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An Afghan man pleaded guilty on Friday to plotting to carry out an attack on US election day on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) group, the Justice Department said.Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, was arrested in the central US state of Oklahoma in October, several weeks before the November 5 presidential election.He pleaded guilty in a federal court in Oklahoma City to charges of conspiring to provide material support to IS and attempting to receive firearms and ammunition to carry out an attack.He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison for the conspiracy charge and up to 15 years in prison for the firearms charge.”By pledging allegiance to IS and plotting an attack against innocent Americans on Election Day, this defendant endangered lives and gravely betrayed the nation that gave him refuge,” US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.”Today’s guilty plea guarantees he will be held accountable, stripped of his immigration status, and permanently removed from the United States.”Tawhedi and a co-conspirator, Abdullah Haji Zada, sought to buy two AK-47 rifles and 500 rounds of ammunition to carry out a “mass-casualty attack” on November 5, according to court documents.The seller turned out to be an undercover FBI employee.  Zada, 18, pleaded guilty in April to the firearms charge and is awaiting sentencing.According to the criminal complaint, Tawhedi entered the United States in September 2021 on a special immigrant visa.

US President Donald Trump urged Iran Friday to make a deal or face “even more brutal” attacks by Israel, as Washington said it was helping its key ally defend itself against Iranian retaliation.But Trump also kept the door open for negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, as the president who boasted he had “no wars” in his first term tries to avoid getting dragged into one in his second.Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Friday, a White House official told AFP. He said earlier that Israel had let him know in advance about its strikes on Iran’s military top brass and nuclear facilities.After Iran launched barrages of ballistic missiles on Friday, the United States was “assisting in shooting down missiles targeting Israel,” two US officials told AFP, without giving detail on the extent of Washington’s role.The US president also spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who both stressed the need for dialogue. He also reportedly spoke to Saudi and Qatari leaders.Trump attended a National Security Council meeting in the White House Situation Room as his team worked on the crisis. An aide posted a black and white picture of a grim-faced, purse-lipped Trump striding through the West Wing.But the flurry of meetings and diplomatic calls came as Trump trod a tightrope between backing Israel and seeking the nuclear deal he promised he could reach with Iran.Israel struck Iran just hours after Trump publicly urged Netanyahu to hold off on an attack, with the first missiles landing as the US president hosted a picnic for lawmakers on the White House South Lawn.”There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Friday. – ‘Excellent’ -“Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left… JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” he said. Trump said that he “gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal.” But in a series of calls with US media later, he wavered between backing Israel’s “excellent” strikes and calling for a return to the negotiating table.”I think it’s been excellent,” ABC News quoted him as saying about Israel’s offensive. “And there’s more to come. A lot more.”Then shortly afterwards he stressed the possibility of a second chance, in an interview with NBC: “They missed the opportunity to make a deal. Now, they may have another opportunity. We’ll see.”Trump also gave mixed signals about the extent of US involvement.Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said Thursday that the United States was “not involved” in the strikes and warned Iran not to retaliate against any US forces in the region.Trump, however, said on Truth Social on Friday that Israel had acted because a 60-day deadline that he had set for Iran had run out, implying that the two acted in concert.He also boasted about the “finest” US equipment that Israel had used — a day before a huge parade in Washington, on Trump’s 79th birthday, featuring US aircraft and tanks.Trump earlier told Fox News he had been aware of the Israeli strikes before they happened, and stressed that Tehran “cannot have a nuclear bomb.”During Trump’s first term, he pulled the United States out of a landmark agreement to relieve sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.The United States and Iran have had several rounds of talks since Trump returned to the White House, but after initially striking an optimistic tone, the discussions have foundered in recent days.

For President Donald Trump, few goals on the world stage have been more explicit — he will not drag the United States into another “forever war.”Yet Israel’s massive strikes on Iran will test that promise as never before, potentially setting up a showdown with his base as Trump decides how much support the United States will offer.Trump had publicly called for Israel not to strike as he sought a negotiated solution, and his roving envoy Steve Witkoff had been scheduled to meet Iranian officials for the sixth time Sunday.Trump, who hours earlier warned that an attack would cause “massive conflict,” afterward praised Israeli strikes as “excellent.” He boasted that Israel had “the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the world” thanks to the United States — and was planning more strikes unless Iran agrees on a deal.Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that the United States was not involved in the strikes and warned Iran not to retaliate against the thousands of US troops stationed in nearby Arab countries.A US official, however, confirmed that the United States was helping Israel shoot down retaliatory missiles fired Friday by Iran.”The US has calculated that it can help Israel and that the Iranians will obviously be aware of this, but at the end of the day, at least at the public level, the US stays out,” said Alex Vatanka, founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington.The hope is that “the Iranians will do a quick cost/benefit analysis and decide it is not worth the fight,” Vatanka said.He said Iranian leaders are for now focused on staying alive, but could decide either to swallow a tough deal — or to internationalize the conflict further by causing chaos in the oil-rich Gulf, potentially sending oil prices soaring and pressuring Trump.- ‘America First’ impulse -Most key lawmakers of Trump’s Republican Party quickly rallied behind Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is a hero for many on the US right and has long called Iran an existential threat.But Trump’s populist “America First” base has been skeptical. Tucker Carlson, the prominent media commentator who counseled Trump against a US strike on Iran in the first term, has called fears of Tehran building a nuclear bomb overblown, saying neither Iran nor Ukraine warrants US military resources.Carlson wrote on X after the Israeli strike that there was a divide in Trump’s orbit between “those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers.”Trump has brought outspoken non-interventionists directly into his administration.In an unusually political video this week, Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, warned after a visit to Hiroshima that “warmongers” were putting the world at risk of nuclear catastrophe.In a speech in Riyadh last month, Trump denounced decades of US interventionism in the Middle East and said, “My greatest hope is to be a peacemaker and to be a unifier. I don’t like war.”- How far to back Israel? -Daniel Shapiro, who served as US ambassador to Israel under former president Barack Obama, said it had been certain the United States would back Israel’s defense against Iranian retaliation.But Trump will face a harder decision on “whether to use the United States’ unique capabilities to destroy Tehran’s underground nuclear facilities and prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon,” said Shapiro, now at the Atlantic Council.”The decision will split his advisers and political base, amid accusations, and perhaps his own misgivings, that Netanyahu is attempting to drag him into war.”Lawmakers of the rival Democratic Party widely revile Netanyahu, including over Israel’s bloody offensive in Gaza.”This attack by Netanyahu is pure sabotage,” said Democratic Representative Joaquin Castro.”What does ‘America First’ even mean if Trump allows Netanyahu to drag the country into a war Americans don’t want?” he wrote on social media.Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the progressive Center for International Policy, said that China — identified by Trump as the top threat — could seize the moment, perhaps by moving on Taiwan, as it sees the United States as even more distracted.”Even without direct involvement, Washington now faces the prospect of indefinite resupply, intelligence and diplomatic backing for Israel, just as the war in Ukraine intensifies and global crises multiply,” Toossi said.”Wars are easy to ignite, but once unleashed, they tend to spiral beyond control, and rarely end on the terms of those who start them.”

Oil prices soared and stocks sank Friday after Israel launched strikes on Iran, prompting retaliation from Tehran and stoking fears of a full-blown war.Oil futures rocketed more than 13 percent at one point before coming back to gains nearer seven percent, reigniting worries about a renewed spike to inflation.After a down day in Europe and …

Oil prices soar, stocks slide after Israel strikes Iran Read More »

Oil prices soared and stocks sank Friday after Israel launched strikes on Iran, prompting retaliation from Tehran and stoking fears of a full-blown war.Oil futures rocketed more than 13 percent at one point before coming back to gains nearer seven percent, reigniting worries about a renewed spike to inflation.After a down day in Europe and Asia, Wall Street indices spent the entire day in the red before finishing the day down more than one percent.”After having a pretty solid run in May and the first part of June, markets found an excuse to take some profits,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist of B. Riley Wealth.Shares in major airlines tumbled after flights around the Middle East were suspended.The dollar climbed higher, while gold — viewed as a safe haven investment — was close to its record high of above $3,500 an ounce set in April, having added around 30 percent since the start of the year.The drop in equities and rise in safe-haven assets “all go to show just how fragile sentiment remains in the face of major geopolitical events,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at financial services provider Trade Nation. “The question now is whether investors view this flare-up as a relatively contained incident within the longstanding animosity between Israel and Iran, or if this is the spark that ignites a conflagration across the Middle East and then beyond?”On Friday, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel in a counter-strike just hours after the Israeli strikes targeting the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities and bases.Air raid sirens and explosions rang out across Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the airways to issue a word of caution, saying he expected “several waves of Iranian attacks” in response.Smoke could later be seen billowing above the skyscrapers in downtown Tel Aviv, according to an AFP journalist, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had attacked dozens of targets in Israel.While Friday was a decisively negative day for equities, analysts described the selling as orderly.Investors “are paring back some risk, but this is hardly a panicky sell-off,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers.The market is partially in “a wait and see approach to what happens over the weekend because it’s obviously a very fluid volatile situation,” Sosnick added.But further escalation would add more upward pressure to oil prices.Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at global financial services firm Ebury, said: “The big fear for investors is that an escalation to the tensions will not only raise the risk of a prolonged conflict, but it could disrupt Iranian oil production.”Rising oil prices have “broader implications,” Ryan said, noting that they “could both weigh on the global growth outlook and keep inflationary pressures higher for longer.”This would complicate the decision-making of major central banks, which will have to decide between raising interest rates to curb inflation or cutting them to stimulate economies.- Key figures at around 2040 GMT -Brent North Sea Crude: UP 7.0 percent at $74.23 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 7.3 percent at $72.98 per barrelNew York – Dow:  DOWN 1.8 percent at 42,197.79 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 1.1 percent at 5,976.97 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 1.3 percent at 19,406.83 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.4 percent at 8,850.63 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 1.0 percent at 7,684.68 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 1.1 percent at 23,516.23 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.9 percent at 37,834.25 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.6 percent at 23,892.56 (close)Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 0.8 percent at 3,377.00 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1540 from $1.1584 on ThursdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3560 from $1.3613Dollar/yen: UP at 144.04 yen from 143.48 yenEuro/pound: UP at 85.11 pence from 85.09 penceburs-jmb/sst

The son of Iran’s late shah appealed Friday to the country’s security forces to abandon the cleric-run state, voicing hope for toppling the Islamic republic after Israel launched military strikes.Reza Pahlavi blamed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for having “dragged Iran into a war” with Israel and described the government in Tehran as “weak and divided.””It could fall. As I have told my compatriots: Iran is yours and yours to reclaim. I am with you. Stay strong and we will win,” he said in a statement.”I have told the military, police, and security forces: break from the regime. Honor the oath of any honorable serviceman. Join the people.””To the international community: do not throw yet another lifeline to this dying, terrorist regime,” he said.Pahlavi was crown prince in Iran’s pro-Western monarchy, which collapsed in 1979 in a mass revolution that quickly brought to power the clerical establishment that declared an Islamic republic.Pahlavi, who lives in exile near Washington, says he is not necessarily looking for the restoration of the monarchy and wants to use his name to support the movement for secular democracy.Israel sees the Islamic republic as an existential threat but was allied with Iran under the late shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.Reza Pahlavi has also enjoyed warm relations with Israel, which he toured two years ago.Iranian diaspora pro-monarchists, waving the old imperial flag, have figured prominently in protests in support of Israel since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.Pahlavi has repeatedly described the Islamic republic as frail, including after mass protests broke out in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police who enforce modest dress on women.

Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit dozens of targets across Iran, including nuclear sites, as well as killing several top military commanders and nuclear scientists. Iran called the attack “a declaration of war” and launched missiles at Israel hours later.US President Donald Trump — insisting his country was not involved — warned Iran the next planned attacks will be “even more brutal”.International calls for restraint are multiplying, as fears grow the Middle East could be on the threshold of a broader conflict.Here is what we know:- Nuclear sites hit -The attacks started in the early hours of Friday, a day of rest and prayer in Iran, and continued through the day, on various sites.A key target was a vast underground nuclear site in Natanz, which Israel hit several times, Iranian state television said.Radiation levels outside the facility “remain unchanged”, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said.Israel said it struck another important nuclear site in Isfahan, where Iranian news agency Mehr reported a “massive explosion” late Friday.- Commanders killed -Top brass killed included the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, and the chief of staff of its armed forces, Mohammad Bagheri, with replacements swiftly named by supreme leader Ali Khamenei.The Revolutionary Guards said that its aerospace commander, Amirali Hajizadeh, was also killed. He was in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile forces.Iranian media said several nuclear scientists were killed.State media said senior Khamenei adviser Ali Shamkhani was hurt in one of the strikes.- Ongoing strikes -Additional strikes hit sites in Iran’s northwestern East Azerbaijan province, with 18 people killed there, state news agency IRNA said.The Israeli raids will “continue as many days as it takes”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.A military spokesman said “more than 200 targets” were hit.Netanyahu’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said “there is currently no plan to kill” Khamenei and other political leaders.Internet restrictions were imposed across Iran, the country’s communications ministry said, adding they would be lifted “once normalcy returns”.- Iran’s response -Iran launched dozens of missiles, the Revolutionary Guards and Israeli official said, hours after the Israeli military said “most” of the 100 drones fired by Iran were intercepted outside Israeli territory.Khamenei warned Israel faces a “bitter and painful” fate over the attacks.His newly appointed Revolutionary Guards chief, Mohammad Pakpour, said that “in retribution… the gates of hell” will be opened on Israel.Netanyahu said: “We expect to be exposed to several waves of Iranian attacks.”There was a state of emergency declared in Israel, and the country closed many of its embassies around the world, including in Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.- ‘Declaration of war’ -Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called the Israeli attacks “a declaration of war” and urged action from the UN Security Council, which is due to hold an emergency meeting at 1900 GMT.Iran had previously warned it would hit US military bases in the Middle East if conflict occurred. The United States pulled out non-essential personnel from several sites days ahead of the Israeli attack.Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the United States would protect its forces in the Middle East.”Let me be clear: Iran should not target US interests or personnel,” Rubio said.- US involvement? -Trump said Israel fully informed him of its raids ahead of time, but insisted the United States was not involved.He warned Iran that the “next planned attacks” will be “even more brutal” and said Tehran should cut a deal to roll back its nuclear programme “before there is nothing left”.The US leader has repeatedly said he will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.Trump came to power vowing not to drag the United States into more wars in the Middle East, but some of his domestic political allies are worried the turn of events could lead to that.- Nuclear programme -Tehran has long denied seeking atomic bombs, but had been enriching uranium to a level close to weapons-grade.The United States and Iran had been holding talks on the issue. The next round, scheduled for Sunday in Oman, now looks to be cancelled.- Reactions -The attack, and likely Iranian response, is fuelling international alarm.Many capitals were urging restraint, fearing the consequences if the Israel-Iran conflict widened and drew in the United States, and if Middle East oil production and shipments were impacted.The leaders of France, Germany and Britain were to hold a call to discuss the Israeli strikes, Berlin said. The UN’s atomic energy agency planned an emergency meeting for Monday.Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan and Syria closed their airspaces.Several airlines cancelled flights servicing the region, including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Air France and Lufthansa. Others flying through the Middle East, such as Air India, had to turn planes back or reroute.- Oil prices -Oil prices leapt dramatically on Friday, trading sharply up to around $75 a barrel before falling back a little.Analysts underlined the risk to the 20 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies that are shipped through the narrow Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.burs/rmb/gv/ami/jsa

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nearly 20-year-old threat to strike Iran came true on Friday, as US President Donald Trump warned Tehran of further “brutal” attacks if it refuses to negotiate.In its largest military action against Iran to date, Israel’s strikes hit about 100 targets including nuclear facilities and military command centres, and killed the armed forces’ chief, top nuclear scientists and other senior figures.The strikes came as the United States and Iran were due to meet in Oman Sunday to pick up negotiations towards an agreement on the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.”We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement,” Trump told reporters on Thursday, hours before news broke of the Israeli attacks.”I don’t want them going in, because I think it would blow it,” Trump added, speaking of the Israelis.But on Friday, Trump seemed unbothered by Israel’s action, and on his Truth Social platform urged Iran to make a deal.”There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end,” he wrote.- Timing ‘makes sense’-Netanyahu, who has always scorned talks with Iran, paid no heed to Trump’s original warning and took advantage of the seismic changes in the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.”I doubt Israel would do this if the US told it not to,” Menachem Merhavy, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told AFP.Merhavy said that the timing of the attack “makes sense because Israel has been clipping the wings of Iran for the last year and a half”, in actions against Tehran-aligned groups and proxies in the region, many of whom Israel has significantly weakened.Netanyahu said he had “ordered” the attack on Iran’s nuclear programme months ago.”It was necessary to act and I set the implementation date for the end of April 2025,” Netanyahu said. “For various reasons, it did not work out.”But his obsession with Iran goes back much further than the ongoing Gaza war, sparked by an unprecedented attack by Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas.After Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused international uproar in 2005 when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”, Netanyahu — then an opposition leader following his first term as premier in 1996-1999 — called Tehran’s nuclear programme “a serious threat for the future”.He said at the time Israel “must do everything” to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, even if it meant striking the country’s nuclear facilities as Israel had in Iraq in 1981.Iran has consistently denied seeking atomic weapons, but after his return to power in 2009, Netanyahu repeatedly dismissed Tehran’s assurances that its nuclear programme was meant for civilian purpose only, and advocated a “military option”.Netanyahu called the UN Security Council’s 2015 approval of an agreement with world powers lifting sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear activities a “historic mistake”.In 2018, he applauded Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement, effectively scrapping it.Iran’s reaction was to gradually abandon its commitments, enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade material and in unprecedented quantities.This gave Netanyahu a justification to keep up the fight against Iran’s nuclear programme.- ‘Reshape the Middle East’ -All the while, Israel’s Mossad spy agency worked in secret to undermine Iran’s nuclear programme.Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has said on several occasions he was seeking to “reshape the Middle East”.In late 2024, Israel dealt a hard blow to Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance”, by crippling Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.The fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, another Iranian ally, helped cement the regional dominance of Israel — the Middle East’s only, if undeclared, nuclear power.But it was an Israeli response to 200 Iranian missiles in October 2024 that “changed the balance of power” between the two foes, according to statements at the time by then defence minister Yoav Gallant, after a series of Israeli strikes inside Iran — a rare direct confrontation.In February, Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that with the Trump administration’s support “I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job”.Danny Citrinowicz, of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told AFP that Trump most likely viewed Israel as “serving his interests”.”Trump really thinks that as long as Iran is weaker, he will be able to achieve a deal on the nuclear file,” said Citrinowicz.Holly Dagres, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that “if the Trump administration somehow thinks it’s going to be having a sixth round of talks with the Iranians in Oman on Sunday, then it truly doesn’t understand the Islamic republic and how it operates”.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged the US and Iran to resume nuclear talks following a wave of Israeli strikes against Iran.”Iran bears a heavy responsibility in the destabilisation of the whole region,” he said after Western nations in recent days accused Tehran of deliberately escalating its nuclear programme, despite several rounds of US-Iran talks.  “We call for the resumption of dialogue and the reaching of a deal.”US President Donald Trump’s Middle East pointman Steve Witkoff had been set to hold a sixth round of talks with Iran on Sunday in Oman.After Israel’s deadly strikes early on Friday, Trump afterwards urged Iran to “make a deal, before there is nothing left”, warning of “even more brutal” attacks to come.Macron, who earlier on Friday defended Israel’s right to protect itself, said France could help in the case of an Iranian retaliation against Israel.”If Israel were to be attacked in retaliation by Iran, France, if in a position to do so, would take part in protection and defence operations,” he said.Macron earlier in the day spoke by phone to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Elysee said, following a spike in diplomatic tensions.The French presidency said the phone conversation took place but did not provide details.Relations between Macron and Netanyahu have been strained in recent months over Israel’s blockade of Gaza and France’s plans to recognise a Palestinian state.- UN meeting postponed -France and Saudi Arabia have been planning to co-chair a UN conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians next week in New York.But Macron said on Friday evening that meeting had been postponed.”While we have to postpone this conference for logistical and security reasons, it will take place as soon as possible,” Macron said at a press conference.Israel pounded Iran in a series of air raids, striking 100 targets including nuclear and military sites, as well as killing the armed forces’ chief of staff.In the aftermath of the strikes, Macron also spoke with leaders including Trump and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.Earlier Friday, Macron said Israel had the right to defend itself and ensure its security but also called for de-escalation.”To avoid jeopardising the stability of the entire region, I call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint and to de-escalate,” he said on X.Macron spoke after convening a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council.”All necessary steps will be taken to protect our nationals and our diplomatic and military missions in the region,” Macron said.Iran has gradually broken away from its commitments under the nuclear deal it struck with world powers including the United States and France in 2015.The landmark deal provided Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its atomic programme, but it fell apart after the unilateral withdrawal of the United States during Trump’s first term in 2018.