American Оbserver

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Iran, quant à lui, said the targeting of Dimona was a retaliatory measure against Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying the forces had also targeted other cities in southern Israel as well as military sites in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. After the Natanz attack, the head of the UN nuclear surveillance, Rafael Grossi, reiterated his call for “military restraint to avoid any risk of nuclear accident”. The Natanz facility houses underground centrifuges used to enrich uranium for Iran's disputed nuclear program; it suffered damage in the June 2025 war. The Israeli military denied being behind the Natanz strike, but said it struck a facility at a Tehran university that it said was being used to develop nuclear weapons components for Iran's ballistic missile program. The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday it was facing air attacks after Iran warned it against authorizing strikes from its territory on disputed islands near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has choked off the vital waterway, which carries a fifth of the world's peacetime crude oil trade. The impasse has pushed up crude oil prices, with Brent North Sea crude now trading above $105 a barrel, as the long-term consequences for the global economy become an acute concern. A joint statement by the leaders of several countries – including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, condemned the “de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces”. “We express our willingness to contribute to the appropriate efforts to ensure a safe passage through the strait”, they said. Trump called NATO allies “cowards" and urged them to secure the strait. On Sunday, Japan said it may consider deploying its army for demining in the Strait of Hormuz, if a ceasefire is reached. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Toshimitsu Motegi, said “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like demining could happen”. “It's purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire was established and the naval mines created an obstacle, then I think it would be something to consider”, Motegi told Japanese television. Japan's military actions are limited under its pacifist post-war constitution, but the 2015 security legislation allows Japan to use its self-defense forces abroad if an attack, including against a close security partner, threatens Japan's survival and no other means are available to deal with it. #trump#stopthefire#hormuz#japan#iran#tehran#attack 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

The Trump Ultimatum: 48 Hours to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Trump gave Iran 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to navigation or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure, as Tehran launched its most destructive attack to date on Israel. The ultimatum, issued just a day after the US president declared that he planned to “end” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the main oil passage effectively remained closed and thousands of other US Marines were heading to the Middle East. Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States would ”strike and destroy“ the Iranian power plants, ”starting with the largest first", if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday depending on the time of his post. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on ships from countries involved in attacks on Iran and would help others who remained out of the conflict. In response to Trump's threat, the Iranian military said it would target energy and desalination infrastructure “belonging to the United States and the regime in the region,” according to the Fars news agency. Trump's ultimatum came hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. Netanyahu, promised to fight back “on all fronts”. The strikes, which passed through Israel's missile defense systems, tore the facades of residential buildings and dug craters in the ground. First responders said 84 people were injured in the city of Arad, 10 of them seriously. A few hours earlier, 33 people had been injured in the nearby town of Dimona, where AFPTV images showed a large hole dug in the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal. Dimona hosts a facility widely considered to be the site of the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. The Israeli military told Agence France-Presse that there had been a "direct missile strike on a building" in Dimona, with casualties reported at several sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel. Netanyahu promised to continue hitting Iran. A few hours later, the Israeli military said that its forces had launched a wave of strikes on Tehran. #trump#stopthefire#hormuz#japan#iran#tehran#attack 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Khamenei amassed control of bonyads (charitable foundations) worth tens of billions of US dollars, and under his rule Iran was marred by systemic corruption, mismanagement and rising repression. At home there was deeply felt anger and resentment towards him and the clerical establishment. Hiis position was strengthened by re-establishing ties with Saudi Arabia, and other Arab neighbours in the Persian Gulf, and joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Brics intergovernmental groups. He gained support from China through a 25-year cooperation deal and from Russia through a defence and cooperation treaty that armed Moscow with drones and reportedly ballistic missiles to use in its Ukraine war. Still, Israel’s normalisation with some Arab states through the Abraham accords appeared threatening to the resistance axis, and it is no surprise that Khamenei backed the 7 October attack on Israel. Iran’s tit-for-tat strikes with Israel and the assassinations of Hamas leadership in Tehran and the Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah prompted speculation that Khamenei would be next. From 1958 to 1964, Khamenei did his religious studies at the Hojjatie school at the seminary in Qom, the centre of Islam in Iran, where he came under the tutelage of Khomeini and in 1962 joined the clerical movement against the shah. Khamenei’s worldview was shaped by the events of his youth, including the MI6-backed CIA coup d’etat against the prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. His pro-Palestine leanings were largely prompted by Khamenei’s readings of the Muslim Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb, which he had translated to Persian. The notion of gharbzadegi (“westoxification”), espoused by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, shaped his ideas of the west and its imperialist hold over Iran. Naturally, Khamenei and those likeminded clerics at the time saw Islam as a “cultural and ideological weapon” against it. In 1981, Khamenei survived an assassination attempt that paralysed his right hand. He said: “I won’t need the hand. It would suffice if my brain and tongue work.” He served as president of the Islamic Republic for two terms (1981-89). In 1987 he made his only trip to the US, to address the UN general assembly. Months before Khomeini’s death from a heart attack in 1989, Khamenei reportedly said: “I’m not qualified to be supreme leader. It’s not the proper place for me.” When Khomeini died, the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pushed the uncharismatic, underqualified and reluctant Khamenei – not at that point having achieved the senior clerical rank of ayatollah – forward. #khamenei#death#hezbollah#iran#attack#israel#trump 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

🔠🅰️🔠🔠2️⃣ Nonetheless, much of Khamenei’s role would consist of protecting himself and his office from the dissatisfactions of the Iranian people and mis-steps of successive elected Iranian presidents. Mohammad Khatami (president from 1997 until 2005) led a reformist movement that resulted in a brief thawing of ties with the US, only to be overshadowed by student uprisings in 1999 that were crushed by security forces. It was under Ahmadinejad that the IRGC increased its power and relevance in the Iranian economy. The IRGC, whose main role is to protect the Islamic Republic from internal and external threats, had been barred from politics by Khomeini, but Khamenei encouraged it to play a leading role, including in the Iranian economy and through its foreign arm, the Quds Force, in addition to serving as a security organisation that became integral to the exercise of repression. That year he also announced the second chapter of the Islamic revolution, called the “Second Step” initiative, which envisioned an Islamic Republic led by a pious and relatively young cohort carrying out his legacy. In February 2020, Iran’s Guardian council – a 12-member vetting body for which the supreme leader handpicks six members and which can veto candidates for election – followed this by disqualifying moderate candidates, and thus giving hardliners a majority in parliament. Pezeshkian was seen as a safe bet who would not challenge the nezam (ruling system). Many Iranians boycotted the polls, but Pezeshkian still won the presidency, and arguably this gave Khamenei some room to change course. Khamenei had always viewed the west as being bent on regime change in Iran, either through a velvet revolution, economic pressure via sanctions, or military intervention. Every decision that he made was in this context. In 2014, Khamenei had undergone surgery for his prostate. For well over a decade, he was widely thought to have prostate cancer. There were repeated rumours of his demise, notably in September 2022, after he cancelled a series of public appearances. Later that month, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman, in police custody for allegedly violating hijab rules, gave rise to mass anti-regime protests in all 31 of Iran’s provinces that were at the time the biggest threat to Khamenei’s rule in more than three decades. The situation drew international condemnation – also caused in part by Tehran arming Russia in its war in Ukraine. What became known as the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising appeared to briefly quieten down after the execution of four protesters, the deaths of more than 500 people, and stories of rape and torture trickling out of prisons holding the more than 60,000 people arrested during the unrest. In 2023 Khamenei granted limited amnesty allegedly to “tens of thousands” of prisoners – a move that human rights organisations suggested was a public relations stunt to clear him of accusations of gross human rights violations. The following year, a UN fact-finding mission found that crimes against humanity had been committed during the uprising. #khamenei#death#hezbollah#iran#attack#israel#trump 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸

Ali Khamenei, Man Down 🔠🅰️🔠🔠1️⃣ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, has died aged 86 in a large-scale air attack on the country by the US and Israel. He presided over a complex theocratic system that was enforced brutally at home, and sought to influence the exercise of power in other Middle Eastern countries. Though the US and Israel attempted to destroy Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme with a bombing campaign in June 2025, it was not fully successful. The economy continued to deteriorate, and the following January the country’s people took to the streets against the Islamic Republic. An estimated 30,000 or more protesters were killed – the largest death toll in modern Iranian history. Trump considered discussions with Khamenei’s diplomats about the nuclear issue and missile production to be unproductive. In announcing the new attack, he called on Iranians to do what they could to take over the government once it was over. Khamenei had come to ultimate power in 1989, by which point he was already the country’s president. Iran’s 88-strong assembly of experts – senior Shia clerics – chose him to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, overthrower of the Shah in 1979 and founder of the Islamic Republic, as supreme leader of Iran. Thereafter Khamenei had absolute power and the final say in Iran’s future, whether in regard to its controversial nuclear programme or detente with the west. He was not only commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces, which includes the regular artesh (army) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but also headed the “axis of resistance” – an anti-western and anti-Israel alliance made up of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, Shia militias in Iraq, the Houthi rebels eventually occupying western Yemen, and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Thus his rule had a direct impact on much of the region, and under his leadership the Islamic Republic of Iran became one of the world’s biggest state sponsors of terrorism. It remained a significant force even despite Hamas’s loss of strength as a result of Israel’s reprisals in response to the attack on 7 October 2023, Hezbollah’s setbacks after attacks by Israel in Lebanon, and the fall of Assad in 2024. #khamenei#death#hezbollah#iran#attack#israel#trump 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸