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The UN nuclear watchdog said Israeli strikes on Wednesday destroyed two buildings making centrifuge components for Iran’s nuclear programme near Tehran, while Iran said it fired hypersonic missiles as the arch foes traded fire for a sixth day.Hours after US President Donald Trump demanded Iran’s surrender, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed his country would show “no mercy” towards Israel’s leadership.Khamenei, in power since 1989 and the final arbiter of all matters of state in Iran, was to deliver a televised speech Wednesday.Trump insists the United States has played no part in ally Israel’s bombing campaign, but also warned his patience was wearing thin.The long-range blitz began Friday, when Israel launched a massive bombing campaign that prompted Iran to respond with missiles and drones.After the Israeli military issued a warning for civilians to leave one district of Tehran for their safety, Israeli warplanes hit the capital early Wednesday.”More than 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets… carried out a series of air strikes in the Tehran area over the past few hours,” the Israeli military said, adding that several weapons manufacturing facilities were hit. “As part of the broad effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons development programme, a centrifuge production facility in Tehran was targeted.”Centrifuges are vital for uranium enrichment, the sensitive process that can produce fuel for reactors or, in highly extended form, the core of a nuclear warhead.The strikes destroyed two buildings making centrifuge components for Iran’s nuclear programme in Karaj, a satellite city of Tehran, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday.In another strike on a site in Tehran, “one building was hit where advanced centrifuge rotors were manufactured and tested”, the agency added in a post on X.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched hypersonic Fattah-1 missiles at Tel Aviv.Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept.No missile struck Tel Aviv overnight, despite Iran’s claims that its attacks were “repeatedly shaking the shelters”, though AFP photos showed Israel’s air defence systems activated to intercept missiles over the commercial hub.Iran also sent a “swarm of drones” towards Israel, while the Israeli military said it had intercepted a total of 10 drones launched from Iran.It said one of its own drones had been shot down over Iran.- ‘Unconditional surrender’ -Trump fuelled speculation about US intervention when he made a hasty exit from the G7 summit in Canada, where the leaders of the club of wealthy democracies called for de-escalation but backed Israel’s “right to defend itself”.Back in Washington on Tuesday, Trump demanded the Islamic republic’s “unconditional surrender”.He also boasted that the United States could easily assassinate Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.Trump met with his National Security Council to discuss the conflict. There was no immediate public statement after the hour and 20 minute meeting.US officials stressed Trump has not yet made a decision about any intervention.Hours later, Khamenei responded with a post on X, saying: “We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”- Evacuations -Israel’s attacks have hit nuclear and military facilities around Iran, as well as residential areas.Residential areas in Israel have also been hit, and foreign governments have scrambled to evacuate their citizens from both countries.Since Friday, at least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds wounded, according to Netanyahu’s office.Iran said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians. It has not issued an updated toll since then.More than 700 foreigners living in Iran have crossed into neighbouring Azerbaijan and Armenia since Israel launched its campaign, according to government figures.On Tuesday in Tehran, long queues stretched outside bakeries and petrol stations as people rushed to stock up on fuel and basic supplies.Iran’s ISNA and Tasnim news agencies on Wednesday reported that five suspected agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency had been detained, on charges of tarnishing the country’s image online.With air raid sirens regularly blaring in Tel Aviv, some people relocated to an underground parking lot below a shopping mall.”We’ve decided to permanently set camp here until it’s all clear, I guess,” Mali Papirany, 30, told AFP.- Nuclear facilities -After a prolonged shadow war, Israel said its surprise air campaign was aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — an ambition Tehran denies.The UN nuclear watchdog said there appeared to have been “direct impacts on the underground enrichment halls” at Iran’s Natanz facility.Israel has maintained ambiguity regarding its own atomic activities, but the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says it has 90 nuclear warheads.The conflict derailed a running series of nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington, with Iran saying after the start of Israel’s campaign that it would not negotiate with the United States while under attack.French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump had a critical role to play in restarting diplomacy with Iran, where any attempts at “regime change” would bring “chaos”.burs/ser/kir

Israel and Iran exchanged fire again on Wednesday, the sixth day of strikes in their most intense confrontation in history, fuelling fears of a drawn-out conflict that could engulf the Middle East.Here are the latest developments:- Night of strikes -The Israeli military said on Wednesday that 50 Israeli fighter jets struck about 20 targets in Tehran overnight, and that it had intercepted a total of 10 drone attacks launched from Iran.”As part of the broad effort to disrupt Iran’s nuclear weapons development programme, a centrifuge production facility in Tehran was targeted,” the Israeli military said.The UN nuclear watchdog later said two centrifuge production facilities had been struck.Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed it had launched hypersonic Fattah-1 missiles at Tel Aviv.Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre mid-flight, making them harder to track and intercept.No missile struck Tel Aviv overnight, despite Iran’s claims that its attacks were “repeatedly shaking the shelters”, though AFP photos show Israel’s air defence systems activated to intercept missiles over the commercial hub.- ‘Unconditional surrender’ -US President Donald Trump stepped up his rhetoric against Iran’s supreme leader, saying on Tuesday that the United States knows where Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is located but will not kill him “for now”.In another post, Trump also appeared to demand Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” as he fuelled speculation over whether the United States would join Israel’s attacks on Tehran’s leadership and nuclear facilities.Trump met with his National Security Council to discuss the conflict, ending after an hour and 20 minutes with no immediate public statement.US officials stressed he has not yet made a decision about any intervention.Khamenei is expected to give a televised speech Wednesday.- Rising toll -Israel’s attacks have hit nuclear and military facilities around Iran, as well as residential areas.Residential areas in Israel have also been hit, and foreign governments have scrambled to evacuate their citizens from both countries.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Monday that at least 24 people have been killed in Israel and hundreds wounded since Iran’s retaliatory strikes began Friday.Iran said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people, including military commanders, nuclear scientists and civilians.- Doing the ‘dirty work’ -Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that “regime change is not an objective of this war — it can be a result, but it’s not an objective”.French President Emmanuel Macron warned that any attempt to change the government in Iran would result in “chaos”.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed support for the campaign Tuesday, saying in an interview that “this is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us” against Iran’s “mullah regime”.- Internet restrictions -Iran said Wednesday it had detained five suspected agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on charges of tarnishing the country’s image online, Iranian news agencies reported.”These mercenaries sought to sow fear among the public and tarnish the image of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran through their calculated activities online,” the Tasnim and ISNA news agencies quoted a statement from the Revolutionary Guards as saying. Iran announced last week that it was placing temporary restrictions on the internet for the duration of the conflict. Numerous sites and apps have since been at least partially inaccessible.The authorities appealed to the public on Tuesday to “minimise their use of equipment connected to the internet and to take appropriate precautions” online.For their own safety, civil servants and their security teams have been banned from using any connected devices, including smartphones, watches and laptops during the Israeli air offensive.State television appealed to Iranians on Tuesday to delete WhatsApp from their phones, charging that the messaging app gathers users’ location and personal data and “communicates them to the Zionist enemy”.A WhatsApp spokesperson hit back against the claims, saying: “We’re concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.”burs-ser/jsa

A powerful American bunker-busting bomb is the only weapon capable of destroying Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities, making it President Donald Trump’s weapon of choice if he chooses to militarily back Israel.The GBU-57, a 30,000-pound (13,607 kg) warhead capable of penetrating 200 feet (61 meters) underground before exploding, is missing from Israel’s arsenal despite its stated goal of preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb.- Why this bomb? -In less than a week, the Israeli army has taken out Iranian military commanders and damaged numerous surface installations, raising more questions than answers.”The regime’s missile stockpiles, launchers, military bases, production facilities, nuclear scientists, military command and control has taken a very severe beating,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, director of the Iran program at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a conservative-leaning group. “But there are still outsized questions as to how efficacious of a strike Israel had against the beating hearts of Iran’s nuclear program,” Taleblu said.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported no damage at Fordo, a uranium enrichment plant south of Tehran. Unlike the Natanz and Isfahan sites in central Iran, Fordo is buried deep underground, beyond the reach of Israeli bombs.”All eyes will be on Fordo, which is buried under about 300 feet of rock in central Iran,” Taleblu said.Former US Army lieutenant general and Rand Corporation defense researcher Mark Schwartz insists that “only the United States has the conventional capacity” to destroy such a site. And by “conventional capacity,” he means the non-nuclear GBU-57 bomb.- What are its capabilities? -The US military says the GBU-57 — also named Massive Ordnance Penetrator — “is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding,” navigating through rock and concrete.This differs from missiles or bombs that typically detonate their payload near or upon impact.”To defeat these deeply buried targets, these weapons need to be designed with rather thick casings of steel, hardened steel, to sort of punch through these layers of rock,” said Masao Dahlgren, a fellow working on missile defense for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based research center.The 6.6-meter-long GBU-57 also has a specialized fuse because “you need an explosive that’s not going to immediately explode under that much shock and pressure,” Dahlgren said.Design for this bomb began in the early 2000s, and an order for 20 units was placed with Boeing in 2009.- How is it deployed? – The only aircraft capable of deploying the GBU-57 is an American B-2 Bomber, a stealth aircraft.Some of these bombers were deployed in early May on Diego Garcia, the site of a joint UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean, but were no longer visible by mid-June, according to AFP’s analysis of satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs.With their long-range capabilities, B-2s departing from the United States “are able to fly all the way to the Middle East to do bombing runs. That’s been done before,” Dahlgren said.Each B-2 can carry two GBU-57 bombs, and Schwartz said multiple bombs will likely be needed.”They’re not going to just be one and done,” he said. Schwartz added that the air superiority Israel has established over Iran reduces the risks faced by the B-2 bombers.- What are the consequences? -Such a US intervention would come with “a lot of political baggage for America,” Taleblu said, emphasizing that the bunker-buster bomb is not the only way to address Iran’s nuclear program. Without the GBU-57 bombs, and short of a diplomatic solution, Taleblu said Israelis could attack access to underground complexes like Fordo by “trying to hit entrances, collapse what they can, cut electricity” and take other measures that have already been taken at Natanz.