No known intelligence that Iran moved uranium, US defense chief says
WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its highly enriched uranium to shield it from U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear program over the weekend.
"I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise," Hegseth said.
After the strikes, several experts also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors.
They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance to the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60% highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.
Hegseth's comments denying those claims came at a news briefing where he accused the media of downplaying the success of U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear program following a leaked, preliminary assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggesting they may have only set back Iran by months.
Hegseth said the assessment was low confidence, and, citing comments from CIA Director John Ratcliffe, said it had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran's nuclear program was severely damaged by recent U.S. strikes, and that it would take years to rebuild. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Straits Times
an hour ago
- Straits Times
South Africa's former deputy president Mabuza dies
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox FILE PHOTO: Former Deputy President of South Africa David Mabuza poses for a photo as he arrives ahead of the inauguration of South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa as President at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on June 19, 2024. PHILL MAGAKOE/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's former deputy president, David Mabuza, who helped bring current President Cyril Ramaphosa to power, has died, the presidency said on Thursday. Mabuza, 64, served as deputy president from 2018 to 2023 and played a key role in ensuring Ramaphosa won the tight 2017 party contest to lead the African National Congress. Details on the cause of death were not immediately available. In the months after the 2017 contest, Ramaphosa's allies on the ANC executive pressured scandal-plagued Jacob Zuma to quit, paving the way for Ramaphosa to become head of state. "The former deputy president deserves our appreciation for his deep commitment to the liberation struggle and to the nation's development as an inclusive, prosperous, democratic state," Ramaphosa's office said in a statement. Mabuza had not been seen much in public recently and had been unwell, public broadcaster the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported, without disclosing the illness. A former schoolteacher and premier of the Mpumalanga province, Mabuza struggled to shrug off allegations - which he denied - of irregular tenders for a 2010 World Cup stadium and links to political killings. Mabuza told the media that he had been poisoned in 2015, dubbing himself "The Cat" for surviving what he described as political attacks, according to SABC. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Seller's stamp duty rates for private homes raised; holding period increased from 3 years to 4 Singapore 193ha of land off Changi to be reclaimed for aviation park; area reduced to save seagrass meadow Business More Singapore residents met CPF Required Retirement Sum when they turned 55 in 2024 Singapore PAP questions Pritam's interview with Malaysian podcast, WP says PAP opposing for the sake of opposing Sport 'Pedal to the metal' for next 2 years, says Singaporean powerlifter Farhanna Farid Singapore 1 in 4 appeals to waive HDB wait-out period for private home owners approved since Sept 2022 Sport A true fans' player – Liverpool supporters in Singapore pay tribute to late Diogo Jota Singapore Healthcare facility planned for site of Ang Mo Kio Public Library after it moves to AMK Hub The moniker stuck, and it later emerged that Mabuza had travelled to Moscow for specialised treatment. REUTERS
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Russian missile strike on Odesa port infrastructure kills two, Ukraine says
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted photos of damage at the port in Odesa to his X account. Two people were killed and six injured. KYIV - A Russian airstrike on key Ukrainian export infrastructure in the southern Black Sea port city of Odesa killed two people and wounded six more, including two foreigners, Ukrainian officials said on July 3. About 90 per cent of all Ukrainian exports are shipped to foreign markets through the ports of the Odesa seaport hub, including millions of tonnes of grain and metals. 'Today, an Iskander missile hit one of the berths of the Odesa seaport. At the time, people were working at the berth, unloading metal from a foreign vessel flying the flag of Sao Tome and Príncipe,' Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said, on the Telegram messenger. He said berthing facilities for bulk carriers, port cranes, cars and warehouses were damaged. Mr Kuleba said two people were killed - a docker-mechanic and a truck driver. Six more people were injured, including two Syrian citizens and members of the crew of a civilian ship. 'This is not an isolated incident; rather, it is part of Russia's targeted campaign against Ukraine's economy and agriculture, as well as global food security and freedom of navigation,' Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Telegram. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore Seller's stamp duty rates for private homes raised; holding period increased from 3 years to 4 Singapore 193ha of land off Changi to be reclaimed for aviation park; area reduced to save seagrass meadow Business More Singapore residents met CPF Required Retirement Sum when they turned 55 in 2024 Singapore PAP questions Pritam's interview with Malaysian podcast, WP says PAP opposing for the sake of opposing Sport 'Pedal to the metal' for next 2 years, says Singaporean powerlifter Farhanna Farid Singapore 1 in 4 appeals to waive HDB wait-out period for private home owners approved since Sept 2022 Sport A true fans' player – Liverpool supporters in Singapore pay tribute to late Diogo Jota Singapore Healthcare facility planned for site of Ang Mo Kio Public Library after it moves to AMK Hub Russia regularly attacks Ukrainian port infrastructure and stepped up strikes after Ukraine began exporting goods through its maritime corridor along the western coast of the Black Sea. Moscow says its attacks are aimed at impeding Ukraine's war efforts. Ukraine created a shipping corridor in the Black Sea following the collapse of a UN-backed Black Sea grain export initiative in 2023 that involved Russia and had ensured the safe passage of grain ships. Since the start of the Ukrainian sea corridor in August 2023, 101 million tonnes of food cargo, including 78.5 million tonnes of grain, have been exported by sea from Odesa ports. REUTERS
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Crimea's Tatars, scarred by past, fear their homeland will be ceded to Russia in peace deal
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Ethnic Crimean Tatar Leniie Umerova, 27, posing for a picture during an interview with Reuters, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 10. KYIV - When Ukrainian Leniie Umerova crossed into Russia on her way to see her ailing father in their native Crimea in late 2022, she was detained and forced to endure what she calls a 'carousel' of charges and prison transfers that lasted nearly two years. The ordeal, which included stints in solitary confinement, crystallised a sense of generational trauma for Ms Umerova, 27, a member of the Crimean Tatar community indigenous to the Black Sea peninsula that Russia invaded in 2014 and illegally annexed from Ukraine. 'It was very difficult because I was constantly alone in my cell and they (the Russians) periodically tried to feed me their propaganda,' said Ms Umerova, who initially faced administrative charges and later accusations of espionage, which she denied. Ms Umerova had grown up listening to her grandmother's stories of how in 1944 the family, along with hundreds of thousands of other Crimean Tatars, were deported to distant Central Asia on Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's orders for alleged collaboration with the Nazis, even though many Tatars including her great-grandfather were fighting for the Red Army. Thousands died from disease or starvation, and the Tatars were only allowed back to Crimea in the 1980s. Now, Ms Umerova fears that Crimea, as part of a final Ukraine peace deal, could be recognised as part of Russia - a scenario that the Trump administration in the United States has signalled is possible. 'For so many years now, the same enemy has been doing evil to our family,' Ms Umerova said. 'If we don't fight now and overcome this, where are the guarantees that my children or my grandchildren won't get the same (treatment)?' Always before her is the example of her grandmother, who refused to speak Russian when Ms Umerova was young and immersed the family in Tatar culture and language. 'Whatever happens, we must return to Crimea,' was the message. Ms Umerova returned to Kyiv after being released by Russia in a prisoner swop in September 2024, and despite her suffering, she remains hopeful that the Tatars, a Sunni Muslim, Turkic people, will one day be able to live freely again in a Ukrainian Crimea. 'Every day, every year... you live with the dream that now, now, now they will deal with this one thing and return Crimea... And so it will be, I am 100 per cent sure of this,' she added. Russia won't budge But Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted that any peace settlement for Ukraine must include recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and four other Ukrainian regions. Moscow denies Kyiv's assertions that it is violating the rights of Tatars and other people in Crimea, which it says is historically Russian. A woman looking from a balcony decorated with Russian flags and a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Sevastopol, on the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea, on June 5. PHOTO: REUTERS According to the Ukrainian President's Mission in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, some 133 Crimean Tatars are currently illegally imprisoned by Russia. Russia's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. 'To give (Crimea to Russia) is to simply spit in their faces,' Ms Umerova said of those detained Tatars and of the tens of thousands who continue to live in occupied Crimea. Russia's Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on this article. At the time of Russia's annexation, Crimean Tatars accounted for around 12 per cent of the peninsula's population of some two million. They rejected Russia's occupation and boycotted a referendum at the time, and community leaders estimate that some 50,000 have left since 2014, though most have remained there. A 2014 photo shows Crimean Tatars holding a sign reading 'referendum boycott' in the Crimean village of Eskisaray, outside Simferopol, Crimea. PHOTO: REUTERS Crimean Tatar rights activist and journalist Lutfiye Zudiyeva, who lives there, said Russia had subjected her community to what she called 'active assimilation'. 'Of course, today in Crimea you can sing in Crimean Tatar and dance national dances, but the people have no political agency,' she said. Crimea is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine by most countries but US President Donald Trump told Time magazine in April that 'Crimea will stay with Russia'. Under peace proposals prepared by Mr Trump's envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff, the United States would extend de jure recognition of Moscow's control of the peninsula. However, the two sides have made little progress in peace talks since April. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to resist Mr Trump's pressure to cede territory to Russia as part of any peace settlement, and he has cited Ms Umerova's case as an example of what he says is Moscow's repression of the Crimean Tatars. For Ukrainian singer Jamala, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 with her song '1944', about Stalin's deportations, any talk of legally recognising Crimea as Russian is 'insane'. 'If a country like America says 'it's no big deal, let's just forget about it and move on', then there are no guarantees in the world,' Jamala told Reuters. REUTERS
