tied to Middle East tensions.
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‘Profound concern’ as administration says Afghanistan safe to return to despite dangers posed by Taliban regime
Thousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown.
Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts.
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