Latest news with #missiles
LBCI
3 hours ago
- Politics
- LBCI
Iran's IRGC launches massive drone and missile attack on Israeli military targets
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the start of a new wave of coordinated attacks targeting Israel, involving a barrage of missiles and more than 100 drones. According to a statement, the attack is focused on military targets in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Its defences are smashed, its allies are quiet. No-one is going to help Iran
Iran's skies are open, its missile launchers are destroyed, and its allies are silent. Meanwhile, in Israel, restrictions are being relaxed, and citizens are returning to work and public spaces – although Iranian strikes have continued, with some hitting multi-storey buildings and a major hospital. Israel had been expecting a longer campaign and more intense retaliation from the Iranians, but Israeli intelligence operations and a series of strikes last year appear to have successfully weakened Iran's defences. Israeli jets and drones have needed only a few days to do the rest. Iran's "Axis of Resistance", a key tenet of its strategy of "forward defence", has proven impotent. The Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, which Israel previously considered a more immediate danger than Iran, has done nothing. The group's guided missiles were thought to be Iran's insurance policy against an Israeli or United States attack. But Hezbollah's missile arsenal and weapons factories were badly damaged by a crushing Israeli air campaign last year, and the group felt abandoned by its Iranian sponsors during its hour of need. Now, Hezbollah knows any intervention in this conflict would see the group lose any chance of recovering, most likely dying out as both a political and military force with a whimper rather than a roar. The Shia militias in Iraq — supposedly powerful, heavily armed and aggressive — have also not acted. Only the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who were already firing ballistic missiles at Israel and attacking shipping in the Red Sea before Israel's attack, have maintained some form of token action, with the occasional missile or drone launch. Another ally, the Assad regime in Syria, collapsed late last year, in part because of Israel's success against Hezbollah. Iran's most powerful allies, China and Russia, have not intervened either. Iran has been supplying Russia with drones to use against Ukraine, but Russia has not helped defend against Israeli attacks. "Throughout the history between Iran and Russia, Russia has never been a reliable ally for Iran," Iran researcher Mahnaz Shirali told the ABC. "It has always been more of a dangerous neighbour, constantly eager to seize Iranian territories. It's the ayatollahs' foolishness that made them believe they could count on Russia. "Russia has never truly helped Iran. On the contrary, the Islamic Republic has helped Russia a great deal — providing them with missiles and drones." Yet, Russia refuses to build Iran an air defence system. "As for China, which supposedly supports Iran, it hasn't lifted a finger to help. And that's understandable," Dr Shirali said. "China does $US600 billion in trade with the United States every year. They're never going to sacrifice those $600 billion for the sake of the ayatollahs." While Israel has clearly been planning diligently to attack Iran, the Iranian government and military have proven unprepared and incapable of responding. As Israel did with its devastatingly accurate intelligence against Hezbollah — including booby-trapping pagers and walkie-talkies — Israeli operatives had extensively penetrated Iran, allowing Israel to quickly weaken defences and dominate the skies. Iran, struggling under sanctions and repressing its citizens for years, has repeatedly proven ripe for recruitment and infiltration. The country's advantages — a large, mountainous landmass, a big population and a standing army — have all been nullified by a swift, intense Israeli air campaign. "They thought they could go to war against Israel with their soldiers on the ground. They had absolutely no idea that war in 2025 is fought against an invisible enemy," Dr Shirali said. "They were completely unprepared for this modern form of warfare." None of this is to say Israel's attacks — particularly on scientists and residential areas — are legal under international law, or that Israel had a casus belli (legal justification) for attacking while Iran, which had previously signed a nuclear control deal, was in the middle of negotiating a new agreement with the US. Israel also cannot claim victory. It hasn't managed to disable Iran's secondary uranium enrichment site at Fordow, which is buried deep under a mountain, and Iran maintains a decentralised and extensive network of nuclear scientists and facilities. Iran — and regional neighbours who are watching Israel's attack with great unease — could well decide that it now has no choice but to build a nuclear weapon as soon as possible, as its other forms of deterrence have proven so ineffective. Israel is now switching to attacking elements of the Iranian government, hoping to weaken it enough that Iranians could overthrow it with a popular uprising. So far, that doesn't seem to be materialising, not least because powerful elements of Iran's theocratic regime remain. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to the supreme leader, is almost a state within a state, with its own army, air force, navy and cyber directorate that sit outside the Iranian military. It also has lucrative commercial interests and political connections, as well as the infamous "Basij" paramilitary force, which claims it can mobilise up to 600,000 volunteers. The IRGC has violently suppressed previous attempts at democratic revolutions in Iran and could well do so again, despite Israeli attacks. Iran is a multi-ethnic society, and its opposition groups are not all aligned in their aims and interests. Previous western intervention for regime change in the Middle East and South Asia has had disastrous results — the civil war in Libya, the sectarian nightmare of Iraq that gave rise to the Islamic State terror group, and the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan are all in very recent history. Attempts to sow chaos have rewarded the worst actors in recent conflicts, with the most extreme and best-armed being the first to fill the power vacuum. The other powers in the Middle East will also be alarmed at Israel — the region's only nuclear-armed state and a non-signatory to the non-proliferation treaty — using massive force to dictate who can do what. Iran's government could also weather the Israeli — and potential US — assault and seek other ways to retaliate, such as asymmetric attacks, terrorism, or blocking shipping. "These are empty threats, but they're still dangerous," Dr Shirali said. "They have a capacity to cause harm." As Israel has found in Gaza, it is dangerous to begin a campaign without a clear exit strategy. Israel's goals are now unclear, and that's a recipe for further chaos in the region.
LBCI
6 hours ago
- Politics
- LBCI
Israel army says sirens sound in north after Iran missile launch
Israel's military said sirens sounded in the country's north on Thursday after missiles were fired from Iran on the seventh day of war between the two countries. A military statement said that "sirens sounded in several areas across Israel following the identification of missiles launched from Iran toward the State of Israel," with the army's Home Front Command saying air raid warnings were activated in large parts of the north. AFP
ABC News
6 hours ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Iran-Israel conflict live: Netanyahu says regime change in Iran not Israel's 'goal' but could be result
The conflict between Iran and Israel has entered its eighth day, with two sides trading missiles. Thousands of Australians are still stranded in Iran and Israel. Follow the latest developments in our live blog. To get updates to your inbox, subscribe to ABC News.
CBS News
6 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Iranian insider acknowledges country weakened, but insists Iranians remain united against Israel
Analyst close to Iranian regime says time for negotiation over, missiles will do the talking Unity and strength are the official lines coming from Iran's theocratic government in the face of President Trump's demand for "unconditional surrender" and the possibility that he could order the U.S. military to join Israel's attacks on the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities. Israel's daily, nearly weeklong bombardment of Iran's nuclear and missile sites, and its assassinations of top commanders and senior scientists, have compounded the dilemma for Iran's leaders — especially as they face the potential of internal unrest from a population under attack. At least 639 Iranians have been killed and more than 1,300 wounded over the past six days, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran organization, which relies on a network of contacts in the country. Tens of thousands of Tehran's roughly 10 million residents have now fled the capital, and other cities have also emptied out to some degree, with many people seeking safer spaces in the countryside. But Iran's ruling Muslim clerics and their adherents don't talk about an exodus. Instead, they project solidarity, and even mock President Trump and his ultimatums. "I just laugh at how negligent he is," Hamidreza Gholamzadeh, director of the Iranian think tank Diplo House, told CBS News in a remote interview from Tehran on Thursday. "He does not know anything about Iranians, either in history, or the characteristics of the Iranian nation." "Even Iranian dissident figures are now pro-Iran," he claimed, "because they know it is about [maintaining] the integrity of Iran, the whole being of Iran." An Iranian Red Crescent ambulance hit in an Israeli strike on June 16, 2025, in Iran's West Azerbaijan province, is displayed in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran, Iran, June 19, 2025. Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty But after a week of bruising attacks by Israel, and with the threat of more to come and even possible direct U.S. intervention looming on the horizon, the optimism and bluster may be getting harder to maintain. "Let's say, the power of Iran in the region has been weakened. It's not something that you can deny," acknowledged Gholamzadeh. "But the government itself has not been weakened at all. The Iranians are very united right now. The social cohesion is very strong right now." At most, Gholamzadeh claimed 20% of all Iranians would be happy to see their government fall. "There might be 10% to 15% who are against the state, but not all of them would be participating in any activities" against the regime, he said, suggesting only 5% of Iranians would actually come out onto the streets "to actively participate." But recent surveys conducted before the current war, by independent organizations based outside Iran, found quite the opposite. In 2023, following mass anti-government protests sparked the previous year by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in religious police custody, a survey by the Netherlands-based Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran found that 81% of the country's residents were against the cleric-led Iranian regime. The 2022 anti-government protests were quashed, brutally, and nothing like them has been seen in Iran since. Censorship is rife, and Iran's government has significantly curbed internet access over the last week, citing cyberthreats. Gholamzadeh repeated warnings issued by Iran's leaders, against the U.S. becoming actively involved in the conflict. "Americans have a lot of military bases in different countries here in the region," he noted, calling them "very easy targets." President Trump has warned repeatedly that any Iranian attack on American assets in the Middle East would be met with a swift response.
