Death toll in Damascus church attack rises to 25, says health ministry

DUBAI, June 23 (Reuters) - The death toll from a suicide bombing at the Mar Elias Church in the Dweila neighbourhood of Damascus on Sunday has risen to 25, Syria's state news agency SANA reported on Monday citing the country's health ministry.
It was the first suicide bombing in Damascus since Bashar al-Assad was toppled by an Islamist-led rebel insurgency in December.

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Daily Mail​

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BREAKING NEWS Shelter in place ordered for Americans in Qatar amid growing fears of Iran retaliation

The US Embassy in Qatar has ordered Americans in the nation to 'shelter in place' as fears grow of an Iranian retaliation to the US strikes on Saturday night. The Embassy warned Americans to seek shelter 'out of an abundance of caution.' It did not say how long the shelter in place order is expected to last. There are up to 15,000 American residents in Qatar, and the United States also has 19 military facilities in the Middle East nation. Qatar has served as an intermediary between the United States and Iran in the past and was coordinating negotiations over Iran's nuclear resources earlier this month before Israel ended the talks by attacking Iran on June 13. This is a developing story, check back for updates.

Daily Mail​

36 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

Iranian-Americans' praise Trump for bombing of their home nation

Iranian-Americans have backed President Trump's strikes on their home nation as they hope the intervention could trigger a revolt against the Ayatollah's regime. In Maryland, one of the largest Iranian communities in America where over 16,000 Iranian people live, residents have expressed a cautious optimism over the strikes. An Iranian-American DC resident called Alireza, who declined to give his second name, told the outlet that the news of Trump's 'bunker buster' bomb raid on three key Iranian nuclear weapon factories on Saturday night filled him with hope. He said world leaders in the past had ignored the oppression of the Iranian people at the hands of the regime, but after Trump's strikes, 'it shows that they can't do anything and they are weak.' Hashemi said that Iranian political identity has been 'deeply shaped by the fact that Iran has been on the receiving end and the humiliating end of external intervention.' '(This) created the social conditions for the 1979 revolution', he said, when the country's liberal shah was replaced by a hardline Islamic regime that remains in power to this day. Israel began bombing Iran last week in a bid to stop the country building nuclear weapons, after its leaders vowed to use them to obliterate Israel. On Saturday night, Trump dispatched B-2 bombers with huge 'bunker buster' bombs to try and destroy three nuclear weapons factories, including the infamous Fordow facility that sits buried under a mountain. Alireza and others hope that Trump's strikes will finally topple the country's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Pushing for regime change in Iran has long been avoided by US presidents, before Donald Trump on Sunday night stunned the Middle East again as he called to 'MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN.' In a shock post on Sunday night to Truth Social, Trump wrote: 'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' The message from the president directly contradicted remarks from his top allies just hours earlier, with Vice President JD Vance telling ABC: 'We don't want to achieve regime change. We want to achieve the end of the Iranian nuclear program.' A majority of Republicans support America's entry into the war - but there has been vocal criticism too, from leading MAGA figures including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Steve Bannon. However, direct American intervention to end to the Ayatollah's regime is exactly what many Iranians in America are hoping for. Reza Rofougaran, a 72-year-old real estate broker in Maryland, told the Baltimore Sun that he emigrated from Tehran shortly after the 1979 revolution, and worked as a journalist in his home country before the regime censored his newspaper. After being randomly arrested on the street, he said he 'decided that no matter what, I'm going to leave the country and come back to the U.S.' He said he is '100 percent against the Islamic regime in Iran and hope for a regime change.' Rofougaran, a US citizen since 1997, added that he was unsure if American intervention would have the desired effect given past foreign policy struggles in the Middle East, and would 'prefer this regime goes down by the people of Iran themselves.' 'A good majority of Iranians' oppose the regime, he said, but at the same time they 'are saddened by these attacks.' 'I am not happy with any attack on my homeland,' he said. The divide between the desired outcome of regime change and skepticism over how to achieve it follows decades of US presidents floating strikes on Iran but backing down due to the risks involved, before Trump pulled the trigger on Saturday night. 'Unfortunately, no one helped us. Obama didn't help us. Biden didn't help us,' Rofougaran added. 'The current situation, actually, I'm sort of happy, that actually, Israelis start supporting Iranian people.' A National Iranian American Council survey of Iranian Americans shortly before Israel's strikes on Iran found that 53 percent strongly or somewhat opposed US military action. The number that strongly or somewhat supported American intervention stood at 36 percent. Trump's strikes did not target or kill any civilians in Iran. Experts say many Iranian-Americans fled to the US to escape persecution, with that life experience explaining their support for potential regime change. 'Many Iranian Americans are here fled the regime because of either economic deprivation or political persecution,' Nader Hashemi, the director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University, told the Baltimore Sun. Rofougaran said Iranians he has spoken to both in the US and his home country say they are 'happy' with the Israeli strikes 'because of the precise attack' that only killed or injured soldiers and no civilians. 'You are not attacking civilians, people. They are attacking the mullahs, the top [IRGC] commanders and the people in charge,' he said. Now, with the world waiting for Iran's response to the US strikes, he hopes the Iranian people will see the bombings as an opportunity to push for regime change. 'The whole thing is changing in 10 days,' he said. 'They want to have a peaceful government.'

The Guardian

an hour ago

• The Guardian

Reeves calls for Middle East de-escalation amid oil price fears

Rachel Reeves has called for de-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, warning that rising global oil prices could hit the UK economy as she unveiled Labour's long-awaited industrial strategy. Launching the policy package at an engineering business in Nuneaton alongside Keir Starmer and the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, Reeves acknowledged the potential impact on companies of the conflict. 'We want de-escalation because it's the right thing for the Middle East, but we also want de-escalation because of the ramifications of conflict in the Middle East for the rest of the world, including the UK,' the chancellor said. 'We have seen increases in oil prices, in recent days, and weeks, which of course, will have an impact on the UK economy,' she added. 'We recognise the challenge that businesses and families faced with energy costs, which is part of the reason why we're doing what we're doing today, but also why, for example, we've extended the warm homes discount to try and take money off people's energy bills.' Reeves also said she understood US concerns about the risk of Iran developing a nuclear capability, saying: '60% enrichment of uranium is not for civil nuclear. And we've long shared those concerns.' As part of the industrial strategy, the government has announced a new scheme aimed at cutting the electricity bills of energy-intensive businesses, to come into force from 2027. Reynolds said the energy plan would bring the UK from being an 'outlier' in Europe on energy prices 'right into the middle of the pack'. Energy-intensive businesses in Britain have long complained that their electricity bills are uncompetitively high. Reynolds and Reeves said the government intended to fund the scheme by spreading the costs of the 'contracts for difference' through which it pays for renewable energy generation out over a longer period and earmarking increased future revenue from the emissions trading scheme from rising carbon prices. 'We are talking about a major shift in competitiveness for the sectors covered by the new British industrial competitiveness scheme: it moves us from being an outlier right into the middle of the pack – cheaper than Italy, Czech Republic, broadly comparable to, say Germany,' Reynolds said. He added: 'There's no increase in bills for anybody else and no implications for tax or borrowing from these policy interventions by the energy department that will create the headroom to allow us to exempt these businesses.' The business secretary also emphasised the cross-Whitehall nature of the industrial strategy, which covers eight sectors the government sees as having potential for significant growth – including advanced manufacturing, financial services and the creative industries. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The government published separate plans for five of the eight sectors on Monday, alongside the industrial strategy, with three more – life sciences, defence and financial services – expected before parliament goes into recess next month. 'This has got real, significant interventions in it that are not only very important in their own right, they do get to the core of what I wanted, what we wanted, which is, you know, this is not the Department for Business and Trade or the Treasury industrial strategy, this is the British government's industrial strategy,' he said. Reynolds also highlighted a new approach on preparing strategic sites for investment, the significant increase in the budget for the taxpayer-backed British Business Bank announced at the recent spending review and more powers for metro mayors to shape economic development.