The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says samples taken from the Natanz nuclear facility show Iran has enriched uranium to up to 63 percent, and that the purity level is “consistent with the fluctuations” announced by the Islamic Republic.
“According to Iran, fluctuations of the enrichment levels… were experienced,” the IAEA said on Tuesday in a confidential report to its member states, seen by Reuters.
The threat of violent extremists attacking the United States or allies from Afghanistan has been greatly reduced over the past 20 years, and any remaining threat emanating from the country can be addressed without a persistent U.S. military presence there, DOD officials told the House Armed Services Committee today.
President Joe Biden announced April 14 that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the attack on the United States that the al-Qaida terror group planned and trained for from safe havens in Afghanistan. That attack killed 2,977 innocent people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. More than 6,000 were injured.
Several commanders of the Hamas militant group have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and Israel announced Wednesday, as clashes between the two sides escalate.
Hamas said in a statement that the leader of its military operation in Gaza City, Bassem Issa, and other senior military officials were killed in the attacks.
The rapid escalation of violence, including Israeli air attack, resulting in civil war type conditions in parts of Israel and Palestine territories is deeply distressing and coming as it does in pandemic times threatens to move towards serious humanitarian crisis. The crisis can also widen, leading to violence and tensions in other parts of the volatile region.
The rapid escalation of violence could not have happened just like that on its own. It appears that Benjamin Netanyahu, now in his fifth and highly criticized as well as unstable term as Prime Minister, used a time of tensions to incite violence in such a way as would secure his endangered position in the top post of the country.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has rejected the Pentagon’s claims that speedboats belonging to the elite Iranian force sparked an encounter with the US vessels, warning the Americans not to endanger shipping security in the Persian Gulf through “provocative” and “unprofessional” behavior.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the IRGC said the US navy’s account of the encounter in the strategic Hormuz Strait was “untrue” and part of an “escape-forward” strategy, calling on the American navy to refrain from “unprofessional behavior” and respect maritime regulations.
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated seven individuals in connection with Hizballah and its financial firm, Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH). Â AQAH, which was designated by OFAC in 2007, is used by Hizballah as a cover to manage the terrorist group’s financial activities and gain access to the international financial system. Â Ibrahim Ali Daher (Daher) serves as the Chief of Hizballah’s Central Finance Unit, which oversees Hizballah’s overall budget and spending, including the group’s funding of its terrorist operations and killing of the group’s opponents. Â The other six individuals designated today used the cover of personal accounts at certain Lebanese banks, including U.S.-designated Jammal Trust Bank (JTB), to evade sanctions targeting AQAH and transfer approximately half a billion U.S. dollars on behalf of AQAH.
Pakistan ruled out Tuesday the possibility of again providing its military bases to the United States for future counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan after U.S. troops leave the conflict-torn neighbor by September 11.
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi made the remarks to reporters in Islamabad, explaining that his government has adopted a policy that allows it to become “only partners in peace” and not join any future U.S. war.
The retrograde from Afghanistan is going well, but U.S. officials are being careful as the effort is still in its early stages, Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby said today.
U.S. Central Command officials estimate that they have completed between 6% and 12% of the retrograde process. Airlifters have flown out the equivalent of 104 C-17s worth of materials; U.S. personnel have turned over more than 1,800 pieces of equipment to the Defense Logistics Agency for destruction; and the U.S. has officially handed over one facility to the Afghan National Army.
The Palestinians are upset because Jews are being permitted to tour the Temple Mount. The Palestinians do not want to see Jews visiting their holy site; they do not want to see Jews in Jerusalem, and they do not want to see any Jew at all in the land that stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
No one is disputing the Palestinians’ right to protest Israeli policies. Yet when the protests turn into large pro-Hamas demonstrations, with calls for bombing Tel Aviv and killing Jews, they expose the true deadly intention of the protesters.
