Latest news with #IranConflict
BBC News
2 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Iran holds state funeral for military leaders killed in Israel conflict
A state funeral is taking place in Iran for around 60 people, including military commanders and nuclear scientists, killed during the 12-day conflict with draped in the Iranian flag, bearing portraits of deceased commanders were flanked by large crowds near Enghelab Square in central conflict ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, after the US became directly involved by bombing key nuclear sites in those being laid to rest is Mohammad Bagheri, the highest-ranking military officer in Iran who was chief of staff of Iran's armed forces. Huge crowds of mourners dressed in black chanted slogans, waved Iranian flags and held portraits of those killed. Saturday's funeral will also include Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, as well as a number of nuclear scientists such as Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, who was head of Azad University in Tehran. It comes after US President Donald Trump said he would "absolutely" consider bombing Iran to a question from the BBC's Nomia Iqbal at a White House press briefing on Friday, he said he would "without question" attack the country if intelligence concluded Iran could enrich uranium to concerning has also repeated his assertions that Iran was "decimated", writing: "Why would the so-called 'Supreme Leader' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war-torn country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the war with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie."Trump also claimed to have known "exactly where he [Khamenei] was sheltered", saying he "would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces... terminate his life"."I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death, and he does not have to say, 'thank-you, president Trump!'" Trump posted on his Truth Social foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, warned Trump against making "disrespectful" comments about Khamenei, who claimed US and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had achieved "nothing significant"."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," Araghchi posted on X."The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to 'Daddy' to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults."Araghchi has admitted that "excessive and serious" damage was done to Iran's nuclear sites by the recent bombings.
CBS News
5 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Senate votes down measure restricting Trump from further military action in Iran
Will bipartisan war powers resolution hold up as it moves through Congress? Washington — The Senate on Friday voted down an effort to block President Trump from using further military force against Iran, as Democratic anger festers over the lack of details about the recent strikes on the country's nuclear facilities. The measure failed in a 47-53 vote, with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky voting with most Democrats in favor of the resolution, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voting with most Republicans against it. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia introduced the war powers resolution days before the U.S. bombed three locations central to Iran's nuclear program, seeking to force the president to get congressional authorization before entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. "The events of this week have demonstrated that war is too big to be consigned to the decisions of any one person," Kaine said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. Since the measure was introduced, Mr. Trump announced a ceasefire between the adversaries and declared that Iran's nuclear sites were "obliterated" during the 12-day war. On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would "without question" consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to a level that concerned the U.S. But anger from Democrats, including those who have said that Iran should never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon, has simmered as they say they have been left in the dark about U.S. military actions. It's led some Democrats to question whether the Trump administration is misleading the public about the strikes, especially after an initial classified assessment found that they set back Tehran's nuclear program by a matter of months. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has said the nuclear program was set back "basically decades." Top intelligence officials said Wednesday that new intelligence showed the nuclear program had been "severely damaged" and its facilities "destroyed." It would take the Iranians "years" to rebuild the facilities, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called it "an historically successful attack" in a contentious press briefing Thursday. Classified briefings for the Senate and House were originally scheduled for Tuesday, the same day the initial assessment was leaked. Officials briefed senators on Thursday afternoon and House members on Friday. A White House official said Tuesday the Senate briefing was postponed because of "evolved circumstances as a result of recent positive developments in the Middle East." After the briefings, some Democrats cast doubt on the administration's characterization of the strikes and questioned assertions regarding how much Iran's nuclear program has been hindered. "I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program," Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters. "The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated. It is certain that there is still significant capability, significant equipment that remain." Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said the information disclosed in the briefing was "massively different than what has been told to Congress over the last year, up until a month ago, about both Iranian capabilities and Iranian intent." Crow said he was "not convinced of that whatsoever" when asked whether Iranian nuclear facilities had been obliterated. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, has railed against a lack of transparency and said earlier this week the administration had not presented Congress with any evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat requiring immediate military action. But Jeffries did not go as far as supporting a resolution to impeach Mr. Trump over the bombings. He and more than 120 Democrats voted with all Republicans to kill the measure, which was introduced by Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, on Tuesday. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also questioned the timing of the strikes. "It's pretty clear that there was no imminent threat to the United States," Himes said. "There's always an Iranian threat to the world. But ... I have not seen anything to suggest that the threat from the Iranians was radically different last Saturday than it was two Saturdays ago." Kaine's resolution was one of a handful of similar efforts seeking to curtail further U.S. involvement in Iran, though it's unclear whether any will be successful in a Congress controlled narrowly by Republicans. Some Republicans who were initially supportive of the resolutions, like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, appear to be backing away from forcing a vote as long as the ceasefire holds and the U.S. does not conduct any further bombings. And House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, called the efforts irrelevant because Iran and Israel agreed to stop the fighting. "It's kind of a moot point now, isn't it?" Johnson said Monday. "It seems rather silly at this point and I hope they'll acknowledge it as such and put it to bed because it has zero chance of passing anyway." Senate Majority Leader John Thune told The Wall Street Journal this week he believes Mr. Trump acted "perfectly within his authority" by striking Iran. "I don't think there's any question the president has the authority legally and constitutionally to do what he did," the South Dakota Republican said. "There are always questions around these things, but past presidents and both political parties have similarly acted in circumstances where there've been airstrikes at various places around the world where our national security interests dictated it." The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, and most major military conflicts in recent history have been launched under an authorization for the use of military force passed by Congress. But presidents have periodically acted without explicit permission from lawmakers, including during President Bill Clinton's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and President Barack Obama's 2011 airstrikes on Libya, the Congressional Research Service notes. In announcing his support for Kaine's resolution, Paul said Congress was abdicating its constitutional responsibility by allowing a president to act unilaterally and warned that last week's strikes could have unintended consequences. "Despite the tactical success of our strikes, they may end up proving to be a strategic failure. It is unclear if this intervention will fully curtail Iran's nuclear aspirations, or, in fact, whether the Iranians may well conclude to double down on their efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon," Paul said. Those opposed to the resolution argued that Mr. Trump acted within his constitutional authority and that the measure would constrain the president's ability to respond quickly to a threat. In an interview last week with CBS News' Major Garrett, Kaine acknowledged that his resolution could fail but said he wanted his colleagues to be on the record about U.S. involvement in another war. "Everyone in the Senate should agree that this is a matter of such gravity and importance that we shouldn't allow war to begin without Congress having a debate in full view of the American public and members of the Senate and House having to go on the record about it," he said. , and contributed to this report.
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
US Senate votes down resolution to restrict Trump from escalating Iran war
Senate Democrats failed on Friday to get a war-powers resolution passed to limit Donald Trump's ability to single-handedly escalate the war with Iran. The resolution, 'to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran', was voted down 53-47. The vote on the resolution, introduced by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, split along mainly partisan lines. One Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted for it; one Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted against it. 'Congress declares war,' Kaine said in a speech on the Senate floor. He stressed that the framers of the US constitution in 1787 were so wary of giving the power to start wars to one person that they did not even entrust it to George Washington, the first commander-in-chief. 'They decided that war was too big a decision for one person,' Kaine said. 'And so they wrote a constitution that said the United States should not be at war without a vote of Congress.' The measure would have compelled Trump to seek authorization from Congress before taking any further military action. Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities on 22 June. This directly followed Israel launching attacks on Iran, and Iran retaliating. Trump said that the US bombardment 'totally obliterated' key nuclear enrichment facilities and deemed the mission a success, although some initial reports said the damage was minimal. Iran condemned the attacks. Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had halted its nuclear ambitions after the bombings. But, he said, he would 'absolutely' continue to attack the country's nuclear sites if he believed it was once again enriching uranium. 'Time will tell,' Trump said at the White House. 'But I don't believe that they're going to go back into nuclear anytime soon.'
South China Morning Post
9 hours ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
As war threatens China's Iran investments, Middle East still beckons
Watching as missile bombardments threaten key shipping routes and blow up some of their trade deals in the Middle East, with Iran at the centre of the firestorm, Chinese exporters are feeling the heat. After finalising a deal with an Iranian buyer she met at China's Canton Fair in April, Miya Yu, a trader of light industrial goods – valves, toys, aluminium containers, etc – collected the necessary materials to begin production and fill the order. Production never began. The contracted client vanished without a word as his country engaged in battle with the United States and Israel, putting Yu's business plans at risk of becoming an economic casualty of the latest violent crisis in a region that is among the world's most volatile. 'We simply can't tell whether delivery will still be possible,' she said on Monday. Meanwhile, Cai Zhan, a foreign trade entrepreneur from Wenzhou and a social media influencer with more than 1.2 million followers on Douyin – China's version of TikTok – said in a recent video that she had cancelled August plans to attend an auto-parts expo in Iran, after clients warned her not to come, citing the 'serious' security situation. 'The ongoing conflict has severely disrupted business,' she said. And with clients cutting orders, shipping costs rising, and the outlook shrouded in uncertainty, she said many exporters in her network are tightening their belts. In terms of tremors of instability in the pulse of global shifts, few are more attuned than Chinese exporters navigating its shock waves in real time.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alive but weakened, Iran's Khamenei faces new challenges
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has re-emerged after the war with Israel but faces a struggle to maintain the authority he has wielded over the Islamic republic in over three-and-a-half decades of rule, analysts say. After days of silence, Khamenei appeared on Thursday in a video address to proclaim "victory" and prove he is still alive following the 12-day conflict with Israel which ended with a truce earlier this week. But Khamenei, appointed Iran's number one and spiritual leader for life in 1989, spoke softly and hoarsely in the address, without the charismatic oratory for which he is known. Whereas his regular interventions before the war usually took place in public in front of an audience, this message was filmed against a plain backdrop of curtains and a picture of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This may indicate he could still be in hiding after Israel refused to rule out seeking to assassinate him. On Thursday, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz told media that the military would have killed Khamenei during the war if the opportunity had presented itself. "If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out," Katz told Israel's public radio station Kan, adding that the military had "searched a lot". But in the end, the conflict did not trigger the removal of the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution. Still, it enabled Israel to demonstrate military superiority and deep intelligence penetration of Iran by killing key members of Khamenei's inner circle in targeted strikes. The war was also the latest in a series of setbacks over the last year for Khamenei. These include the downgrading of pro-Tehran militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in conflicts with Israel and the fall of Iran's ally in Syria Bashar al-Assad, against the background of economic crisis and energy shortages at home. "At this time, the regime does not seem to be on the verge of falling but it is certainly more vulnerable than it has been since the early years after the revolution," said Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa. - 'Diminished figure' - "The authority of the supreme leader has therefore certainly been undermined," Juneau told AFP. "Even though his position remains secure, in that there is unlikely to be a direct challenge to his rule for now, he has lost credibility and bears direct responsibility for the Islamic republic's major losses." Khamenei is 86 and suffers the effects of a 1981 assassination attempt in Tehran which paralysed his right arm, a disability he has never made any attempt to hide. But discussion of succession has remained taboo in Iran, even if Western analysts have long eyed his son Mojtaba as a possible -- but far from inevitable -- contender. Arash Azizi, visiting fellow at Boston University, said Khamenei looked "frail and weak" in his televised message in "a far cry from the grand orator we know". "It's clear that he is a diminished figure, no longer authoritative and a shadow of his former self," he said. "Power in Tehran is already passing to different institutions and factions and the battle for his succession will only intensify in the coming period." Khamenei has come through crises before, using the state's levers of repression, most recently during the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd detained for allegedly breaching Iran's strict dress code for women. Rights activists say hundreds of people have been arrested in a new crackdown in the wake of the conflict. - 'Sidelined'? - The New York Times and Iran International, a Persian-language television channel based outside Iran that is critical of the authorities, have said Khamenei spent the war in a bunker avoiding use of digital communication for fear of being tracked and assassinated. Iran International reported that Khamenei was not even involved in the discussions that led to the truce which were handled by the national security council and President Masoud Pezeshkian. There has been no confirmation of this claim. Jason Brodsky, policy director at the US-based United Against Nuclear Iran, said Khamenei appeared "frail and hoarse" and also "detached from reality" in insisting that Iran's nuclear programme did not suffer significant damage. "Nevertheless, I remain sceptical of the theories that Khamenei has been sidelined," he told AFP. "I have no doubt the war will prompt a debate within the Islamic Republic's political elite as to how best to rebuild the system's capabilities, but in the end, the buck has always stopped with Khamenei," he said. sjw/ah/ser
