Free Republic

The US joining Israeli strikes would cause "hell for the whole region", Iran's deputy foreign minister has told the BBC. Saeed Khatibzadeh said this is "not America's war" and if US President Donald Trump does get involved, he will always be remembered as "a president who entered a war he doesn't belong in". He said US involvement would turn the conflict into a "quagmire", continue aggression and delay an end to the "brutal atrocities". His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities at Arak, a reactor that used heavy water in its operations and which was poised to produce weapons-grade plutonium for Iran’s nuclear program. The IDF said in a statement: Overnight (Thursday), 40 IAF fighter jets, with the precise intelligence direction of the IDF Intelligence Directorate, struck dozens of military targets in Tehran and additional areas throughout Iran, using over 100 munitions. As part of the strikes, and as part of the broad effort to prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the nuclear reactor in the area of Arak...

Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water reactor, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite a deal with world powers to shelve a project they fear could yield plutonium for atomic bombs. France, one of the six powers that negotiated Sunday's interim pact with Iran to curb its disputed nuclear program, said in response to Zarif's statement that Tehran had to keep to what was agreed in the Geneva talks. The uncompleted research reactor emerged as one of several big stumbling blocks in the marathon negotiations, in which Iran agreed to restrain its atomic...