CNN reports from the huge crowds attending state funerals in Tehran
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen describes the scene as thousands of Iranians gathered to mourn military leaders, nuclear scientists and civilians during the country's 12-day conflict with Israel.
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Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's nuclear sites, top general tells lawmakers, citing depth of the target
The US military did not use bunker-buster bombs on one of Iran's largest nuclear sites last weekend because the site is so deep that the bombs likely would not have been effective, the US' top general told senators during a briefing on Thursday. The comment by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, which was described by three people who heard his remarks and a fourth who was briefed on them, is the first known explanation given for why the US military did not use the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb against the Isfahan site in central Iran. US officials believe Isfahan's underground structures house nearly 60% of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile, which Iran would need in order to ever produce a nuclear weapon. US B2 bombers dropped over a dozen bunker-buster bombs on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites. But Isfahan was only struck by Tomahawk missiles launched from a US submarine. The classified briefing to lawmakers was conducted by Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. A spokesperson for Caine declined to comment, noting that he cannot comment on the chairman's classified briefing to Congress. During the briefing, Ratcliffe told lawmakers that the US intelligence community assesses that the majority of Iran's enriched nuclear material is buried at Isfahan and Fordow, according to a US official. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN on Thursday night after receiving the briefing that some of Iran's capabilities 'are so far underground that we can never reach them. So they have the ability to move a lot of what has been saved into areas where there's no American bombing capacity that can reach it.' An early assessment produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency in the day after the US strikes said the attack did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program, including its enriched uranium, and likely only set the program back by months, CNN has reported. It also said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. The Trump officials who briefed lawmakers this week sidestepped questions about the whereabouts of Iran's stockpile of already-enriched uranium. President Donald Trump again claimed Friday that nothing was moved from the three Iranian sites before the US military operation. But Republican lawmakers emerged from the classified briefings on Thursday acknowledging that the US military strikes may not have eliminated all of Iran's nuclear materials. But they argued that doing so was not part of the military's mission. 'There is enriched uranium in the facilities that moves around, but that was not the intent or the mission,' Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told CNN. 'My understanding is most of it's still there. So we need a full accounting. That's why Iran has to come to the table directly with us, so the (International Atomic Energy Agency) can account for every ounce of enriched uranium that's there. I don't think it's going out of the country, I think it's at the facilities.' 'The purpose of the mission was to eliminate certain particular aspects of their nuclear program. Those were eliminated. To get rid of the nuclear material was not part of the mission,' GOP Rep. Greg Murphy told CNN. 'Here's where we're at: the program was obliterated at those three sites. But they still have ambitions,' said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. 'I don't know where the 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium exists. But it wasn't part of the targets there.' '(The sites) were obliterated. Nobody can use them anytime soon,' Graham also said. Weapons expert and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies Jeffrey Lewis told CNN that commercial satellite images show that Iran has accessed the tunnels at Isfahan. 'There were a moderate number of vehicles present at Isfahan on June 26 and at least one of the tunnel entrances was cleared of obstructions by mid-morning June 27,' Lewis said. 'If Iran's stockpile of (highly enriched uranium) was still in the tunnel when Iran sealed the entrances, it may be elsewhere now.' Additional satellite imagery captured on June 27 by Planet Labs show the entrance to the tunnels were open at the time, according to Lewis. The preliminary DIA assessment noted that the nuclear sites' above ground structures were moderately to severely damaged, CNN has reported. That damage could make it a lot harder for Iran to access any enriched uranium that does remain underground, sources said, something that Graham alluded to on Thursday. 'These strikes did a lot of damage to those three facilities,' Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, told CNN on Thursday night. 'But Iran still has the know-how to put back together a nuclear program. And if they still have that enriched material, and if they still have centrifuges, and if they still have the capability to very quickly move those centrifuges into what we call a cascade, we have not set back that program by years. We have set it back by months.' Caine and Hegseth on Thursday said the military operation against Fordow went exactly as planned but did not mention the impacts to Isfahan and Natanz. CNN's Manu Raju contributed to this report.
Boston Globe
37 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Hundreds of thousands mourn top Iranian military commanders and scientists killed in Israeli strikes
State media reported more than 1 million people turned out for the funeral procession, which was impossible to independently confirm, but the dense crowd packed the main Tehran thoroughfare along the entire 4.5 kilometer (nearly 3 mile) route. There was no immediate sign of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the state broadcast of the funeral. Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since before the outbreak of the war, has in past funerals held prayers for fallen commanders over their caskets before the open ceremonies, later aired on state television. Advertisement Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was on hand, and state television reported that Gen. Esmail Qaani, who heads the foreign wing of the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force, and Gen. Ali Shamkhani were also among the mourners. Shamkhani, an adviser to Khamenei who was wounded in the first round of Israel's attack and hospitalized, was shown in a civilian suit leaning on a cane in an image distributed on state television's Telegram channel. Advertisement Later on Saturday night, state TV showed Shamkhani saying he and other generals knew they would be targets before Israel initiated the war earlier this month. The morning of the strike on his residence, he said he woke up for dawn prayer when suddenly everything around him had become ruins. He initially thought that an earthquake had taken place, and it took search and rescue teams at least three hours to find him in the rubble. Shamkhani said most of his injuries were internal, including a chest fracture. Iran's Revolutionary Guard was created after its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since it was established, it has evolved from a paramilitary, domestic security force to a transnational force that has come to the aid of Tehran's allies in the Middle East, from Syria and Lebanon to Iraq. It operates in parallel to the country's existing armed forces and controls Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles, which it has used to attack Israel twice during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Over 12 days before a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, Israel claimed it killed around 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group. Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people. Saturday's ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children. Advertisement Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies. Many in the crowd expressed feelings of anger and defiance. 'This is not a ceasefire, this is just a pause,' said 43-year-old Ahmad Mousapoor, waving an Iranian flag. 'Whatever they do, we will definitely give a crushing response.' State media published images of an open grave plot at Tehran's sprawling Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery where army chief of staff, Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, who was killed on the first day of the war, was to be buried beside his brother, a Guards commander killed during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Many of the others were to be buried in their hometowns. The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency confirmed that the top prosecutor at the notorious Evin prison had been killed in an Israeli strike on Monday. It reported that Ali Ghanaatkar, whose prosecution of dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, led to widespread criticism by human rights groups, would be buried at a shrine in Qom. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. But Israel views it as an existential threat and said its military campaign was necessary to prevent Iran from building an atomic weapon. Khamenei's last public appearance was June 11, two days before hostilities with Israel broke out, when he met with Iranian parliamentarians. On Thursday, however, he released a pre-recorded video, in his first message since the end of the war, filled with warnings and threats directed toward the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic's longtime adversaries. Advertisement The 86-year-old downplayed U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites as having not achieved 'anything significant' and claimed victory over Israel. The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, Rafael Grossi, has characterized the damage done by American bunker-buster bombs to Iran's Fordo nuclear site, which was built into a mountain, as 'very, very, very considerable.' U.S. President Donald Trump has said that he expects Iran to open itself to international inspection to verify it doesn't restart its nuclear program, and White House officials have said they expect to restart talks soon with Iran, though nothing has been scheduled. Iran's parliament has voted to suspend collaboration with Grossi's International Atomic Energy Agency for the time being. In a post on X on Saturday, Araghchi indicated that Iran might be open to talks, but criticized Trump's remarks from Friday in which the president scoffed at a warning from Khamenei against further U.S. attacks, saying Iran 'got beat to hell.' 'If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran's Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers,' Araghchi wrote.
Fox News
41 minutes ago
- Fox News
Terror in Gaza: Hamas offers bounties to kill US and local aid workers, group says
EXCLUSIVE — The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is facing a new threat as Hamas terrorists place bounties on the heads of its workers, including U.S. security personnel and local aid staff. According to GHF, Hamas is offering monetary rewards to anyone who kills or injures the organization's workers. "We are aware of credible reports that Hamas is openly targeting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and those who work with us. According to these reports, Hamas has placed bounties on both our American security personnel and Palestinian aid workers—offering cash rewards to anyone who injures or kills them," GHF said in a statement provided exclusively to Fox News Digital. "The targets of Hamas's brutality are heroes who are simply trying to feed the people of Gaza in the middle of a war." GHF also said that Hamas has positioned "armed operatives" near humanitarian zones in an apparent attempt to "disrupt the only functioning aid delivery system in Gaza." Earlier this month, Hamas launched a deadly attack on GHF workers, leaving 12 dead. The organization said Hamas also tortured others. The victims were local workers, according to GHF. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee issued a statement on the bounties and criticized the United Nations' silence on Hamas brutality. "Last month [President Trump] told us to get food to civilians in Gaza, but DON'T let Hamas steal it," Huckabee wrote on X. "NOT always pretty, but 800k+ unique recipients of food & 1ST TIME they [have] received food FREE since start of war. Hamas has stolen or taxed it & now w/ GHF they CAN'T! Hamas' main tool to control Gaza is GONE. Hamas has put a bounty on the heads of everyone at GHF — Gazans [and] Americans. The UN remains SILENT." In response to Huckabee's statement, GHF Executive Chairman Rev. Johnnie Moore wrote in his own post on X that reports of the Hamas bounties are based on "new and credible information received today." "Hamas would be very unwise to test the resolve of [President Donald Trump]," Moore wrote. GHF is demanding the international community break its silence on Hamas' treatment of the organization's local workers and the American security personnel, many of whom are U.S. veterans. "Hamas, through these violent and escalating threats, is showing the world it prefers chaos and starvation to peace and aid," GHF wrote. "We call on international leaders and aid groups to stand with us and with the people of Gaza. The people of Gaza, who show up to our sites every day in defiance of Hamas's threats and brutality, deserve it." GHF said it has been able to distribute approximately 49,915,822 meals so far. The organization recently received a funding boost after the U.S. State Department announced it had approved $30 million in funding for the group. "We call on other countries to also support the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and its critical work," State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Piggot said in a briefing on June 26. "From day one, we said we are open to creative solutions that securely provide aid to those in Gaza and protects Israel. The support is simply the latest iteration of President Trump's and Secretary Rubio's pursuit of peace in the region."
