Overnight Israel has attacked Iranian military and political headquarters and several nuclear sites in five waves of drones and fighter-bombers. Some one hundred warplanes were involved, firing more than 300 pieces of heavy ordnance. By dawn Tehran admitted several key players in the regime had been killed, including the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major General Hossein Salami, and the chief of staff Major General Mohammed Bagheri. The nuclear site at Natanz was reported ‘flattened’ – with the main reactor ‘destroyed.’
The government of Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the operation to knock out Iran’s nuclear programme is likely to last four or five days. The fear is that it has opened a new phase of war across the Middle East as the embattled regime of the ageing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tries to retaliate, and this phase could last months. Britain and British interests, as well as those of principal allies like France, Germany and Italy are involved – as well the United States.
