Iran probing insider role in Israeli attempt on president’s life – Al Jazeera

Legal lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) warned that the annual summer camp “is being hosted by a group that openly promotes the revolutionary Islamist ideology of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei”, and have called for its closure.

Aimed at children aged 8-13, girls must wear hijab and are segregated from the boys, with the camp embedded in what the website calls "Islamic values", helping "foster a deeper connection to faith".

A UKLFI spokesman told The Telegraph: “AIM’s deep ideological alignment with the Iranian regime and its record of extremist propaganda presents an unacceptable risk to children. We hope the local authority and other agencies will act decisively to protect vulnerable young people from exposure to harmful and radicalizing content.”

Lord Walney, the government’s former extremism adviser, also warned against the possible influence of the camps. “We cannot allow propaganda and influence from this theocratic dictatorship to be spread to children in the UK.

"It is deeply alarming that schoolchildren are being taken to these camps. This raises ­further questions about the influence of Iran here in the UK.”

On Thursday, the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee warned of rising threat of physical attacks by Iran against the UK, citing Tehran’s targeting of British Jews and Iranian dissidents living in the country.

In social media posts, north-London based AIM has repeatedly praised Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, calling his books “an excellent source of knowledge and a great read”.

While the group denies representing a foreign state, it openly uses material from speeches by Khamenei and his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini.

They have also praised Qasem Soleimani, the former Quds Force commander killed in a 2020 US drone strike, calling him a “great hero”.

Missile strikes and bombings in Tehran and other cities released vast quantities of pollutants into the air and water systems and generated massive quantities of hazardous debris, the department said on Sunday.

“The attacks not only caused civilian casualties and infrastructural damage, but also severely compromised the country’s natural resources.”

Tehran alone generated an estimated 150,000 tons of war rubble, according to the report, with cleanup costs exceeding 7,500 billion rials ($8.7 million), as per the report.

Waste disposal from industrial and military sites added another 3,000 billion rials ($3.5 million).

“Oil storage sites in Rey and Kan were also hit, destroying 19.5 million liters of fuel and releasing more than 47,000 tons of greenhouse gases and nearly 579,000 kilograms of airborne toxins into the capital's atmosphere,” read the statement from the department.

“These emissions pushed air quality in several provinces into the hazardous range.”

The department also warned of threats to water tables, soil, and biodiversity due to chemical leakage, sewage overflow, and thermal radiation, adding that assessments were ongoing and that full reports would be submitted to national and international authorities.

According to the UK-based Conflict and Environment Observatory, which monitors the environmental impact of war and military activity, there has been significant environmental damage in Israel too.

Missiles which hit a refinery complex in the country triggered fires and pipeline damage, its report said.

Israel's latest government figures state there were 43 fires in buildings and 65 forest fires and fires in open areas.

"Damage to urban areas, including to commercial and residential buildings, can create inhalational hazards for people from pulverised building materials and combustion products," The Conflict and Environment Observatory added, after the Iranian attacks of 530 ballistic missiles, destroyed large swathes of residential areas in addition to more secretive sites.

“It’s not over, it’s never over,” he told Fox News on Saturday night. “We have to keep Iran in check … Nothing is guaranteed on this, you safeguard your success.”

Netanyahu said that while the current government remains in power in Tehran, the threat remains too. “I realize that the marriage of nuclear weapons with a militant Islamic regime is the greatest threat Israel faces and the world faces,” he said.

Israel invaded Iran in a series of surprise strikes on June 13, leading to a 12-day war which brought massive destruction on both sides.

In Iran, rights group HRANA says more than 1,100 Iranians died in the war, with thousands more injured. In Israel, the death toll was 28 with thousands more injured.

A week after Israel's surprise attacks, the US struck Iran’s three major nuclear sites, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, with President Donald Trump saying to have ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear program.

Intelligence assessments suggest that Iran retains a hidden stockpile of enriched uranium and the technical capacity to rebuild, according to reports by Reuters.

However, as the US continues to pursue diplomatic channels with Iran to contain any continuation of its nuclear program, Netanyahu said the only way forward would be an Iran without enrichment, no ballistic missiles beyond 300 miles as stipulated under international treaties, and no ‘terror axis’, referring to Iran’s military allies across the Middle East.

“We went to war because we knew that if we didn’t, we’d end up dead. Iran was rushing to develop nuclear weapons and could have had one within a year."

“They have could had tens of thousands of ballistic missiles each weighing a ton … with unbelievable devastation …. And in a country the size of new jersey you have to act. … if you don’t act you’re not going to be around … I knew if we didn’t act now, we may never act again,” he said.

Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, Iran’s leaders have called for the end of the Jewish state. A clock in Palestine Square, in the capital, Tehran, counts down the days until Israel's destruction.

Tehran racing to build nuclear weapons, Netanyahu says

Following the damage done last year to Iran’s allies in the region, including the fall of Syria’s long-time president, Bashar al-Assad, and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Netanyahu said Iran had turned its focus on its nuclear program in a bid to eliminate its archenemy, Israel.

“They understood they had one other way to kill us and that was to race for nuclear weapons. They had enriched uranium, but they needed to have the weapon, they didn’t have the bullet, the thing that detonates the bullet."

“They rushed to weaponize after the fall of Hezbollah and the fall of the axis and we could see that, that within a year they’d have an atomic bomb and they’d actually use it, and try to wipe us out,” Netanyahu said.

Iran has always denied allegations of building a nuclear weapon, saying its program is for peaceful purposes.

Since the ceasefire, Iran has expelled the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, accusing the group of having provided information to the US and Israel.

“Europeans can no longer move about comfortably in their own countries,” Mohammad Javad Larijani, a former senior judiciary official who also served as a top adviser to the Supreme Leader, warned in comments broadcast on state television.

“It’s entirely possible that in the near future, five drones could strike a European city.”

The statement comes as the Islamic Republic faces renewed international pressure over its nuclear program. Britain, France and Germany, three signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, are considering the option of triggering a snapback of United Nations sanctions if Iran is deemed non-compliant.

This month, Iran expelled the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspectors, accusing them of being a political tool and having given intelligence to aid the attacks made by Israel and the US on Iran's nuclear facilities last month.

Last week, the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) released a report warning that Iran poses one of the most severe state-based threats to British national security, on par with adversaries like Russia and China.

And last year, the European Parliament also issued warnings about the threat posed by Iran. A statement said: "The Iranian regime’s use of criminal networks as terrorist proxies in Europe poses a grave threat to our internal security."

Larijani's warning to Europe comes just days after he suggested US President Donald Trump could be assassinated by a drone strike while vacationing in Florida.

“Trump has done something [in supporting Israel's war on Iran] so that he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago,” he said. “As he lies there with his stomach to the sun, a small drone might hit him in the navel. It’s very simple.”

'Israel, US may attack Iran again'

Larijani said that it is possible that Israel and the United States will seek to launch another attack on Iran.

“The United States and Israel know that if they strike again, our response will be heavier and more unexpected. America is calculating carefully."

Speaking of last month's war with Israel, sparked by surprise attacks on Iran on June 13, Larijani said: “The war began with us being surprised. We did not expect such technologies to be used in the attack. They had inserted and stationed many operatives inside Iran," over 700 Iranians arrested in the wake of the war accused of supporting Israel.

“The enemy can no longer rely on its old methods. This time, we will not be surprised," he added.

The Revolutionary Guards-linked Fars News Agency said the attacked was launched on the morning of Monday, June 16, while a session of the Supreme National Security Council was underway in the lower floors of the building in western Tehran.

President Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Judiciary chief Mohseni Ejei and other senior officials were attending the meeting, the report said.

Six bombs or missiles targeted the building’s entry and exit points in order to block escape routes and disrupt airflow, Fars News said, adding that the attack was modeled after an operation designed to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

Following the explosions, power to the floor was cut, but the officials managed to escape through an emergency hatch that had been prepared in advance, the report said.

President Pezeshkian and some other officials sustained minor leg injuries while exiting, the outlet said.

Given the accuracy of the information used in the attack, the report said authorities are investigating the possibility of an infiltrator.

While the report did not specify the location of the meeting, the Israeli airstrike is believed to have targeted a building in Tehran’s Shahrak-e Bagheri district on June 16.

A few days ago, senior IRGC general Mohsen Rezaei told the state TV that Israel “struck six points at the location where the Supreme National Security Council was meeting, but not the slightest harm was done to any of its members.”

President Pezeshkian earlier accused Israel of trying to assassinate him. "They did try, yes," he told Tucker Carlson in an interview. "They acted accordingly, but they failed."