Latest from Ya Libnan
Ya Libnan
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Berri confirms that Hezbollah will not participate in the war, dismisses Qassem's remarks
Visitors to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told Al Jadeed TV that 'the statement attributed to Berri that Hezbollah will not participate in the war is confirmed, while the statement of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem is a principled position that the party can only take because it is in solidarity with Iran.' This came after Qassem announced that the party is not neutral and is acting as it sees fit in confronting the war on Iran. Berri's visitors expressed his surprise at some people's description of Sheikh Naim Qassem speech as if it were a response to his remarks. The visitors added that 'Berri confirmed to US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrak that Lebanon is prepared to implement Resolution 1701, but Israel is preventing its implementation.' The visitors also added that 'Barrak will visit former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt to apologize for what former US Envoy Morgan Ortagus had previously said to him,' when she told him that drugs were harmful in response to his criticism of her. Qassem didn't learn his lesson In a related development Israeli Defense minister Israel Katz blasted Qassems speech , saying he didn't learn his lesson El Nashra
Ya Libnan
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Iran may produce a nuclear bomb if the US attacks it or Khamanei is killed, NYT
File : Fordów uranium enrichment facility which is embedded in a mountain inside Iran and which Israel wants the US to bomb but president Trump is not convinced it can be done and decided to take 2 weeks to make the decision on whether to join Israel in the war 'The US should let Israel finish the job it started. PM Netanyahu says Israel is capable of finishing the job. President Trump claims to be a peacemaker not a warmonger . The last thing the US should do is join Israel in the war . This will be much worse than the war on Iraq in 2003', analysts say and the US never won any war since WWII A missile on display in Tehran in February. American spy agencies believe that it could take several months, and up to a year, for Iran to make a nuclear weapon. U.S. intelligence agencies continue to believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to make a nuclear bomb even though it has developed a large stockpile of the enriched uranium necessary for it to do so, according to intelligence and other American officials. That assessment has not changed since the intelligence agencies last addressed the question of Iran's intentions in March, the officials said, even as Israel has attacked Iranian nuclear facilities. Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that Iranian leaders were likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the American military attacked the Iranian uranium enrichment site Fordo or if Israel killed Iran's supreme leader. The question of whether Iran has decided to complete the work of building a bomb is irrelevant in the eyes of many Iran hawks in the United States and Israel, who say Tehran is close enough to represent an existential danger to Israel. But it has long been a flashpoint in the debate over policy toward Iran and has flared again as President Trump weighs whether to bomb Fordo. White House officials held an intelligence briefing on Thursday and announced that Mr. Trump would make his decision within the next two weeks. At the White House meeting, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, told officials that Iran was very close to having a nuclear weapon. Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokeswoman, said later at a news briefing that Iran had the material it needed to make a bomb. 'Let's be very clear: Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,' she said. 'All they need is a decision from the supreme leader to do that and it would take a couple weeks to complete the production of that weapon.' Some American officials said those new assessments echoed material provided by Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, which believes that Iran can achieve a nuclear weapon in 15 days. While some American officials find the Israeli estimate credible, others emphasized that the U.S. intelligence assessment remained unchanged, and American spy agencies believe that it could take several months, and up to a year, for Iran to make a weapon. Intelligence assessments are often drafted in a way that allows policymakers to draw different conclusions. And many intelligence officials believe that the reason Iran has accumulated such a large arsenal of uranium is to have the ability to move toward making a bomb quickly. Some officials believe Israeli assessments have been colored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's desire to gain American support for his military campaign against Iran. Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday, however, that Israel could achieve its goals alone when it came to Iran's nuclear facilities. None of the new assessments on the timeline to get a bomb are based on newly collected intelligence, according to multiple officials. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, in 2003 that has prevented the country from developing nuclear weapons. That is 'right now holding,' a senior intelligence official said, adding that the Israeli assessment that Iran was 15 days away was alarmist. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly warned over the years that Iran is close to a nuclear weapon. And since Israel began its attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities, Israeli officials have warned that Iran was weeks away from having the components for a bomb. Mr. Netanyahu has not been specific on the time frame. 'In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium, and if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time,' Mr. Netanyahu said. 'It could be a year. It could be within a few months, less than a year. This is a clear and present danger to Israel's very survival.' Still, American officials acknowledge that the large stockpile poses a threat. Testifying before Congress on June 10, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of Central Command, said Iran's nuclear stockpile and available centrifuges could allow it to produce weapons-grade material in a week, and were enough to make 10 weapons in three weeks if the government decided 'to sprint to a nuclear weapon.' In testimony in March, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, noted that the Iranian stockpile was at a high, a level that she said was unprecedented for a nonnuclear state. Officials said Ms. Gabbard's comments remained accurate and were in line with the idea that Iran is gathering the components of a weapon. Iran's stockpile is enriched to 60 percent. To make a bomb, it would need to be enriched further, to 90 percent. Enriching uranium means reducing the percentage of naturally occurring uranium, U-238, and increasing the percentage of a lighter isotope, U-235, that can sustain a nuclear reaction. But producing a weapon requires more than uranium. Iran would also have to make a bomb, and potentially miniaturize it to place on a warhead. While the United States and Israel believe that Iran has the expertise to build a bomb, there is no intelligence that it has set out to do that. U.S. intelligence believes that Iran could potentially shorten the timeline if it pursued a cruder weapon that might not be able to be miniaturized and put on a missile. Such a cruder weapon might be more akin to the bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, which was nearly 10,000 pounds and 10 feet long and had to be dropped from a plane, rather than delivered on a missile. Senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance, have said that new information has come in since the U.S. intelligence position was made public in March. But officials said that information from Israel and other sources was not new intelligence about the program or Iranian intent to build a bomb, but rather new analysis of existing work. THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ya Libnan
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Trump still pursuing diplomacy with Iran, will make a decision ‘within 2 weeks on whether to join Israel'
Trump still pursuing diplomacy with Iran, will make a decision 'within two weeks' on whether to join Israel' President Trump will make a decision 'within two weeks' on whether to join Israel's war against Iran to eliminate its nuclear program, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. Citing the 'chance for substantial negotiations' with Iran, Trump is leaving the door open to a diplomatic solution in the coming days that could avert a major escalation in the Middle East. Trump met with his top national security team in the Situation Room on Thursday — the third such meeting in three days. He's seriously considering joining the war, but wants to ensure three things are true, U.S. officials say: 'I have a message directly from the president: 'Based on the fact that there is a chance for substantial negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision on whether or not to go within the next two weeks,'' Leavitt said at Thursday's White House briefing. As Trump has deliberated in recent days over whether to join the war, special envoy Steve Witkoff has maintained direct communication with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, as Axios reported Wednesday. The foreign ministers of France, Germany and the U.K., along with the European Union's foreign policy chief, are set to meet with Araghchi in Geneva on Friday, a source with knowledge of the situation said. AXIOS
Ya Libnan
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
US, Iran held direct talks amid intensifying conflict with Israel, diplomats say
MOST RECENT DEVELOPMENTS U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi have spoken by phone several times since Israel began its strikes on Iran last week, in a bid to find a diplomatic end to the crisis, three diplomats told Reuters. According to the diplomats, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, Araqchi said Tehran would not return to negotiations unless Israel stopped the attacks, which began on June 13. They said the talks included a brief discussion of a U.S. proposal given to Iran at the end of May that aims to create a regional consortium that would enrich uranium outside of Iran, an offer Tehran has so far rejected. U.S. and Iranians officials did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the matter. This week's phone discussions were the most substantive direct talks since the two began negotiations in April. On those occasions, in Oman and Italy, the two men exchanged brief words when they encountered each other after indirect talks were held. A regional diplomat close to Tehran said Araqchi had told Witkoff that Tehran 'could show flexibility in the nuclear issue' if Washington pressured Israel to end the war. A European diplomat said: 'Araqchi told Witkoff Iran was ready to come back to nuclear talks, but it could not if Israel continued its bombing.' Other than brief encounters after five rounds of indirect talks since April to discuss Iran's decades-old nuclear dispute, Araqchi and Witkoff had not previously held direct contacts. A second regional diplomat who spoke to Reuters said 'the (first) call was initiated by Washington, which also proposed a new offer' to overcome the deadlock over clashing red lines. URANIUM ENRICHMENT U.S. President Donald Trump wants Tehran to end uranium enrichment on its soil, while Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Tehran's right to enrichment is non-negotiable. Trump has been keeping his cards close to his chest over whether he will order U.S. forces to join Israel's bombing campaign that it says aims to destroy Iran's nuclear program and ballistic capabilities. But Trump offered a glimmer of hope that diplomacy could resume, saying Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting. He rebuffed President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week when the French leader said Trump had told G7 leaders at a summit in Canada that the United States had made an offer to get a ceasefire and then kickstart broader discussions. European officials have been coordinating with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also at the G7 summit. Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3 and party to a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, held a ministerial call with Araqchi on Sunday. The three countries and the European Union are set to meet him in Geneva on Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei and an EU official said. Earlier in the week, both Rubio and Araqchi told the Europeans in separate talks about a possible diplomatic initiative, three diplomats said. A senior European diplomat said what emerged at the G7 was that Trump wanted the operations to end very quickly and that he wanted the Iranians to talk to him, while making clear that they had to accept his demands if they wanted the war to end. Given the Israeli strikes and Trump's rhetoric, diplomats said Iran was in no position to hold public talks with the U.S., but that a meeting with the Europeans as a link to try and advance diplomacy was deemed more realistic for Tehran. (Reuters) –
Ya Libnan
a day ago
- Health
- Ya Libnan
Israel attacks Iranian nuclear sites and Iranian missile damages Israeli hospital
AN IRANIAN MISSILE HITS ISRAELI HOSPITAL By Jana Choukeir , Alexander Cornwell and Crispian Balmer June 19, 202511:57 AM GMT+3Updated 1 min ago Israel struck a key Iranian nuclear site on Thursday and Iranian missiles hit an Israeli hospital, as President Donald Trump kept the world guessing about whether the U.S. would join Israel in airstrikes seeking to destroy Tehran's nuclear facilities Trump faces uproar from MAGA base over possible Iran strike. 'We can't have another Iraq, said Steve Bannon, a key Trump MAGA ally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to press on with Israel's biggest ever attack on Iran until his arch enemy's nuclear program is destroyed, said Tehran's 'tyrants' would pay the 'full price'. His Defence Minister Israel Katz said the military had been instructed to intensify strikes on strategic-related targets in Tehran in order to eliminate the threat to Israel and destabilize the 'Ayatollah regime'. Netanyahu has said that Israel's military attacks could topple the regime in Iran, and Israel would do whatever is necessary to remove the 'existential threat' posed by Tehran. A week of Israeli air and missile strikes against its major rival has wiped out the top echelon of Iran's military command, damaged its nuclear capabilities and killed hundreds of people, while Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed at least two dozen civilians in Israel. The Israeli military said it targeted the Khondab nuclear reactor in Iran's central city Arak overnight, including a partially-built heavy-water research reactor. Heavy-water reactors produce plutonium, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make the core of an atom bomb. Iranian media reported two projectiles hitting an area near the facility. There were no reports of radiation threats. Israel's military said it also struck a site in the area of Natanz, which it said contains components and specialized equipment used to advance nuclear weapons development. Iran has always denied planning to build an atomic weapon and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Its Atomic Energy Organization said Israel had attacked its nuclear sites 'in renewed violation of international law' and that there were no casualties because the areas had been evacuated. MISSILES DAMAGE HOSPITAL IN ISRAEL On Thursday morning, several Iranian missiles struck populated areas in Israel, including a hospital in the southern part of the country, according to an Israeli military official. Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it was targeting Israeli military and intelligence headquarters near Soroka medical centre in the city of Beersheba in the south of the country. Soroka reported it had sustained damage. The week of Iranian missile salvoes mark the first time in decades of shadow war and proxy conflict that a significant number of projectiles fired from Iran have penetrated defenses, killing Israelis in their homes. Trails of missiles and interception efforts were visible in the skies over Tel Aviv, with explosions heard as incoming projectiles were intercepted. Israeli media also reported direct hits in central Israel. Emergency services said five people had been seriously injured in the attacks and dozens of others hurt in three separate locations. People were still trapped in a building in a south Tel Aviv neighbourhood, they added. Around a dozen mostly European and African embassies and diplomatic missions are located just a few hundred meters from the strike on Tel Aviv. Buildings were extensively damaged in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, a key commercial hub home to high-rise towers, and emergency workers helping residents, including children. The blast caused significant damage to nearby residential buildings and shattered windows across the area. 'It's very scary,' said Yaniv, 34, who lives just a few hundred meters away. He said he heard a deafening explosion when the missile hit, shaking his apartment tower. The worst-ever conflict between the two regional powers has raised fears that it will draw in world powers and further destabilize the Middle East. Oil prices surged after Israel said it attacked Iranian nuclear sites overnight, as investors grapple with fears of a broader conflict in the Middle East that could disrupt crude supplies. Israel, which has the most advanced military in the Middle East, has been fighting on several fronts since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack triggered the Gaza war, which has spilled over across the region. It has pounded Iran's regional allies, the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon's Hezbollah, with fierce military campaigns and assassinations of their top leaders, and bombed Yemen's Houthis. Speaking to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump declined to say if he had made any decision on whether to join Israel's air campaign . 'I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do,' he said. Trump also said Iranian officials wanted to come to Washington for a meeting: 'We may do that,' he said, adding 'it's a little late' for such talks. Trump has said the war could end if Iran quickly agrees to sharp curbs on its nuclear program. Tehran has said it will not negotiate while under attack. Nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran, due last Sunday, were cancelled. In an effort to restart negotiations, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi on Friday in Geneva, a German diplomatic source told Reuters. Trump has veered from proposing a swift diplomatic end to the war to suggesting the United States might join it. On Tuesday he mused on social media about killing Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, then demanded Iran's unconditional surrender. A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering options that included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear installations . But the prospect of a U.S. strike against Iran has exposed divisions in the coalition of supporters that brought Trump to power, with some of his base urging him not to get the country involved in a new Middle East war. REUTERS
