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SvennoJ on 18 June 2025
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Main events on June 18th

  • Israel says it destroyed Iran’s internal security headquarters in Tehran as more explosions are reported in the Iranian city of Karaj and the nearby Payam airport.
  • Air raid sirens have blared in central Israel after Iran fired more missiles towards the country. Israel says the projectiles were intercepted.
  • US President Donald Trump has declined to say if he has made any decision on whether to join Israel’s campaign. “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.
  • This comes after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Iran would not accept an “imposed war” and warned that US involvement in attacks on Iran would bring “irreparable consequences”.
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow has been in touch with Israel about its workers in Iran, and calls for an end to the fighting between the two countries.
  • Israeli forces have meanwhile continued deadly attacks on Gaza, with health authorities reporting at least 72 killings in the past day, including 29 Palestinians who were gunned down while waiting for food assistance.

 

Iran foreign minister says ‘committed to diplomacy’, only acting in self-defence

Rebuffing Israeli and US claims that Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon, Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi has reiterated that the country has “never sought and will never seek” such arms.

“If otherwise, what better pretext could we possibly need for developing those inhuman weapons than the current aggression by the region’s only nuclear-armed regime?” he wrote on X.

Stressing that Tehran is acting “solely… in self-defense” in the face of “the most outrageous aggression” against the country, Araghchi said the world should be “highly alarmed” by Israel’s attempts to broaden the conflict.

“With the exception of the illegitimate, genocidal and occupying Israeli regime, we remain committed to diplomacy. As before, we are serious and forward-looking in our outlook.”



Similarities with false claims ahead of US invasion of Iraq ‘mind-boggling’

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, has drawn parallels between Trump’s unproven claims that Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon, and the lies that were made in the lead-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Then-US President George W Bush’s administration had justified the invasion on the false claim that Iraq was developing so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

Similarly, Bishara said Trump appears to be disregarding an assessment from US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard, who certified in March that Washington “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”.

“That was only two and a half months ago. So what is the American president basing his information on? From the Israelis, and the Israelis are lying,” Bishara said.

He added that – as we’ve been reporting – the UN nuclear agency also has said it found no evidence to indicate that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

“Again, the parallels between the war on Iran and the war on Iraq, and the deception before and during both wars, is mind-boggling. The fact that it could be repeated within two decades is mesmerising,” Bishara said.