Tag: iran

Israel covered up Iranian hits on military sites – Telegraph

Israel concealed that Iranian missiles hit several key military sites across the country during the recent 12-day war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday, citing radar data.

The data, provided to the British paper by Oregon State University researchers who track bomb damage using satellite radar, indicates that six Iranian missiles hit five military facilities in the north, south, and center of Israel, including a major air base, an intelligence gathering center, and a logistics base. The extent of the reported damage is unclear.

However, the hits were not publicly reported due to heavy military censorship, according to the report. When pressed on the issue, the Israel Defense Forces, declined to comment, only saying that “all relevant units maintained functional continuity throughout the operation.”

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This Is Israel’s War – Not Our War

President Trump, to his credit, demanded a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Both countries agreed to it. Then, the president became very angry with Israel because, as he said, “As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before.”

But as I write this column, the ceasefire is still in effect. I hope it lasts. However, just two days before the ceasefire, we dropped ten 30,000-pound bunker bombs on Iran, a country that had not even shot one bullet at us.

Please, God, let this be the end of our involvement in the war between Israel and Iran.

This is Israel’s war. It is not our war. Netanyahu and Israel First neocons led us into a very unnecessary war in Iraq that cost the lives of so many young Americans, and led to the blinding and maiming of thousands more. It was not worth their sacrifice.

Donald Trump was elected as president in 2016 primarily because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and because he promised to put America First.

The overwhelming majority of Americans – both Democrats and Republicans – do not want this country stuck in another war in the Middle East.

This is not our war; it is Netanyahu’s war. The very respected foreign policy expert and Columbia professor, Jeffrey Sachs, a Jew, has described Netanyahu as “one of the most violent and dangerous people in this world.”

Tom Friedman, the longtime New York Times columnist and also a Jew, wrote in his column of May 9 that “Netanyahu is not our friend.”

Israel claimed it had killed Iran’s top eight generals and its nine leading nuclear scientists even before the U.S. dropped its bombs.

Israel also claimed it had destroyed Iran’s ground-based air defense capabilities and had achieved total air superiority even before we got involved.

If their claims are true, Israel was already winning this war. They started this war, let them finish it – without us.

Israel supposedly had two main goals in invading Iran: To stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program and to foster regime change there.

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MI6 fueled Ukraine proxy war and fabricated intel on Iran – Grayzone investigative journalist

The UK Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, has played a central role in spreading false intelligence and engaging in provocative actions aimed at escalating global conflicts, British whistleblower and investigative journalist for The Grayzone, Kit Klarenberg, has told RT.

Speaking to host Rick Sanchez on Thursday, Klarenberg said MI6 was at the forefront of efforts to push the West deeper into the Ukraine conflict.

“I have since the very start of the Ukraine proxy war been reporting on how Britain is leading this effort,” he said, adding that many see MI6 as merely a tool of the CIA, but “no, they go into business for themselves all the time.”

Klarenberg pointed to the 2022 bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea with mainland Russia, claiming it was orchestrated by British operative and NATO adviser Chris Donnelly as part of an effort to pull Washington further into the conflict.

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Britain’s Long History of Spying on Iran

As bombs fell on Iran last month, the U.K. government claimed it had “not participated” in the military action led by Israel and the U.S. 

But British spy agencies have a long history of meddling in Iran, with everything from covert influence operations, to secretly selling chemical weapons materials to the regime.

In one case, the U.K. spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) even created a network of fake Twitter accounts to secretly monitor Iranian opposition activists – the very people working to remove supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from power.

Coup

British spies have targeted Iran for decades, driven by commercial profit and regional control.

In 1951, when the country’s secular prime minister, Mohammed Mosaddeq, nationalised the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later known as BP), the British ambassador wrote: “It is so important to prevent the Persians from destroying their main source of revenue … by trying to run it themselves.”

Two years later, the U.K. and U.S. secretly backed a coup to oust Mosaddeq and centralise power under a repressive “pro-Western” regime. 

Declassified files have since revealed the central role played by MI6, which recruited agents and bribed members of Iran’s Parliament. In doing so, one former spy claimed they spent “well over a million and a half pounds”. 

The U.K. and U.S. then supported Iran’s dictator, the shah, for the next 25 years. 

By 1979, the Iranian Revolution saw the establishment of the Islamic Republic led by another dictator, Ayatollah Khomeini. But this did not stop British spies from collaborating with the regime when it was in their interests.

For instance, in 1983, British intelligence provided Khomeini with a list of Iranians allegedly working for the Soviet Union. The intelligence was used to round up over 1,000 communists, as many as 200 of whom were executed. Meanwhile Iran’s communist party, the Tudeh, was banned and forced underground. 

Secret relations were again exploited in the early 1990s, when MI6 helped supply Iran with materials to make chemical weapons — despite its own ban on such sales. 

Britain’s aim was supposedly to use the deals as a way to insert operatives into the Iranian government and gather intelligence about its weapons programmes.

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Media Celebrate International Aggression Against Iran

Aggression is widely understood as the most serious form of the illegal use of force under international law. At the post–World War II Nuremberg Trials, British Judge Norman Birkett said:

To initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

UN General Assembly Resolution 3314 lists seven acts that constitute aggression, including:

  • The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a state of the territory of another State….
  • Bombardment by the armed forces of a state against the territory of another state, or the use of any weapons by a state against the territory of another state.

In a clear instance of such aggression, 125 US military aircraft (along with a submarine) unleashed 75 weapons against Iran on June 21, including 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), each of which weighs 30,000 pounds (BBC, 6/23/25). The MOPs are the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in the US arsenal (Democracy Now!, 6/23/25).

Rather than condemning this blatant violation of international law, US corporate media commentators gushed over what the Boston Globe (6/24/25) called a “brilliant military operation.” The Wall Street Journal (6/22/25) gave President Donald Trump “credit…for meeting the moment.”

To the New York Times’ Bret Stephens (6/22/25), Trump made “a courageous and correct decision that deserves respect.” “The president acted before it was too late,” he wrote. “It is the essence of statesmanship.

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Report Estimates US Used $1.25 Billion Worth of THAAD Interceptors To Defend Israel From Iranian Missiles

A report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz estimates that the US used 93 interceptors from its THAAD missile defense system to defend Israel from Iranian missiles during the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran.

At $13 million per interceptor, that means the US launched an estimated $1.25 billion worth of THAAD munitions during the war. The Israeli military also used its Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 interceptors, which are jointly produced with the US. The Haaretz report said that the total cost of the Arrow and THAAD interceptors used was about $1.5 billion.

Haaretz reached its figures using open-source videos that showed 84 interceptors being launched from Israel during eight Iranian missile salvos. Extrapolating from there, the paper estimated that the US and Israel launched an estimated 195 interceptors, including the 93 THAADs, 80 Arrow 3s, and 22 Arrow 2s.

A report from Military Watch Magazine came up with similar numbers, estimating the US used 60 to 80 THAAD interceptors during the war, accounting for 15% to 20% of its global THAAD arsenal. The Biden administration first sent a THAAD system to Israel and about 100 troops to operate it in October 2024, ahead of an Israeli attack on Iran.

In April of this year, reports said the US sent a second THAAD battery to Israel, which would mean that the US has two of its seven THAAD missile defense systems stationed in Israel.

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Assessing the Effect of the U.S. Strikes on Iran

There has been much commentary about the U.S. airstrike last weekend against three key nuclear sites deep inside Iran: Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. The attack—President Donald Trump’s boldest use of military force to date—was designed to stunt if not destroy Iran’s nuclear program and bring Iran back to the nuclear negotiating table in a much weaker position. As the dust settles over the American missile and bomb craters, questions continue to swirl about the effectiveness of the U.S. strikes and their impact on the region more broadly.

Operation Midnight Hammer was designed to destroy and degrade the key bottleneck in Iran’s nuclear program: its enrichment capacity, including its most advanced and large-scale centrifuge cascades. The lion’s share of Iran’s operational IR-6 centrifuges were believed to be housed in the three facilities struck by the United States last weekend. Iran’s near nine-hundred pound stockpile of 60 percent enriched Uranium, which can fit in the equivalence of the trunks of ten cars, remains unaccounted for. But this stockpile will be of little use for any Iranian nuclear weapons program in the near term if their enrichment capabilities were wiped out.

The battle damage assessment remains murky. Though Trump has repeatedly claimed the country’s nuclear program is “completely and totally obliterated,” comprehensive assessments of the damage take time. Neither the United States nor Israel has released a final assessment on the strikes’ consequences for the nuclear program. It’s still early days. Earlier this week, a preliminary classified report by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, estimated that the program had been delayed, albeit no more than six months. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said that the centrifuges at Fordow are “no longer operational” and that there was “no escaping significant physical damage.” U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan “Razin” Caine also emphasized that the United States had every reason to believe the strike was successful, while adding that the defense department had been preparing to destroy Fordow for more than a decade.

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Iranian Hackers Say They Have 100GB Of Trump Emails

Hackers claiming ties to Iran say they possess 100GB of emails from President Donald Trump’s inner circle and may soon leak or sell the trove, after previously distributing a batch to the media before the 2024 U.S. election.

In online conversations with Reuters on Sunday and Monday, the hackers—who use the pseudonym “Robert”—claimed to possess about 100 gigabytes of emails from the accounts of “White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan, Trump adviser Roger Stone and porn star-turned-Trump antagonist Stormy Daniels.”

Robert mentioned the potential of selling the material but did not provide further details about their plans or the content of the emails.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi described the breach as “an unconscionable cyber-attack.”

The White House and FBI responded with a statement from FBI Director Kash Patel, who said:

“Anyone associated with any kind of breach of national security will be fully investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) posted on X that “This so-called cyber ‘attack’ is nothing more than digital propaganda, and the targets are no coincidence. This is a calculated smear campaign meant to damage President Trump and discredit honorable public servants who serve our country with distinction”

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Spying on Iran: How MI6 infiltrated the IAEA

Leaked confidential files indicate the International Atomic Energy Agency was infiltrated by a veteran British spy who has claimed credit for sanctions on Iran. The documents lend weight to the Islamic Republic’s accusation that the nuclear watchdog secretly colluded with its enemies.

A notorious British MI6 agent infiltrated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on London’s behalf, according to leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone. The agent, Nicholas Langman, is a veteran intelligence operative who claims credit for helping engineer the West’s economic war on Iran.

Langman’s identity first surfaced in journalistic accounts of his role in deflecting accusations that British intelligence played a role in the death of Princess Diana. He was later accused by Greek authorities of overseeing the abduction and torture of Pakistani migrants in Athens.

In both cases, UK authorities issued censorship orders forbidding the press from publishing his name. But Greek media, which was under no such obligation, confirmed that Langman was one of the MI6 assets withdrawn from Britain’s embassy in Athens.

The Grayzone discovered the résumé of the journeyman British operative in a trove of leaked papers detailing the activities of Torchlight, a prolific British intelligence cutout. The bio of the longtime MI6 officer reveals he “led large, inter-agency teams to identify and defeat the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology, including by innovative technical means and sanctions.” 

In particular, the MI6 agent says he “worked to prevent WMD proliferation through… support for the [IAEA] and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW] and through high level international partnerships.”

Langman’s CV credits him with playing a major role in organizing the sanctions regime on Iran by “[building] highly effective and mutually supportive relations across government and with senior US, European, Middle and Far Eastern colleagues for strategy” between 2010 and 2012. He boasts in his bio that this achievement “enabled [the] major diplomatic success of [the] Iranian nuclear and sanctions agreement.” 

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What Means ‘Winning’?

At one level, Iran plainly “won.” Trump had wanted to be regaled with a reality-TV style, splendid “Victory.” Sunday’s attack on the three nuclear sites indeed was loudly proclaimed by Trump and Hegseth as such – having “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, they claimed. “Destroyed it completely,” they insist.

Only … it didn’t: The strike caused superficial surface damage, perhaps. And seemingly was co-ordinated in advance with Iran via intermediaries to be a “once and done” affair. This is a habitual Trump pattern (advance co-ordination). It was the mode in Syria, Yemen and even with Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani – all intended to give Trump a quick media “victory.”

The so-called “ceasefire” that rapidly followed the US strikes – albeit not without some hiccoughs – was a hastily assembled “cessation of hostilities” (and no ceasefire – as no terms were agreed). It was a “stop-gap.” What this means is that the negotiating impasse between Iran and Witkoff remains unresolved.

The Supreme Leader has forcefully laid down Iran’s position: “No surrender”; Enrichment proceeds; and the US should quit the region and keep its nose out of Iranian affairs.

So, on the positive side of cost-benefit analysis, Iran likely has enough centrifuges and 450 kg of highly enriched uranium – and nobody (except Iran) now knows where the stash is hidden. Iran will resume processing. A second plus for Iran is that the IAEA and its Director-General Grossi have been so egregiously subversive of Iranian sovereignty that the Agency most likely will be expelled from Iran. The Agency failed in its basic responsibility to safeguard sites at which enriched uranium was present.

The US and European intelligence services thus will lose their “eyes” on the ground – as well as forego the IAEA’s Artificial Intelligence data collection (on which Israel’s identification of targets likely was heavily dependent).

On the cost side, militarily, Iran of course suffered physical damage, but retains its missile potency. The US-Israeli narrative of Iranian skies as “open wide” to Israeli aircraft is yet another deception contrived to support the “winning narrative”:

As Simplicius notes: “There remains not a single shred of proof that Israeli (or American, for that matter) planes ever significantly overflew Iran at any time. Claims of “total air superiority” have no grounds. [Footage] up until the final day shows Israel continued relying on their heavy UCAVs [large surveillance and strike drone aircraft] to strike Iranian ground targets.”

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