US urges Americans in Sweden to remain vigilant, citing threat of attack
WASHINGTON/STOCKHOLM, June 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. embassy in Sweden said on Monday Americans in the country are "advised to exercise increased caution" due to local media reports on Iran potentially pressuring local criminal gangs to attack U.S. and Israeli interests.
Washington struck Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend and Iran targeted a U.S. base in Qatar on Monday in retaliation. The U.S. State Department on Sunday issued a worldwide caution security alert for Americans living overseas.
Analysts have warned that Iran, with its military weakened by Israeli strikes, could retaliate in non-traditional ways, including by activating proxy groups against American and Israeli interests worldwide.
U.S. ally Israel's war with Iran began on June 13 when Israel struck Iran. The air war raised alarms in a region that was already on edge since the start of Israel's war in Gaza in late 2023.
"Swedish media reports that Iran may be pressuring local criminal gangs, including the Foxtrot Network, to carry out attacks in Sweden against U.S. and Israeli interests. U.S. citizens in Sweden are advised to exercise increased caution," the U.S. embassy in Sweden said in a security alert.
The alert was issued before President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire. It urged Americans in Sweden to avoid crowds and demonstrations and keep a low profile.
The Swedish criminal gang Foxtrot was accused in April by Britain of committing violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of Iran's government, a claim Iran rejected. Washington sanctioned the group in March.
The embassy's alert did not identify the report it was quoting. A report by the Swedish public broadcaster on Sunday said Foxtrot and its leader were in the past few days pressured to carry out new attacks against Israelis and Americans.
Sweden has suffered from a wave of gang-related violence for over a decade, including in recent months against buildings linked to Israelis or Israeli business.
A Sunday advisory from the U.S. government warned of a heightened domestic threat environment.
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Reuters
35 minutes ago
- Reuters
U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites set up "cat-and-mouse" hunt for missing uranium
VIENNA, June 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. and Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear sites creates a conundrum for U.N. inspectors in Iran: how can you tell if enriched uranium stocks, some of them near weapons grade, were buried beneath the rubble or had been secretly hidden away? Following last weekend's attacks on three of Iran's top nuclear sites - at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan - President Donald Trump said the facilities had been "obliterated" by U.S. munitions, including bunker-busting bombs. But the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Tehran's nuclear program, has said it's unclear exactly what damage was sustained at Fordow, a plant buried deep inside a mountain that produced the bulk of Iran's most highly enriched uranium. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday it was highly likely the sensitive centrifuges used to enrich uranium inside Fordow were badly damaged. It's far less clear whether Iran's 9 tonnes of enriched uranium - more than 400 kg of it enriched to close to weapons grade - were destroyed. Western governments are scrambling to determine what's become of it. Reuters spoke to more than a dozen current and former officials involved in efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program who said the bombing may have provided the perfect cover for Iran to make its uranium stockpiles disappear and any IAEA investigation would likely be lengthy and arduous. Olli Heinonen, previously the IAEA's top inspector from 2005 to 2010, said the search will probably involve complicated recovery of materials from damaged buildings as well as forensics and environmental sampling, which take a long time. "There could be materials which are inaccessible, distributed under the rubble or lost during the bombing," said Heinonen, who dealt extensively with Iran while at the IAEA and now works at the Stimson Center think-tank in Washington. Iran's more than 400 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity - a short step from the roughly 90% of weapons grade - are enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Even a fraction of that left unaccounted for would be a grave concern for Western powers that believe Iran is at least keeping the option of nuclear weapons open. There are indications Iran may have moved some of its enriched uranium before it could be struck. IAEA chief Grossi said Iran informed him on June 13, the day of Israel's first attacks, that it was taking measures to protect its nuclear equipment and materials. While it did not elaborate, he said that suggests it was moved. A Western diplomat involved in the dossier, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said most of the enriched uranium at Fordow would appear to have been moved days in advance of the attacks, "almost as if they knew it was coming". Some experts have said a line of vehicles including trucks visible on satellite imagery outside Fordow before it was hit suggests enriched uranium there was moved elsewhere, though U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved it. Trump has also dismissed such concerns. In an interview due to air on Sunday with Fox News Channel's "Sunday Morning Futures", he insisted the Iranians "didn't move anything." "It's very dangerous to do. It is very heavy - very, very heavy. It's a very hard thing to do," Trump said. "Plus we didn't give much notice because they didn't know we were coming until just, you know, then." The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department referred Reuters to Trump's public remarks. A second Western diplomat said it would be a major challenge to verify the condition of the uranium stockpile, citing a long list of past disputes between the IAEA and Tehran, including Iran's failure to credibly explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites. "It'll be a game of cat and mouse." Iran says it has fulfilled all its obligations towards the watchdog. Before Israel launched its 12-day military campaign aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear and missile capabilities, the IAEA had regular access to Iran's enrichment sites and monitored what was inside them around the clock as part of the 191-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, to which Iran is a party. Now, rubble and ash blur the picture. What's more, Iran has threatened to stop working with the IAEA. Furious at the non-proliferation regime's failure to protect it from strikes many countries see as unlawful, Iran's parliament voted on Wednesday to suspend cooperation. Tehran says a resolution this month passed by the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations paved the way for Israel's attacks, which began the next day, by providing an element of diplomatic cover. The IAEA denies that. Iran has repeatedly denied that it has an active program to develop a nuclear bomb. And U.S. intelligence - dismissed by Trump before the airstrikes - had said there was no evidence Tehran was taking steps toward developing one. However, experts say there is no reason for enriching uranium to 60% for a civilian nuclear program, which can run on less than 5% enrichment. As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its stock of enriched uranium. The IAEA then has to verify Iran's account by means including inspections, but its powers are limited - it inspects Iran's declared nuclear facilities but cannot carry out snap inspections at undeclared locations. Iran has an unknown number of extra centrifuges stored at locations the U.N. nuclear watchdog is unaware of, the IAEA has said, with which it might be able to set up a new or secret enrichment site. That makes hunting down the material that can be enriched further, particularly that closest to bomb grade, all the more important. "Iran's stockpile of 60% enriched uranium may not have been part of the 'mission' but it is a significant part of the proliferation risk - particularly if centrifuges are unaccounted for," Kelsey Davenport of the Washington-based Arms Control Association said on X on Friday. The IAEA can and does receive intelligence from member states, which include the United States and Israel, but says it takes nothing at face value and independently verifies tip-offs. Having pummelled the sites housing the uranium, Israel and the U.S. are seen as the countries most likely to accuse Iran of hiding it or restarting enrichment, officials say. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. U.N. inspectors' futile hunt for large caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which preceded the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, showed the enormous difficulty of verifying foreign powers' assertions about hidden stockpiles of material when there is little tangible information to go on. As in Iraq, inspectors could end up chasing shadows. "If the Iranians come clean with the 400 kg of HEU (highly enriched uranium) then the problem is manageable, but if they don't then nobody will ever be sure what happened to it," a third Western diplomat said. The IAEA, which answers to 180 member states, has said it cannot guarantee Iran's nuclear development is entirely peaceful, but has no credible indications of a coordinated weapons program. The U.S. this week backed the IAEA's verification and monitoring work and urged Tehran to ensure its inspectors in the country are safe. It is a long journey from there to accounting for every gram of enriched uranium, the IAEA's standard. The above-ground plant at Natanz, the smaller of the two facilities enriching uranium up to 60 percent, was flattened in the strikes, the IAEA said, suggesting a small portion of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile may have been destroyed. Fordow, Iran's most deeply buried enrichment plant, which was producing the bulk of 60%-enriched uranium, was first seriously hit last weekend when the United States dropped its biggest conventional bombs on it. The damage to its underground halls is unclear. An underground area in Isfahan where much of Iran's most highly enriched uranium was stored was also bombed, causing damage to the tunnel entrances leading to it. The agency has not been able to carry out inspections since Israel's bombing campaign began, leaving the outside world with more questions than answers. Grossi said on Wednesday the conditions at the bombed sites would make it difficult for IAEA inspectors to work there - suggesting it could take time. "There is rubble, there could be unexploded ordnance," he said. Heinonen, the former chief IAEA inspector, said it was vital the agency be transparent in real time about what its inspectors have been able to verify independently, including any uncertainties, and what remained unknown. "Member states can then make their own risk assessments," he said.
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
New satellite photos show secret activity at Iran nuclear site after US bombing
New satellite photos have revealed that Iran is trying to piece together its nuclear site after the US sensationally bombed it last week. Heavy machinery was seen at the Fordow site as it appeared Iran has intensified its construction and excavation of the nuclear site after US B-2 bombers struck it last Saturday in Operation Midnight Hammer. Activity was seen near the tunnel entrances and near the points where the American buster bombs struck in Trump's early-morning attack. It is unclear how much uranium was left at the site during the bomb, but officials said there is no contamination after the strikes. Earthwork also showed signs tunnel entrances might have been sealed off before the attacks, Newsweek reported. Similar construction activity was seen at the Fordow site prior to the strikes, where Iranians were seen shipping contents from the nuclear site to another location a half a mile away. Despite the extent of the damage being up to question, International Atomic Energy Agency - the UN's nuclear watchdog - said Fordow's centrifuges were 'no longer operational' and suffered 'enormous damage.' A leaked preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency , a US government intelligence group, suggested there was 'low confidence' that that Middle Eastern country's program had been set back. Even Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said the United States hit Tehran's nuclear sites but achieved 'nothing significant.' 'Anyone who heard [Trump's] remarks could tell there was a different reality behind his words - they could do nothing,' the 86-year-old Iranian leader said. The Trump Administration - including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard - pushed back on the report. Hegseth slammed the media for diminishing the strikes, which Trump compared to Hiroshima. 'Your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful, it's irresponsible,' he said at a press conference. 'There's nothing that I've seen that suggests that what we didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit in those locations,' he explained without offering further evidence that the uranium was destroyed. Trump has threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN for reporting on the preliminary report. The Times reported Thursday that Trump's personal lawyer Alejandro Brito had reached out to the newspaper and said the article had damaged the president's reputation. The letter demanded The Times 'retract and apologize for' the story, calling it 'false,' 'defamatory' and 'unpatriotic.' The newspaper's lawyer responded by noting that Trump administration officials had confirmed the existence of the report after The Times published its findings. 'No retraction is needed,' The Times' lawyer David McCraw said in a letter. 'No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.' A spokesperson for CNN told The Times that the cable news network had responded to Trump's lawyer in a similar fashion. Operation Midnight Hammer marked the end of a 45-year stand-off between the United States and Iran. Trump warned Iran not to try and rebuild its nuclear program. 'I don't think they'll ever do it again,' he said while attending a NATO summit. 'They just went through hell. I think they've had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich.' But the president also didn't rule out another airstrike if necessary. When asked whether the US would strike again if Iran built its nuclear enrichment program, he replied: 'Sure.' In total, the US launched 75 precision-guided munitions, including more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles, and more than 125 military aircraft in the operation against three nuclear sites.
NBC News
40 minutes ago
- NBC News
Iran's judiciary says at least 71 killed in Israel's attack on Tehran's notorious Evin prison
At least 71 people were killed in Israel's attack on Tehran's Evin prison, a notorious facility where many political prisoners and dissidents have been held, Iran's judiciary said on Sunday. Judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir posted on the office's official Mizan news agency website that those killed on Monday included staff, soldiers, prisoners and members of visiting families. It was not possible to independently verify the claim. The June 23 attack, the day before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took hold, hit several prison buildings and prompted concerns from rights groups about the safety of the inmates. It remains unclear why Israel targeted the prison, but it came on a day when the Defense Ministry said it was attacking 'regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran.' The news of the prison attack was quickly overshadowed by an Iranian attack on a U.S. base in Qatar later that same day, which caused no casualties, and the announcement of the ceasefire. Jahangir did not break down the casualty figures but said the attack had hit the prison's infirmary, engineering building, judicial affairs and visitation hall, where visiting family members were killed and injured. On the day of the attack, New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran criticized Israel for striking the prison, seen as a symbol of the Iranian regime's repression of any opposition, saying it violated the principle of distinction between civilian and military targets. At the same time, the group said Iran was legally obligated to protect the prisoners held in Evin, and slammed authorities in Tehran for their 'failure to evacuate, provide medical assistance or inform families' following the attack. Jahangir said some of those injured were treated on site, while others were sent to hospitals. Iran had not previously announced any death figures, though on Saturday confirmed that top prosecutor Ali Ghanaatkar — whose prosecution of dissidents, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, led to widespread criticism by human rights groups — had been killed in the attack. He was one of about 60 people for whom a massive public funeral procession was held on Saturday in Tehran, and he was to be buried at a shrine in Qom on Sunday. Israel attacked Iran on June 13 in a bid to destroy the country's nuclear program. Over 12 days before a ceasefire was declared, 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. In retaliation, 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.
