Iran vows to kill 50,000 US soldiers in revenge as massive Israeli airstrike on Republican Guard HQ wipes out ‘hundreds’ of elite troops and spies

The US Embassy in Qatar has emailed a message to American citizens in Qatar recommending they shelter in place until further notice.

The message noted the recommendation was ‘out of an abundence of caution’ and offered no further information.

Iran’s health ministry has said at least 13 children have been killed since Israel started attacking Iran on June 13.

Hossein Kermanpour, the head of public relations at the ministry, said the youngest victim was just two months old.

He added that 44 women had also been killed in the Israeli attacks, including two who were pregnant.

The update did not provide an overall death toll, but in an earlier post on Saturday, he said that more than 400 people had been killed since the start of the conflict, with at least 3,056 others wounded.

‘The majority of casualties and the injured have been civilians,’ he said.

The IDF has provided more details on its ‘unprecedented’ attacks in Tehran today after the Iranian regime’s military and governmental headquarters were targeted in airstrikes.

The Israeli Air Force has launched strikes on the Revolutionary Guards and Iran’s internal security forces which the IDF said was responsible for ‘preserving the regime’s stability’.

In a translated post on X, the IDF said:

As part of the attack, the Basig headquarters was attacked, which is one of the Revolutionary Guards’ power bases and is responsible, among other things, for enforcing the Islamic code and reporting to the authorities about citizens who violate it.

In addition, the “Albarez” Brigade, which is responsible for protecting several cities in the Tehran province from various threats and maintaining the stability of the regime, and the Intelligence and General Security Police of the Internal Security Forces, which are also part of the Iranian regime’s military forces, were attacked.

These headquarters are significant from both a military and a governmental perspective, and attacking them harms the Iranian regime’s military capabilities.

Vladimir Putin today vowed to back Iran and condemned ‘groundless’ aggression against its ally after the U.S. joined Israel in striking nuclear facilities on Sunday.

‘This is an absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran,’ Putin told Abbas Araghchi, who travelled to Moscow on Monday seeking support in mediation.

Putin called recent strikes ‘unjustified’ and added that Russia was ‘making efforts to provide assistance to the Iranian people.’

The comments came as Israel again struck the Fordow nuclear facility and ‘government targets’ in Tehran, with no sign of the conflict abating.

Read our breaking news story here:

China urged Iran and Israel to de-escalate in order to prevent a ‘spillover’ of their war, as fighting between the two foes raged for the 11th day.

Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in a statement:

The Chinese side urges the parties to the conflict to prevent the situation from escalating repeatedly, resolutely avoid the spillover of war, and return to the path of political resolution.

Maintaining security and stability in this region is in the common interests of the international community.

China calls on the international community to make greater efforts to promote the de-escalation of the conflict and prevent regional instability from having a greater impact on global economic development.

Israeli strikes on Tehran have hit headquarters belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to an IDF spokesman.

Hundreds of Revolutionary Guard members have been killed in the ongoing attack, Israel claimed.

Defence minister Israel Katz said the IDF is also attacking other regime targets ‘in the heart of Tehran.’

He confirmed they were targeting the Evin Prison for political prisoners and opponents of the regime, as well as the so-called ‘Israel Destruction’ clock in Palestine Square.

He said the internal security headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards was also being hit.

In a statement on X he added:

For every shot fired at the Israeli home front, the Iranian dictator will be punished and the attacks will continue with full force. We will continue to act to protect the home front and defeat the enemy until all war goals are achieved.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in talks in Moscow that aggression against Iran was groundless.

Putin made the comments at the start of Kremlin talks and said Russia was ready to help the Iranian people.

Araqchi thanked Putin for condemning the US strikes on Iran, telling him Russia stood on ‘the right side of history.’

He told the Russian leader that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian had asked him to convey their best wishes.

We are hearing more from Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Speaking at the IAEA board of governors meeting, Grossi stressed ‘armed attacks on nuclear facilities should never take place’, as they can lead to radiation leaks that extend beyond the targeted state’s borders.

‘I therefore again call on maximum restraint. Military escalation not only threatens lives, it also delays us from taking a diplomatic path,’ he said.

‘To achieve the long-term assurance that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon… we must return to negotiations,’ Grossi said.

If the diplomatic path fails, he said, ‘violence and destruction could reach unimaginable levels.’

He added: ‘I’m ready to travel immediately to Iran. We need to keep working together despite existing differences.’

Israelis visiting the beach in Tel Aviv

The Daily Mail’s Special Correspondent David Patrikarakos has been reporting on the Israel-Iran conflict from Tel Aviv.

Here he reveals the mood of the country after the US made the historic decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities:

People in Israel are starting to understand the enormity of what has happened. The US went against all of its previous statements and directly struck Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The extent of the damage remains unclear, the extent of Iran’s reaction remains unclear, the trajectory of this war remains unclear.

For now Israelis are rallying around their government which remains deeply unpopular to many. They understand their enemy is a far larger, far more populous country. It is not Hamas, it is not Hezbollah, it is not the Houthis – it is not even Bashar al-Assad, it is Iran and it is a serious country that poses a serious threat to the State of Israel.

This is a new Middle East. People on the ground here understand it, the belief is what happened had to happen but everyone is very much is watching and waiting to see what happens now.

Iranian media is reporting that Israel has launched news strikes on the Fordow nuclear site in the wake of US strikes on the site early Sunday morning.

According to the Qom Province Crisis Management Headquarters, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization officials said ‘there will be no danger or threat to citizens.’

It comes after the IAEA said there was likely already very heavy damage at the facility.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said that ‘very heavy damage’ is expected at Iran’s underground facility at Fordow after the US hit it with sophisticated bunker-buster bombs.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, made the statement in Vienna at an emergency meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors.

‘Given the explosive payload utilized and the extreme vibration sensitive nature of centrifuges, very significant damage is expected to have occurred,’ Grossi said.

He added that ‘craters are now visible at the Fordow site… indicating the use of ground-penetrating munitions.’

But he also said that ‘at this time, no one, including the IAEA, is in a position to have fully assessed the underground damage at Fordow.’

After the IDF confirmed that the Israeli Air Force launched a wave of strikes on military targets in Tehran, Israel’s Defence Minister has now shared an update.

Israel Katz said the IDF is ‘currently striking with unprecedented force regime targets and governmental repression bodies in the heart of Tehran.’

‘Images will soon be released, illustrating the depth of the damage,’ he went on in statement issued by his office.

‘For every rocket fired at the Israeli home front, the Iranian dictator will be severely punished, and the strikes will continue with full intensity. We will continue to act to defend the home front and defeat the enemy until all war objectives are achieved,’ Katz added.

The commander-in-chief of Iran’s conventional army, Amir Hatami, has attended a meeting with generals following the US strikes over the weekend.

He said in a new statement that every time the US had committed crimes against Iran, they were met with a decisive response and the same would be the case this time.

Iran’s Ayatollah has named three potential successors in case he is killed in Israeli strikes as he hides in an underground bunker, according to reports.

Ali Khamenei, 86, has chosen three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, The New York Times reports.

His son Mojtaba, also a cleric who has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, was rumoured to be a front-runner.

But he is not among the selected candidates, officials reportedly told the newspaper.

It comes after Donald Trump raised the prospect of regime change in the country.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz last week issued his strongest threat yet to assassinate Khamenei, saying Tehran’s supreme leader ‘cannot continue to exist.’

Several large explosions have been heard in Tehran, according to Iranian outlet Nour News.

Israel’s Air Force confirmed that it had begun a wave of attacks on military targets in Tehran.

According to Iranian media, the IDF targeted the entrance to Evin Prison in the Iranian capital.

The prestigious Shahid Beheshti University in northern Tehran is also reported to have been targeted.

Outside of Tehran, the city of Karaj in northern Iran was also targeted by Israeli missiles, Fars News reports.

Oil prices have surged as Iran maintains its threat to close its global shipping route after Donald Trump blew up the country’s nuclear bases.

Asian markets traded lower today amid concerns of disruption to energy markets after the US air strikes ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear facilities on Saturday night.

The dollar strengthened as traders assessed the weekend’s events, with Iran threatening US bases in the Middle East as fears grow of an escalating conflict in the volatile region.

Iran is the world’s ninth-biggest oil-producing country, with output of about 3.3million barrels per day.

It exports just under half of that amount and keeps the rest for domestic consumption.

If Tehran decides to retaliate, observers say one of its options would be to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz – which carries 20 per cent of global oil output.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is due to deliver a letter from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Vladimir Putin, seeking the latter’s support, according to a senior source.

Iran has not been impressed with Russia’s support so far, Iranian sources told Reuters, and the country wants Putin to do more to back it against Israel and the US. The sources did not elaborate on what assistance Tehran wanted.

The Kremlin said that Putin would receive Araqchi but did not say what would be discussed.

Araqchi was quoted by the state TASS news agency as saying that Iran and Russia were coordinating their positions on the current escalation in the Middle East.

Putin has repeatedly offered to mediate between the US and Iran, and said that he had conveyed Moscow’s ideas on resolving the conflict to them while ensuring Iran’s continued access to civil nuclear energy.

The Kremlin chief last week refused to discuss the possibility that Israel and the US would kill Khamenei.

Putin said that Israel had given Moscow assurances that Russian specialists helping to build two more reactors at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran would not be hurt in air strikes.

Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member and a signatory to an earlier nuclear deal Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

But Putin, whose grinding war in Ukraine is in its fourth year, has so far shown little appetite in public for diving into a confrontation with the US over Iran just as Trump seeks to repair ties with Moscow.

Keir Starmer is engaged in frantic diplomacy over the Iran crisis today as Donald Trump sounds an increasingly strident message.

The PM and president spoke last night after the US strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites. But Downing Street’s readout notably did not include any reference to the ‘de-escalation’ Sir Keir has been urging in other statements.

Instead No10 said the leaders agreed Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and should return to negotiations.

Soon after the call Mr Trump took to social media apparently endorsing regime change – swiping that it could be time to ‘Make Iran Great Again’.

The stance raises fresh questions about Sir Keir’s influence and the health of the Special Relationship. After meeting Mr Trump in person at the G7 in Canada last week, the premier had insisted he did not believe the US would go ahead with the attacks.

Read the full story by MailOnline’s Political Editor James Tapsfield here:

The Israeli Defence Forces said they have attacked six airfields across Iran.

The attack on bases in western, eastern and central Iran took out 15 jets and helicopters, the IDF said.

Sirens are sounding across Israel amid Iran’s latest ballistic missile attack on the country, according to Israeli Defence Forces.

Loud explosions were heard in Jerusalem after the Israeli military warned a fresh barrage of missiles had been launched from Iran.

Around 10 minutes after announcing the missiles had been identified, the military said ‘additional missiles were launched’ towards Israel and urged people to take cover.

Some 15 ballistic missiles were launched during the barrage, according to the IDF.

They were fired in multiple salvos over nearly 40 minutes, making it one of the longest Iranian missile attacks of the war, according to Israeli media.

Several impacts were reported but the Magen David Adom rescue service did not immediately share information of any casualties.

It comes after an X account associated with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a post portraying missile strikes on a darkened city with a giant skull bearing the Star of David on it.

‘The punishment continues,’ the post read.

Trump and Netanyahu pictured in 2019

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a week to convince President Donald Trump to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to The Jerusalem Post.

‘Four days ago, there was a phone call between Netanyahu and the US president, during which Trump said,”‘I’ve decided to launch a strike,”‘ an Israeli official with knowldge of the conversations told the outlet.

Initially, Trump only planned on striking the Fordow enrichment facility.

But Netanyahu continued to press the president to ‘finish the job,’ an official told the Post, with the U.S. ultimately finding itself able to strike targets that Israeli officials said they could not reach.

Strait of Hormuz, a strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman

Two oil supertankers capable of hauling about two million barrels of crude oil each made U-turns in the Strait of Hormuz amid Iranian threats it would shut down the passage on Sunday, according to the Strait Times.

The ships’ electronics and signals were jammed, but the two vessels’ arrivals and turnarounds have the hallmarks of a normal tanker movement.

The situation came hours after Greece’s shipping ministry advised its ships to reassess movements through Hormuz and to instead shelter in safe ports until the situation calms.

Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who is believed to take over Iran if the current regime falls, promised swift action if he were put in charge of the country.

‘The minute this regime disappears, everything changes instantaneously,’ he vowed on Fox News.

‘And I know a lot of people are already excited about the prospect of being able to help us rebuild our country and Make Iran Great Again,’ Pahlavi said, using the phrase President Donald Trump had coined just hours earlier.

President Donald Trump announced that ‘monumental damage’ was done to all of Iran’s nuclear sites on his Truth Social page.

‘Obliteration is an accurate term! The whole structure shown is deeply imbedded into the rock, with even its roof well below ground level, and completely shielded from flame,’ the president posted, though it was unclear which images he was referring to.

‘The biggest damage took place far below ground level.

‘Bullseye!!!’ he wrote, hours after suggesting it was time for regime change in the Islamic country.

‘It’s not politically correct to use the term, “Regime Change,” but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???’ Trump earlier asked on his Truth Social page.

Iran claims it smuggled nearly all of its highly enriched uranium to a secret location before the United States launched strikes on nuclear bases in the country.

US President Donald Trump declared the operation a success, saying it took the bomb ‘right out of Iran’s hands.’

But it has now been claimed that most of the material, an estimated 400kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium, was moved away from the sites before Saturday night’s raid.

Satellite images show convoys leaving the Fordow site in recent days.

Satellite pictures taken on June 19 and 20 show a convoy of trucks leaving the Fordow nuclear facility in Iran.

A US Air Force B-2 stealth bomber has been pictured landing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, hours after it carried out attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Donald Trump dispatched seven of the bombers to drop massive bunker-busting bombs on three enrichment facilities, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan,

Trump administration officials said the bombers ‘completely obliterated’ the Fordow nuclear site using 12 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs.

The UK’s foreign secretary David Lammy this morning warned that it would be a catastrophic error for Iran to escalate its response following the US bombing of its nuclear sites.

‘Let’s calm this thing down,’ Lammy said on BBC Breakfast.

‘Clearly this is a moment of peril,’ he went ot.

‘I’m an optimist – of course this is a stressful time – but I still believe diplomacy must and can prevail.’

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Moscow today, the Interfax news agency said, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.

Araqchi earlier said that Tehran is coordinating with Russia regarding the current escalation.

The two men are set to discuss ‘common threats’ during their meeting, Iran’s IRNA news agency reports.

It comes after Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia argued at an emergency meeting on Sunday that the United States’ airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities ‘has opened Pandora’s box.’

‘No one knows what new catastrophes and suffering it will bring,’ Nebenzia said.

Iranian state media have ramped up calls for attacks on US bases in the Middle East, with one declaring 50,000 US soldiers could be brought back to Washington in ‘coffins’.

According to Al Jazeera, state television’s Channel 3 showed a map of all US bases across the region highlighting facilities in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq. All are believed to be in range of Iranian missiles.

In quotes translated by Al Jazeera, the channel’s anchor Mehdi Khanalizadeh (pictured above) is purported to have said:

It is now clearer than ever, not just for the Iranian nation but for the whole peoples of the region, that all US citizens and military personnel are legitimate targets.

We were negotiating and progressing through a diplomatic path, but you chose to spill the blood of your soldiers. The US president in the Oval Office chose to take delivery of the coffins of up to 50,000 US soldiers in Washington.

While Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the hardline Keyhan daily newspaper, wrote: ‘It is now our turn to immediately rain missiles down on the US naval force in Bahrain as a first measure.’

Good morning. Iran and Israel have exchanged missiles this morning as Tehran vowed retaliation for US strikes that President Donald Trump said caused ‘monumental damage’ to the Islamic republic’s nuclear sites.

As the war entered its 11th day despite international calls for de-escalation, here are the latest developments:

• Iran’s military has warned the US of ‘heavy consequences’ for entering its conflict with Israel, saying it has now expanded the scope of legitimate targets.
• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said ‘the punishment continues’ against Israel, as Tehran launched new missile strikes on the country overnight.
• US President Donald Trump raised the prospect of ‘regime change’ in Iran.
• The leaders of Britain, France and Germany have called for de-escalation and warned Iran ‘not to take any further action that could destabilise the region’.
• At a UN Security Council emergency meeting Sunday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned against ‘descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation’.
• Iran’s foreign minister said the country is ‘co-ordinating with Russia’ as he is set to visit Moscow today.
• Trump said strikes caused ‘monumental damage’ to ‘all nuclear sites in Iran’.
• The UN’s nuclear watchdog could not immediately verify the exact level of damage.