A look at Al Udeid Air Base, the US military site that Iran attacked
Iran retaliated Monday for the U.S. attacks on its nuclear sites by targeting Al Udeid Air Base, a sprawling desert facility in Qatar that serves as a main regional military hub for American forces.
A U.S. defense official says no casualties have been reported.
As of this month, the U.S. military had about 40,000 service members in the Middle East, according to a U.S. official. Many of them are on ships at sea as part of a bolstering of forces as the conflict escalated between Israel and Iran, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations research and policy center.
Bases in the Middle East have been on heightened alert and taking additional security precautions in anticipation of potential strikes from Iran, while the Pentagon has shifted military aircraft and warships into and around the region during the conflict.
The U.S. has military sites spread across the region, including in Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates.
Here's a look at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar:
Al Udeid hosts thousands of service members
The sprawling facility hosts thousands of U.S. service members and served as a major staging ground for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the height of both, Al Udeid housed some 10,000 U.S. troops, and that number dropped to about 8,000 as of 2022.
The forward headquarters of the U.S. military's Central Command, Al Udeid is built on a flat stretch of desert about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Qatar's capital, Doha.
Over two decades, the gas-rich Gulf country has spent some $8 billion in developing the base, once considered so sensitive that American military officers would say only that it was somewhere 'in southwest Asia.'
Trump has visited Al Udeid
Trump visited the air base during a trip to the region last month.
It was the first time a sitting U.S. president had traveled to the installation in more than 20 years.
Al Udeid cleared its tarmacs
Last week, ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Al Udeid saw many of the transport planes, fighter jets and drones typically on its tarmac dispersed. In a June 18 satellite photo taken by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press, the air base's tarmac had emptied.
The U.S. military has not acknowledged the change, which came after ships off the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet base in Bahrain also had dispersed. That's typically a military strategy to ensure your fighting ships and planes aren't destroyed in case of an attack.
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The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
What next for Gaza as Israel's shaky truce with Iran holds?
In the wake of Donald Trump 's extraordinary outburst of profanity outside the White House, a fragile US-brokered truce between Israel and Iran appears to be tentatively holding. In recent days, this has been accompanied by a flurry of messaging from Israel that this cessation of hostilities is just the start. Benjamin Netanyahu, in a brief but emphatic video on Thursday, insisted that after Israel achieved 'a great victory' over its staunchest foe, a new opportunity had opened up for a 'dramatic expansion of peace agreements'. 'There is a window of opportunity here that must not be wasted. We must not waste even a single day,' he said with emphasis. For the two million Palestinians in Gaza facing starvation and slaughter, the hope is that this new climate of negotiations might herald the end of 20 months of Israel's unprecedented bombardment, which has reduced the 25-mile-long strip to ashen rubble and claimed over 56,000 lives, according to local officials. Senior Palestinian health workers told The Independent that without a ceasefire and the immediate delivery of desperately needed aid, they were 'scared we are teetering on the very edge'. 'We are so tired—we can't keep going,' said Yosef Abureesh, Gaza's deputy health minister, outlining how half of the essential drugs list is missing and that none of the 38 hospitals in Gaza are fully functioning. 'Don't rely on our resilience. We are no longer able to continue as health staff,' he added. But what would this peace actually look like - and at what cost? Over the weekend, Netanyahu proclaimed a 'tectonic shift' in the Middle East with Iran weakened, claiming it could herald many more regional states signing the Abraham Accords and thereby recognising and normalising relations with Israel. 'We have broken the axis,' he told reporters triumphantly. 'This is a huge change, and Israel's status is rising—not just in the Middle East but across the world.' Netanyahu's comments on Thursday, though still animated, were more vague. The entire statement lasted just 28 seconds, during which he referred to a 'window of opportunity' alongside 'the defeat of Hamas' and 'the release of the hostages'. There are thought to be around 50 Israelis seized by Hamas during its bloody 7 October 2023 assault in southern Israel who remain in Gaza. Of those, only 20 are believed to still be alive. Netanyahu has faced mounting pressure from the families of the captives and the deceased to sign any truce that could bring the hostages home. According to leaks in Israeli media, the US is also piling on pressure for a rapid peace deal in Gaza that could include broader regional implications . The left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that senior Trump administration officials have urged Israel to send its negotiating team to Cairo next week to advance talks with Hamas. Israel Hayom reported a four-way call involving Trump, secretary of state Marco Rubio, Netanyahu, and Israel's minister of strategic affairs, in which they discussed the possibility of a rapid end to the war in Gaza—possibly within just two weeks. The newspaper said the deal discussed could lead to an expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia and a post-Assad Syria. The Accords, announced in 2020, saw diplomatic normalisation and trade deals signed between Israel and Arab states including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The deal would allegedly be conditional on Hamas being replaced by an 'Arab coalition' to administer Gaza, with multiple nations accepting large numbers of Gaza residents 'seeking emigration'—a potentially alarming indication of transfer of the population. In exchange, the leaks said, the US would recognise 'limited Israeli sovereignty' in the occupied West Bank —likely meaning Trump is preparing to acknowledge Israel's de facto annexation of parts of territory that Palestinians hope to include in a future state. This includes settlements considered illegal under international law and a major obstacle to peace. In return, Israel would have to declare a willingness for a future resolution to conflict based on a 'two-state concept'—a notable watering down of the long-held and widely accepted belief that the creation of two sovereign states - Israel and Palestine - is the best solution to the conflict. But even these conditions will likely face push back from Netanyahu's extreme-right cabinet. Extreme-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have repeatedly called for the permanent conquest of Gaza and the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza that were dismantled in 2005. Without their support, Netanyahu risks the collapse of his razor-thin governing coalition. In a statement on Thursday, Smotrich declared: 'Mr prime minister, let it be clear: you do not have a mandate - not even a hint of one, or a lip-service one. If there are countries that want peace in exchange for peace - welcome. If they want a Palestinian state - they can forget it. It won't happen.' Secondly, these are conditions that the Palestinian leadership is unlikely to accept - especially if the proposal excludes the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and involves annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. The Independent reached out to Hamas for comment on the reported leaks but has yet to receive a reply. Hamas badly needs a ceasefire. It is struggling to survive in Gaza, short of commanders - many of whom have been eliminated by Israel - deprived of much of its tunnel network , and now unsure of continued support from Iran (whose own military leadership has been battered). Yet, according to Gershon Baskin - a veteran Israeli hostage negotiator and peace activist - even under extreme conditions Hamas is still unlikely to accept the proposed terms. 'Hamas is ready to release all of the hostages and give up control over Gaza, but not as a surrender to Israel or to Trump - it must be part of a wider plan, which includes the reconstruction of Gaza,' he told The Independent. 'The idea of expanding the pie and adding extra components is good, but it must include ending the war and Israel withdrawing from Gaza. 'If it includes annexation of parts of the West Bank, Hamas - and all Palestinians - will never agree.' In the interim, time is running out for civilians in Gaza. On Friday, the World Health Organization warned that their first delivery of medical supplies to Gaza since March - when Israel imposed a full blockade on the strip - was merely a 'drop in the ocean' compared to what is needed. 'Open the routes and make sure that we can get our supplies in,' said WHO's Dr Rik Peeperkorn from Jerusalem, adding that Israel had denied entry to nearly 45 percent of the organisation's aid teams. From inside Gaza, Dr Abureesh warned that the population simply cannot continue in these conditions. 'Even someone working in Hollywood preparing a horror movie would not be able to invent the scenario that people in Gaza are living through right now,' he told The Independent. 'All the ways to kill people are being used together.'
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump dropped an F-bomb this week – and just for a moment, I warmed to him
I did not get out of bed this morning expecting to praise the public use of an expletive, but such is 2025. If any president was going to break this presidential norm, as NPR put it, it was always going to be Donald Trump. 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing,' the president told a group of reporters this week. 'Do you understand that?' he asked, before storming off. It appears to be the first time a president has deliberately used the F-word live on camera to a press scrum or in a public forum, instead of being 'caught' using the term accidentally on a hot mic (even that has only happened a handful of times). Cue plenty of puns from journalists about the 'dropping of the F-bomb'. For the record, Trump actually used the F-word about Iran in 2020, but the slightly delayed radio broadcast bleeped it out. Plus, as this 2016 video compilation shows, it's not unusual for him to swear. But what was different about this time – coming as it did at a moment of heightened global anxiety about military escalation – is that it came across as … authentic. Many people watching will have felt, heard and even shared that frustration about Israel and Iran's alleged breaking of the ceasefire. Trump's swearing made the point more forcefully than any diplomatic 'disappointment' could have done. It wasn't eloquent, but I believed it. We know other presidents – such as Lyndon Johnson, and especially Richard Nixon – swore in private. They wouldn't have dreamed of risking the reputational damage to do so in public, and would have had to apologise if they did. No British prime minister has ever said 'fuck' publicly to my knowledge. Few world leaders ever have. Which is potentially part of the problem. The most common complaint about the political elite is that they're out of touch; that we can't trust a word that comes out of their mouths because it's all untrustworthy scripted spin. Yet at the same time we believe they're swearing like sailors – and saying what they really think – behind closed doors (a perception bolstered by iconic roles such as Peter Capaldi's Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed spin doctor in The Thick of It, or the blue-mouthed Roger Furlong from Veep.) Of course, swearing doesn't equate to honesty. And, in Trump's case, the obscenity only masked his own complicity in creating the situation that frustrated him – from pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 to his 'monumental' airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. But my point is that the public clearly doesn't trust the polished and sanitised scripts that characterise so much political speech. I'm not suggesting world leaders all suddenly disrespect the gravitas of their office. Can you imagine Keir Starmer being encouraged to swear? He'd sound like a headteacher attempting to rap. What I am saying is there's power in judicious swearing. You want to appear more human to voters? Act more like one. YouGov polling reported in April revealed that just 8% of Britons never swear. Perhaps an occasional curse or two would allow politicians to ally themselves with the 92% of us who do. Linguistic norms are always changing. For six years, I wrote a regular column for the Guardian's Mind your language section. During that time, I saw changes that would incense any purist. For instance, the BBC made even less use of those with received pronunciation accents and started broadcasting more voices that really sound like people across the country. Such 'real' accents are supposed to make the institution seem less remote and more trustworthy. The same is true of the institution of politics. Sounding more like real people does nobody any real harm. If the stakes are literally life and death, and people aren't listening, a well-placed, truly meant expletive will wake everyone up. At time of writing, the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran is holding. Maybe the F-bomb did the job after all. Gary Nunn is a freelance journalist and author
Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Iran holds funeral for top military commanders and scientists killed by Israel
June 28 (Reuters) - Mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran's capital Tehran at a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month's war with Israel. At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh. Their coffins were driven into Tehran's Azadi Square adorned with their pictures as well as rose petals and flowers, as crowds waved Iranian flags. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display. State TV said the funeral, dubbed the "funeral procession of the Martyrs of Power", was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children. Attending the funeral were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said its war against regional rival Iran aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which carries out inspections in Iran, has said it has "no credible indication" of an active, coordinated weapons programme in Iran. A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had killed more than 30 senior security officials and 11 senior nuclear scientists during the war. According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the 12-day war, 13 of them children and 49 women, before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured. Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians. Israel's health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
