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      Israeli Strikes Kill IRGC Leader and Major Nuclear Scientists

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      Israel has long targeted Iranian officials for assassination. But these attacks marked a significant shift in tactics, targeting multiple officials at once inside Iran.Israel’s wave of attacks in Iran overnight on Friday targeted top Iranian officials and appeared to successfully kill the leader of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a shocking series of strikes that aimed to deal significant blows to Iran’s security leadership.Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was killed in an Israeli strike within the Iranian capital of Tehran, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial news site affiliated with the government. As leader of the force, Mr. Salami had helped oversee the relationship with Iranian proxies like Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, which had long menaced Israel.Tasnim also reported that at least three other senior Iranian leaders were thought to have been killed. They were Gholamali Rashid, the deputy commander of the Iranian armed forces; Mohammad Mehdi Tehranji, an Iranian physicist; and Fereydoun Abbasi, an Iranian nuclear scientist.Israel has long sought to assassinate Iranian security chiefs and nuclear scientists. But it has generally picked them off one by one, often while they were outside Iranian territory in Lebanon or Syria.The attacks early on Friday appeared to be a significant shift in tactics. Not only did they target Iran’s nuclear program and air defenses, the Israeli attacks also sought to eliminate many senior members of the Iranian security establishment at once.Israel also targeted Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as well as other senior commanders in the Guards Corps and leading scientists in the country’s nuclear program, according to two Israeli defense officials familiar with the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.There was no immediate comment from Iranian officials on Mr. Bagheri’s condition. More

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      U.S. Was Not Involved in Israeli Strikes on Iran, Rubio Says

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      President Trump has said he would like to negotiate a deal with Tehran over its nuclear program but had also acknowledged that Israel might attack Iran first.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States had no involvement in Israel’s unilateral strikes on Iran but had been told that Israel considered the attack necessary for its self-defense.President Trump, who has been pushing for a deal with Iran on its nuclear program, was hosting the annual White House picnic on Thursday evening when reports of the strikes emerged from Tehran.Despite his expressed hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough, Mr. Trump had also acknowledged on Thursday that Israel might attack first.In a statement, Mr. Rubio said: “We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region. Israel advised us that they believe this action was necessary for its self-defense.” It was not immediately clear how much detail about the strike Israel had provided the United States, its main ally, and how far in advance.Despite the Trump administration distancing itself from the attacks, its statements and precautionary measures this week have indicated the concern that Iran’s retaliation, which is expected to be swift, could also include American targets in the Middle East.“Let me be clear: Iran should not target U.S. interests or personnel,” Mr Rubio said.On Wednesday, the United States withdrew diplomats from Iraq, Iran’s neighbor to the west, and authorized the voluntary departure of the family members of U.S. military personnel from the Middle East. The U.S. military has a large fleet of warplanes, naval vessels and thousands of troops stationed at its bases in the region, including in Qatar and Bahrain, just around 150 miles across the gulf from Iran.Iran’s defense minister said this week that if nuclear talks failed and a conflict arose with the United States, his country’s military would target all American bases in the region.It was unclear what impact Israel’s strikes would have on the ongoing negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran, or on Mr. Trump’s relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The president had spoken with the Israeli leader on Monday but did not give any details about the conversation.In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has said he has urged Israel to hold off on military strikes while the negotiations were taking place. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, was expected to meet Iran’s foreign minister in Oman on Sunday for the next round of talks.Around the time Israel began to strike Iran, Mr. Trump said he remained committed to a diplomatic resolution.“My entire Administration has been directed to negotiate with Iran,” he posted on social media around 5 p.m. Eastern time. “They could be a Great Country, but they first must completely give up hopes of obtaining a Nuclear Weapon.” More

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      Oil Prices Surge and Stock Markets Stumble After Israel Strikes Iran

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      The military strikes jolted investors, raising concerns that a broader Mideast conflict would disrupt the world’s energy supplies.Israel’s military strikes against Iran shook global markets, as oil prices surged and stocks tumbled on worries that the attacks could set off a broader Mideast conflict that would disrupt the world’s energy supplies.Prices of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, jumped nearly 9 percent to almost $78 a barrel in the hour following the Israeli strikes. As investors worried that rising oil prices might lead to more inflation and hurt the economies of oil-importing nations, stock markets fell broadly.The Nikkei 225 Index in Japan fell 1.3 percent in early trading Friday, while the Hang Seng Index dipped 0.7 percent in Hong Kong. Wall Street was closed at the time of the attack, but overnight futures market trading indicated that they could also fall as much as the Tokyo market.Iran is among the world’s largest producers of oil, and it sells almost all of what it produces to China, which consumes 15 percent of the global supply. Sales by Iran’s state oil company to China represent about 6 percent of Iran’s entire economy, and are equal to about half of its entire government’s spending.Iran’s exports have lagged in recent years as international sanctions have limited its ability to modernize its oil extraction and transportation technology.But Iran’s shipments have begun to recover in the past year on strong demand from China, which would be forced buy oil elsewhere if a broader conflict were to interrupt Iranian supplies. Beijing does have a large strategic oil reserve, accumulated through more than a decade of purchases and dispersed among numerous sites across the country. That could allow it to withstand weeks of an interruption in imports without difficulty.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Israel May Be Considering an Attack on Iran

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran, “one way or the other,” from building a nuclear bomb.Israel has long envisioned a military attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites in an attempt to halt what it considers an existential threat. But any such military strike would risk igniting a major conflict that could draw in the United States.Many in the Middle East are now wondering whether that moment has arrived. But it is unclear whether the heightened tensions are the result of saber-rattling in an attempt to influence negotiations between the United States and Iran over a nuclear deal, or a genuine Israeli attempt to carry out a planned attack. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that officials in the United States and Europe believed that Israel seemed to be gearing up for a potential strike, even as Trump administration is seeking a deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear program. The following day, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations — the first such censure in two decades.It is unclear how extensive an attack Israel is considering. But the United States has withdrawn diplomats from the region over concerns about the attack and any Iranian retaliation.Here’s what we know.Why might Israel attack now?Iran’s nuclear program has advanced considerably over the past decade, analysts say. Iran is on the brink of being able to manufacture enough nuclear material to fuel 10 nuclear weapons, although producing a usable bomb would likely take many more months.But Iran has been weakened since Hamas launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza. Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Iran, have been decimated in the war with Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Iran blasts Trump for ‘racist mentality’ and hostility to Muslims over travel ban

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      Tehran has denounced the US travel ban on Iranians and citizens of 11 other mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, saying Washington’s decision was a sign of a “racist mentality”.Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday reviving sweeping restrictions that echo the US president’s first-term travel ban, justified on national security grounds after a firebomb attack at a pro-Israel rally in Colorado.Alireza Hashemi-Raja, the foreign ministry’s director general for the affairs of Iranians abroad, called the measure – which takes effect on 9 June – “a clear sign of the dominance of a supremacist and racist mentality among American policymakers”.The decision “indicates the deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian and Muslim people”, he added in a statement the ministry released on Saturday.Apart from Iran, the US ban targets nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. A partial ban was imposed on travellers from seven other countries.Hashemi-Raja said the policy “violates fundamental principles of international law” and deprives “hundreds of millions of people of the right to travel based solely on their nationality or religion”.The foreign ministry official said the ban was discriminatory and would “entail international responsibility for the US government”, without elaborating.Iran and the US severed diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and relations have remained deeply strained since.The US is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran. According to figures from Tehran’s foreign ministry, in 2020 there were about 1.5 million Iranians in the US.Trump’s executive order came days after Sunday’s attack at the Colorado rally, in which authorities said more than a dozen people were hurt. The suspect is an Egyptian man who had overstayed a tourist visa. More

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      Iranian Film at South by Southwest London Offers a Dose of Hope

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      Amirali Navaee’s new film, “Sunshine Express,” screening next at South by Southwest London, is a project more focused on hope than politics.For the Iranian writer and director Amirali Navaee, portraying his country is not about depicting sadness and tragedy, which he feels has come to define the onscreen portrayal of his home in recent years.Iranian filmmakers have been as much in the news as their films have been over the past decade. The writer and director Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran last year after being sentenced to eight years in prison while finishing “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which tells the story of a family torn apart by protests that were violently crushed by the Iranian government in 2022-23. His harrowing journey has been well-documented, and the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, with Rasoulof in attendance, where it received a special award from the competition jury. It was later nominated for best international feature at the Academy Awards.The Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose films “A Separation” (2012) and “The Salesman” (2017) both won Oscars for best international feature, refused to attend the Academy Awards the second time he won in protest over President Trump’s executive order that blocked entry of citizens from Iran and several other predominantly Muslim countries to the United States.And “Un Simple Accident,” from the Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi, was awarded the Palme d’Or at Cannes last month. Panahi has been imprisoned several times in Iran because of his work but has continued to make movies in defiance of the Iranian government.“Sunshine Express” tells the story of people in a role-playing game who hope to win a cash prize.Distorted PicturesFor his first feature-length film, Navaee (pronounced nah-vah-YEE), who is also a choreographer and visual artist, said he wanted to express something more complex and less overtly political than other Iranian films. The project, “Sunshine Express,” debuted in February at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and is making its British premiere at South by Southwest London on Wednesday. Shot in a warehouse in Tehran on a small budget (Navaee, 42, said many of his friends helped finance the movie), it tells the story of people in a role-playing game on a train headed to a place called Hermia in the hopes of winning a cash prize.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Three Iranians Accused of Targeting People in Britain

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      The charges against the men come as concerns have grown about Iranian operatives carrying out operations against British residents and citizens.Three Iranian men appeared in court on Saturday in London, accused of helping Iran’s intelligence service by targeting individuals in Britain.Mostafa Sepahvand, 39; Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44; and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, have been charged under Britain’s National Security Act with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between Aug. 14 last year and Feb. 16.They are also accused of carrying out surveillance and reconnaissance as part of a plan to commit serious violence against an individual, who was not identified.The arrests come amid growing concern about efforts by Iranian operatives to target British citizens and residents.The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that the men had been arrested and detained on May 3. “The foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran,” the statement added.The BBC reported that the three had been accused of targeting journalists working for Iran International, an independent, Persian-language broadcaster based in London that has been critical of the Iranian government.All three defendants, who live in London, had illegally entered Britain between 2016 and 2022, and two were among the thousands who have traveled to the country on small boats from France.“The charges that have been laid against these three individuals must now take their course through the criminal justice system, and nothing must be done to prejudice the outcome of those proceedings,” Yvette Cooper, Britain’s home secretary, said in a statement.“But we will also take separate action to address the very serious wider issues raised by this case,” Ms. Cooper added. “The police have confirmed that the foreign state to which these charges relate is Iran, and Iran must be held to account for its actions.”Thanking the police, Ms. Cooper said, “We will not tolerate growing state threats on our soil.”In a speech last year, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, identified Iran as a country of growing concern to the counterterrorism police. He said that since January 2022, the security services had been investigating 20 Iranian-backed plots that posed potentially lethal threats to British citizens and residents. More

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      Massive Iran Port Explosion Kills 4 and Injures Hundreds

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      There was no immediate indication that the blast was caused by sabotage or a deliberate attack. State media said it was likely caused by containers of chemicals catching fire.A massive explosion on Saturday at the Iranian port of Shahid Rajaee in Bandar Abbas killed several people and injured hundreds, according to state media. The exact cause of the blast was not immediately clear, although there was no suggestion of an attack or sabotage.Mohammad Rasoul Moradi/Islamic Republic News AgencyA massive explosion at a port in southern Iran on Saturday killed at least four people and injured more than 500, according to state media.The exact cause of the blast at the Shahid Rajaee port in the city of Bandar Abbas was not immediately clear. But Iranian authorities did not suggest it was sabotage or a deliberate attack.The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted an official as saying the ignition of containers of chemicals most likely set off the explosion. The blast sent up clouds of black smoke, according to footage from the scene distributed by an Iranian broadcaster and video from social media that was verified by The New York Times.Bandar Abbas is strategically located along the Strait of Hormuz, a busy Persian Gulf shipping lane for the world’s oil and natural gas.In 2020, Israel launched a cyberattack that hampered operations at the Shahid Rajaee port as part of its long-running shadow war with Iran.Israeli officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday’s explosion.The explosion came around the time that American and Iranian officials began meeting in the Gulf sultanate of Oman on Saturday for a third round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.Last week, The New York Times reported that Israel had planned to attack Iranian nuclear sites as soon as next month, but it was waved off by Mr. Trump, who wanted to negotiate an agreement with Tehran instead. But Mr. Trump has also vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, including by military action if necessary. More