What we know about Iran's attack on US base in Qatar

Iran has launched missiles at a US military base in Qatar, in what it said was retaliation for American strikes against its nuclear sites over the weekend.

Witnesses reported hearing loud bangs in the sky above the capital, Doha, while videos showed bright flashes in the sky as air defence systems attempted to intercept missiles.

It is the latest escalation in a conflict involving Iran, Israel and the US which has seen tensions in the Middle East soar to unprecedented levels in recent days.

Here is what we know.

What did Iran target and why?

Iranian missiles targeted the largest US military base in the Middle East, Al-Udeid, in what it said was a response to the US bombing three of its nuclear programme facilities on Saturday evening.

Al-Udeid is home to the US military's headquarters for all air operations in the region. Some British military personnel also serve there on rotation.

The attack was first confirmed by Iranian state media, and later by the military.

A statement from the IRGC, the most powerful branch of the Iranian military, said that "Iran will not leave any attack on its sovereignty unanswered", and added: "US bases in the region are not strengths but vulnerabilities."

The US had previously warned Iran not to respond to its strikes on nuclear facilities and urged leaders in Tehran to agree to a diplomatic end to hostilities in the region.

There were differing reports about how many missiles were fired. Iran said six, the US said 14, and Qatar was reported by Reuters as saying 19 - all of which, it added, were intercepted.

No one has been reported killed or injured.

In the hours before the attack, both the US and UK had advised their citizens in Qatar to "shelter in place". About 8,000 US citizens live in Qatar, according to the State Department, as well as several thousand British citizens.

What was said after the attack

It became apparent soon afterwards that Iran had given warning that it was preparing to launch missiles. Three Iranian officials quoted by the New York Times said that Tehran had told Doha of its intentions, as a way to minimise casualties.

In his first comments in the aftermath, President Donald Trump thanked Iran "for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured".

He branded the attack "very weak" - no Americans were harmed and very little damage was done, he said. "They've gotten it all out of their system," he added and said there was now a chance for "peace".

Nevertheless, a spokesman for Qatar's foreign ministry said the attack was a "surprise" and a "flagrant violation of its sovereignty", and added that Qatar "was one of the first countries to warn against the dangers of Israeli escalation in the region".

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meanwhile said that Iran did not harm anyone in the attack but that his country would not "submit to anyone's violation".

"We have not violated anyone, and we will in no way accept being violated by anyone. We will not submit to anyone's violation; this is the logic of the Iranian nation," he said on X (as translated by BBC Persian).

There were indications on Monday that the US suspected Iran was preparing to launch missiles into Qatar.

Hours before the attack, Qatar said it was temporarily closing its airspace, shortly after the US and UK told citizens in Qatar to "shelter in place".

Those warnings did not give a clear indication an attack was imminent: the US said it issued the order "out of an abundance of caution", while the UK said it was following the lead of the Americans.

However, around an hour before the attack, the BBC learned of "a credible threat" to the base.

Separately, some US media outlets quoted anonymous US officials as saying Iranian missile launchers had been positioned for a potential launch towards Qatar.

Flight tracking websites showed planes had already started diverting to other airports before the launch. According to Flightradar24, there were 100 flights bound for Doha shortly before missile launches were detected.

Hamad International Airport is one of the world's top 10 busiest for international traffic, with around 140,000 passengers passing through per day.

Other countries in the region, including Bahrain and Kuwait, also closed their airspace for a brief period.

** Turkey sandwiches and stealth: Preparing for B-2 bomber missions

Before strapping into the cockpit of the U.S. Air Force's B-2 Spirit stealth bomber for missions that can stretch beyond 40 hours, pilots undergo weeks of preparation that focuses not only on flight plans, but what to eat.

The B-2, a $2 billion flying wing built by Northrop Grumman (NOC.N), played a key role in delivering strikes on Iran's nuclear sites on Saturday. It demands extraordinary endurance from its two-person crew. That starts with understanding how nutrition affects alertness and digestion during intercontinental flights that can span nearly two full days.

"We go through sleep studies, we actually go through nutritional education to be able to teach each one of us: one, what wakes us up and then what helps us go to sleep," said retired Lt. Gen. Steve Basham, who flew the B-2 for nine years and retired in 2024 as deputy commander of U.S. European Command.

Pilots are trained to be cognizant of foods and how they slow or speed digestion - critical in an aircraft with a single chemical toilet. Basham's go-to meal: turkey sandwiches on wheat bread, no cheese. "As bland as you possibly can," he said.

With a 172-foot (52.4 m) wingspan and stealth profile, the B-2 can fly 6,000 nautical miles without refueling, but most missions require multiple mid-air refuelings. That process becomes increasingly difficult as fatigue sets in.

Refueling is done blind - pilots can't see the boom extending from a tanker full of gas attaching to the B-2 16 feet behind their heads. Instead, they rely on visual cues from the tanker's lights and memorized reference points. At night, especially on moonless flights, the task becomes what Basham called "inherently dangerous."

"Adrenaline kept you going before you went into country," he said. "The adrenaline goes away. You try to get a little bit of rest and you still got that one last refueling."

The B-2's cockpit includes a small area behind the seats, where pilots can lie down on a cot. Sunflower seeds help some stay alert between meals.

Despite its cutting-edge design - features that make it stealthy reduce infrared, radar and acoustic signatures - the B-2's success hinges on human performance. The aircraft's two-person crew replaces the larger teams required for older bombers like the B-1B and B-52, placing more responsibility on each member of the flight crew.

The B-2's fly-by-wire system, which relies entirely on computer inputs, has evolved since its 1989 debut. Early software lagged behind pilot commands, complicating refueling, Basham said. Updates have improved responsiveness, but the challenge of flying in tight formation at high altitude remains.

During Operation Allied Force in 1999, B-2s flew 31-hour round trips from Missouri to Kosovo, striking 33% of targets in the first eight weeks, according to the Air Force. In Iraq, the aircraft dropped more than 1.5 million pounds of munitions across 49 sorties.

The Air Force plans to replace the B-2 and B-1 fleets with at least 100 B-21 Raiders over the coming decades. The B-2 costs about $65,000 per hour to operate, compared to $60,000 for the B-1, Pentagon data shows.

"Our pilots make it look easy, but it's far from easy," Basham said. The B-2's complicated missions can't be done "without a massive, massive array of planners on the ground throughout the world and maintainers that make sure you've always got a good aircraft."

BBC/Reuters

UK to ban campaign group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws

Britain said on Monday it would use anti-terrorism laws to ban the campaign organisation Palestine Action, making it a criminal offence to belong to the group after its activists damaged two UK military planes in protest at London's support for Israel.

The proscription would put the pro-Palestinian group on a par with Hamas, al-Qaeda or ISIS under British law, making it illegal for anyone to promote it or be a member. Those who breached the ban could face up to 14 years in jail.

Palestine Action has regularly targeted British sites connected to Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems as well as other companies in Britain linked to Israel since the start of the conflict in Gaza in 2023.

In its latest and most high-profile action, two of its members entered a Royal Air Force base in central England on Friday, spraying paint into the engines of the Voyager transport aircraft and further damaging them with crowbars.

"The disgraceful attack on Brize Norton ... is the latest in a long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action," Home Secretary (interior minister) Yvette Cooper said in a written statement to parliament.

"The UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this government will not tolerate those that put that security at risk."

She said the group's actions had become more aggressive and caused millions of pounds of damage.

Under British law, the Home Secretary can proscribe a group if it is believed it commits, encourages or "is otherwise concerned in terrorism". The banning order will be laid before parliament on June 30 and will come into effect if approved.

Palestine Action, which says Britain is an "active participant" in the conflict in Gaza because of military support it provides to Israel, called the ban "an unhinged reaction" which it would challenge, and accused Cooper of making a series of "categorically false claims".

"The real crime here is not red paint being sprayed on these war planes," it said in a statement.

Earlier on Monday, the group was forced to change the location of a planned protest after police banned it from staging a demonstration outside parliament, otherwise a popular location for protests in support of a range of causes.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Nine killed in Kyiv in intense Russian air attack

At least nine people have been killed and several injured in an overnight Russian missile and drone attack in the Kyiv region, the interior minister has said.

In a post on social media, Ihor Klymenko said residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure had been hit.

At least six of those killed were in a high-rise building in the capital, Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The city's military administration said a further 33 people had been injured.

In the latest barrage, 352 Russian drones and 16 missiles targeted Ukrainian territory, mostly in the Kyiv area, the Ukrainian air force said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is travelling to London on Monday for talks with PM Keir Starmer on UK military support for Ukraine.

One Kyiv resident, Valeriy Mankuta, 33, said he "woke up in the rubble" after his building was hit by what authorities said was a missile. He escaped his apartment by climbing out of the window.

"There were bricks on me, there was something in my mouth. It was total hell," he told Reuters news agency.

Another resident, Natalia Marshavska, described hearing a drone buzzing above her apartment before it exploded. The force of the blast threw her across the room, shattering the windows, she told AFP news agency.

Smoke began billowing everywhere, she said, adding: "It was horrible."

Russia has intensified its air attacks against Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, sending large waves of missiles, drones and decoys designed to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

It is a tactic that Ukrainian forces are struggling to defend against.

Many thousands of Kyiv residents were forced into the shelters in the early hours of Monday morning as drones flew overhead and explosions shook the city.

Ukraine's emergencies service shared footage showing shocked residents being led away from a destroyed high-rise building that was still burning.

The entrance to one of Kyiv's metro stations - where people regularly take shelter - was damaged, and classrooms and dormitories at one of the city's universities were also hit.

Separately, one person reportedly died after a drone struck a hospital in the city of Bila Tserkva just outside the capital.

On Monday, an attack on the southern Odesa region killed two people and wounded a dozen more, local authorities said.

Zelensky said a school in the area was hit and almost completely destroyed.

"None of these Russian strikes are accidental - the Russian army knows exactly where it is targeting," he posted on X.

Speaking to reporters this week in the capital, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed to step up Ukrainian strikes on Russia.

"We will not just sit in defence because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories," he said.

It comes as the capital is still reeling from overnight Russian attacks on Tuesday which left at least 28 people dead and more than 100 injured.

The attack was among the biggest on the capital since the start of Russia's full-scale war which began in February 2022.

Diplomatic efforts to end the three-year war have stalled. The last direct talks between the two sides finished almost three weeks ago with agreement only on limited exchanges of prisoners and the bodies of the dead.

No new talks have been scheduled.

Zelensky had been due to meet Donald Trump on the side lines of the G7 conference last week, but the meeting was cancelled after Trump left the conference early amid the escalating crisis in the Middle East.

The Ukrainian leader is due to attend a dinner during a Nato summit in the Netherlands that begins on Tuesday.

** Ukrainian drone triggers fire in apartment building west of Moscow, official says

A Ukrainian drone struck a multi-storey apartment building outside Moscow early on Tuesday, triggering a fire and injuring two people, TASS news agency quoted a local official as saying.

Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, said the drone started a fire on the 17th floor of the building in the town of Krasnogorsk, west of the capital. The injured people were receiving treatment at a hospital.

Vorobyov said two other drones were shot down west of Moscow.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said earlier that Russian air defences had intercepted two Ukrainian drones heading for the city overnight.

Sobyanin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said specialists were examining the debris of at least one drone downed after midnight.

The mayor said a third drone targeting the capital had been repelled earlier in the evening.

Russia's defence ministry reported that air defence units had destroyed nine drones in a 90-minute period before midnight, including nine over the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk.

Ukraine has launched drone attacks on a wide range of targets in recent months, some a long distance from the Ukrainian border.

In one attack this month, dubbed "Operation Spider's Web," Ukrainian drones targeted long-range military aircraft at a number of Russian bases.

In recent months, Russia has stepped up mass drone attacks against Ukrainian cities. Waves of Russian drones and missiles swarming in and around Kyiv killed 10 people overnight on Sunday.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia strikes more Ukrainian military training sites – MOD

Russian forces have conducted strikes on two sites used by Kiev to train newly mobilized troops, the Defense Ministry said. The announcement follows the resignation of a senior Ukrainian military commander, who criticized what he described as a lack of accountability for such incidents.

Ukraine’s armed forces rely on compulsory conscription to bolster their ranks, typically sending draftees to remote training facilities for basic instruction before deploying them to the front.

According to the Russian military, Iskander missile strikes recently targeted two such facilities.

One strike, near the Ukrainian city of Sumy, reportedly resulted in up to 100 casualties and destroyed as many as 14 military vehicles, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The second strike, reported on Sunday, hit an area under Kiev’s control in Russia’s Kherson Region, the ministry said. This operation involved an Iskander missile equipped with a cluster warhead that allegedly killed around 70 Ukrainian troops while destroying more than 10 vehicles.

Ukraine’s military confirmed the attack on a training site but reported a significantly lower toll – three soldiers killed and 14 wounded.

In early June, Ukrainian General Mikhail Drapaty resigned as commander of the Land Forces following a similar deadly incident. In a social media post, he condemned what he called a culture of impunity within the military leadership regarding troop losses.

According to Ukraine’s Suspilne news outlet, a Russian strike killed at least 12 Ukrainian soldiers and injured 60 others on June 1. Authorities in Kiev did not disclose the exact location, but the report, citing anonymous sources, indicated it may have occurred in the Dnepropetrovsk Region.

Around the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had struck the Novomoskovsky training ground in that region.

Days later, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky appointed Drapaty to oversee all frontline operations as part of a broader reshuffle in military leadership, assigning a different official to supervise conscript training.

In a report on Saturday, the Financial Times said that the newly appointed commander of Ukraine’s Ground Forces, Brigadier General Gennady Shapovalov, has been tasked with reforming the “unpopular” forced mobilization and training system.

Ukraine declared general mobilization in 2022, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. In 2024, Kiev tightened conscription laws and lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 in response to mounting battlefield losses. The mobilization campaign has sparked numerous violent confrontations between draft officers and unwilling conscripts, while many have attempted to flee the country despite serious personal risks.

BBC/Reuters/RT

• Torsten Sløk, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, laid out a potential scenario where President Donald Trump’s tariffs are extended long enough to ease economic uncertainty while also providing a significant bump to federal revenue. That comes as the 90-day pause on Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” is nearing an end.

Businesses and consumers remain in limbo over what will happen next with President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but a top economist sees a way to leave them in place and still deliver a “victory for the world.”

In a note on Saturday titled “Has Trump Outsmarted Everyone on Tariffs?”, Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Sløk laid out a scenario that keeps tariffs well below Trump’s most aggressive rates long enough to ease uncertainty and avoid the economic harm that comes with it.

“Maybe the strategy is to maintain 30% tariffs on China and 10% tariffs on all other countries and then give all countries 12 months to lower non-tariff barriers and open up their economies to trade,” he speculated.

That comes as the 90-day pause on Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which triggered a massive selloff on global markets in April, is nearing an end early next month.

The temporary reprieve was meant to give the U.S. and its trade partners time to negotiate deals. But aside from an agreement with the U.K. and another short-term deal with China to step back from prohibitively high tariffs, few others have been announced.

Meanwhile, negotiations are ongoing with other top trading partners. Trump administration officials have been saying for weeks that the U.S. is close to reaching deals.

On Saturday, Sløk said extending the deadline one year would give other countries and U.S. businesses more time to adjust to a “new world with permanently higher tariffs.” An extension would also immediately reduce uncertainty, giving a boost to business planning, employment, and financial markets.

“This would seem like a victory for the world and yet would produce $400 billion of annual revenue for US taxpayers,” he added. “Trade partners will be happy with only 10% tariffs and US tax revenue will go up. Maybe the administration has outsmarted all of us.”

Sløk’s speculation is notable as he previously sounded the alarm on Trump’s tariffs. In April, he warned tariffs have the potential to trigger a recession by this summer.

Also in April, before the U.S. and China reached a deal to temporarily halt triple-digit tariffs, he said the trade war between the two countries would pummel American small businesses.

More certainty on tariffs would give the Federal Reserve a clearer view on inflation as well. For now, most policymakers are in wait-and-see mode, as tariffs are expected to have stagflationary effects. But a split has emerged.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said Friday that economic data could justify lower interest rates as early as next month, expecting only a one-off impact from tariffs. But San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly also said Friday a rate cut in the fall looks more appropriate, rather than a cut in July.

Still, Sløk isn’t alone in wondering whether Trump’s tariffs may not be as harmful to the economy and financial markets as feared.

Chris Harvey, Wells Fargo Securities’ head of equity strategy, expects tariffs to settle in the 10%-12% range, low enough to have a minimal impact, and sees the S&P 500 soaring to 7,007, making him Wall Street’s biggest bull.

He added that it’s still necessary to make progress on trade and reach deals with big economies like India, Japan and the EU. That way, markets can focus on next year, rather near-term tariff impacts.

“Then you can start to extrapolate out,” he told CNBC last month. “Then the market starts looking through things. They start looking through any sort of economic slowdown or weakness, and then we start looking to ’26 not at ’25.”

Fortune

A fierce war of words has erupted over Nigeria’s political past, as former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido accused President Bola Tinubu of supporting the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election. The Presidency swiftly hit back, describing Lamido’s claims as “revisionist falsehoods” aimed at distorting Tinubu’s well-documented pro-democracy record.

Lamido: Tinubu Was With Babangida, Not Abiola

In an interview on Arise Television, Lamido alleged that Tinubu, then a senator on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), backed the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida in annulling what is widely regarded as Nigeria’s freest and fairest election — presumed to have been won by SDP candidate MKO Abiola.

Lamido, who served as the SDP’s national secretary at the time, dismissed Tinubu’s claims to the June 12 struggle as “dramatised rhetoric.” He said the President only became prominent after General Sani Abacha’s coup later that year.

“I was there. We were all there,” Lamido said. “Tinubu was a major supporter of Babangida. His own mother, Abibatu Mogaji, led market women to Abuja to back Babangida. He ran away when the heat came, while some of us stayed and fought.”

Lamido questioned the credibility of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), arguing that many of its members, including Tinubu, were absent during the critical days of the June 12 annulment. He claimed NADECO only emerged during Abacha’s reign, long after the damage had been done.

“I am ready to support any credible political coalition that will remove Tinubu in 2027,” he added.

Presidency Responds: Lamido Rewriting History, Not Tinubu

The Presidency, in a detailed rebuttal signed by Special Adviser Bayo Onanuga, condemned Lamido’s comments as “distorted” and “deeply ironic,” accusing the former SDP scribe of being among those who actually failed Abiola and democracy.

Onanuga stated that Tinubu, far from supporting Babangida, was one of the earliest voices in the National Assembly to publicly condemn the annulment. Quoting Tinubu’s purported Senate speech from August 1993, the Presidency highlighted his unequivocal criticism of the annulment as “another coup d’état.”

“He condemned the injustice when Lamido and his fellow SDP leaders shamefully capitulated,” Onanuga said. “It is documented that Tinubu urged Nigerians to reject the military’s abuse of power and stood firm even before Abacha’s coup.”

The statement dismissed as false the claim that Tinubu’s mother mobilised women to support the annulment. “Had she done that, she would have lost her position as the market leader in Lagos,” it argued.

Exile, Resistance, and the Role of NADECO

The Presidency traced Tinubu’s journey through the pro-democracy struggle, noting his role in forming NADECO after Abacha’s takeover in November 1993. It stated that Tinubu was arrested, detained at Alagbon, and later forced into exile, during which time he continued to fund protests and support the resistance from abroad.

“His home in Victoria Island was bombed. He lived in exile for nearly five years, while Lamido and others were cutting deals with the Abacha junta,” the statement said.

It credited Tinubu with financing various pro-democracy groups, including NALICON, led by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, and sustaining the momentum of NADECO at great personal risk.

Who’s Rewriting History?

The Presidency dismissed Lamido’s attacks as driven by “envy” and “political desperation,” labeling him a member of the “Coalition of the Disgruntled.” It noted that Lamido’s revisionism conveniently overlooks Tinubu’s documented activism and the silence or compromise of many others during the crisis.

“If anyone rewrote history, it was Lamido himself, who, as SDP secretary, helped betray Abiola’s mandate. Tinubu, on the other hand, put his life and resources on the line,” Onanuga said.

Conclusion

At the heart of the controversy lies not just a dispute over historical facts, but a deeper political battle over legitimacy, legacy, and the moral high ground in Nigeria’s long and painful march to Western democracy. While Lamido casts Tinubu as a latecomer who fled the scene, the Presidency insists the current president was, in fact, a foundational pillar of resistance.

With both sides trading claims and counterclaims, Nigerians are left to sift through the fog of memory and political self-interest to judge for themselves who stood for democracy — and who stood aside.

Oil prices jumped on Monday to their highest since January as the United States' weekend move to join Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities stoked supply worries.

Brent crude futures was up $1.92 or 2.49% at $78.93 a barrel as of 0117 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude advanced $1.89 or 2.56% to $75.73.

Both contracts jumped by more than 3% earlier in the session to $81.40 and $78.40, respectively, touching five-month highs before giving up some gains.

The rise in prices came after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had "obliterated" Iran's main nuclear sites in strikes over the weekend, joining an Israeli assault in an escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.

Iran is OPEC's third-largest crude producer.

Market participants expect further price gains amid mounting fears that an Iranian retaliation may include a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global crude supply flows.

Iran's Press TV reported that the Iranian parliament had approved a measure to close the strait. Iran has in the past threatened to close the strait but has never followed through on the move.

"The risks of damage to oil infrastructure ... have multiplied," said Sparta Commodities senior analyst June Goh.

Although there are alternative pipeline routes out of the region, there will still be crude volume that cannot be fully exported out if the Strait of Hormuz becomes inaccessible. Shippers will increasingly stay out of the region, she added.

Goldman Sachs said in a Sunday report that Brent could briefly peak at $110 per barrel if oil flows through the critical waterway were halved for a month, and remain down by 10% for the following 11 months.

The bank still assumed no significant disruption to oil and natural gas supply, adding global incentives to try to prevent a sustained and very large disruption.

Brent has risen 13% since the conflict began on June 13, while WTI has gained around 10%.

The current geopolitical risk premium is unlikely to last without tangible supply disruption, analysts said.

Meanwhile, the unwinding of some long positions accumulated following a recent price rally could cap an upside to oil prices, Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, wrote in a market commentary on Sunday.

Reuters

US bombing of Iran started with a fake-out

As Operation "Midnight Hammer" got underway on Saturday, a group of B-2 bombers took off from their base in Missouri and were noticed heading out toward the Pacific island of Guam, in what experts saw as possible pre-positioning for any U.S. decision to strike Iran.

But they were a decoy. The real group of seven bat-winged, B-2 stealth bombers flew east undetected for 18 hours, keeping communications to a minimum, refueling in mid-air, the U.S. military revealed on Sunday.

As the bombers neared Iranian airspace, a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. U.S. fighter jets flew as decoys in front of the bombers to sweep for any Iranian fighter jets and missiles.

The attack on Iran's three main nuclear sites was the largest operational strike ever by B-2 stealth bombers, and the second-longest B-2 operation ever flown, surpassed only by those following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda.

The B-2 bombers dropped 14 bunker-busting GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing 30,000 pounds. The operation involved over 125 U.S. military aircraft, according to the Pentagon.

From the U.S. military's perspective, the operation was a resounding tactical success. The Iranians were unable to get off a single round at the American aircraft and were caught completely flat-footed, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday.

"Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface to air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission," Caine said. "We retained the element of surprise."

Caine said initial battle damage assessments indicated that all three sites targeted sustained extremely severe damage and destruction, but he declined to speculate whether any Iranian nuclear capabilities might still be intact.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was more confident.

"It was clear we devastated the Iranian nuclear program," he said, standing alongside Caine in the Pentagon briefing room.

Midnight Hammer was highly classified, Caine said, "with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of the plan." Many senior officials in the United States only learned of it on Saturday night from President Donald Trump's first post on social media.

Hegseth said it took months of preparations to ensure the U.S. military would be ready if Trump ordered the strikes. Caine said the mission itself, however, came together in just a matter of weeks.

What happens next is unclear.

Gulf states, home to multiple U.S. military bases, were on high alert on Sunday as they weighed the risks of a widening conflict in the region.

Guarding against blowback, the U.S. military also dispersed U.S. military assets in the Middle East and heightened force protection for U.S. troops.

Hegseth said the U.S. military was positioned to defend itself in the Middle East, but also to respond against Iran if it goes through with longstanding threats to retaliate.

The Trump administration said it is not looking for a wider war with Iran, with Hegseth saying private messages had been sent to Tehran encouraging them to negotiate.

But Trump has also warned Iran that the U.S. is prepared to hit additional targets if needed, using far greater force.

"Iran would be smart to heed those words. He said it before, and he means it," Hegseth said.

** Satellite images indicate severe damage to Fordow, but doubts remain

Commercial satellite imagery indicates the U.S. attack on Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant severely damaged - and possibly destroyed - the deeply-buried site and the uranium-enriching centrifuges it housed, but there was no confirmation, experts said on Sunday.

“They just punched through with these MOPs,” said David Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, referring to the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bombs that the U.S. said it dropped. “I would expect that the facility is probably toast.”

But confirmation of the below-ground destruction could not be determined, noted Decker Eveleth, an associate researcher with the CNA Corporation who specializes in satellite imagery. The hall containing hundreds of centrifuges is "too deeply buried for us to evaluate the level of damage based on satellite imagery," he said.

To defend against attacks such as the one conducted by U.S. forces early on Sunday, Iran buried much of its nuclear program in fortified sites deep underground, including into the side of a mountain at Fordow.

Satellite images show six holes where the bunker-busting bombs appear to have penetrated the mountain, and then ground that looks disturbed and covered in dust.

The United States and Israel have said they intend to halt Tehran's nuclear program. But a failure to completely destroy its facilities and equipment could mean Iran could more easily restart the weapons program that U.S. intelligence and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say it shuttered in 2003.

'UNUSUAL ACTIVITY'

Several experts also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of Fordow before the strike early Sunday morning and could be hiding it and other nuclear components in locations unknown to Israel, the U.S. and U.N. nuclear inspectors.

They noted satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showing "unusual activity" at Fordow on Thursday and Friday, with a long line of vehicles waiting outside an entrance of the facility. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the near weapons-grade 60% highly enriched uranium had been moved to an undisclosed location before the U.S. attack.

"I don't think you can with great confidence do anything but set back their nuclear program by maybe a few years," said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. "There's almost certainly facilities that we don't know about."

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat and member of the Senate intelligence committee who said he had been reviewing intelligence every day, expressed the same concern.

"My big fear right now is that they take this entire program underground, not physically underground, but under the radar," he told NBC News. "Where we tried to stop it, there is a possibility that this could accelerate it."

Iran long has insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

But in response to Israel's attacks, Iran's parliament is threatening to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of the international system that went into force in 1970 to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, ending cooperation with the IAEA.

"The world is going to be in the dark about what Iran may be doing," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association advocacy group.

'DOUBLE TAP'

Reuters spoke to four experts who reviewed Maxar Technologies satellite imagery of Fordow showing six neatly spaced holes in two groups in the mountain ridge beneath which the hall containing the centrifuges is believed to be located.

General Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 GBU-57/B MOPs, 30,000-pound precision-guided bombs designed to drive up to 200 feet into hardened underground facilities like Fordow, according to a 2012 congressional report.

Caine said initial assessments indicated that the sites suffered extremely severe damage, but declined to speculate about whether any nuclear facilities remained intact.

Eveleth said the Maxar imagery of Fordow and Caine's comments indicated that the B-2s dropped an initial load of six MOPs on Fordow, followed by a "double tap" of six more in the exact same spots.

Operation Midnight Hammer also targeted Tehran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, he said, and struck in Isfahan, the location of the country's largest nuclear research center. There are other nuclear-related sites near the city.

Israel had already struck Natanz and the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center in its 10-day war with Iran.

Albright said in a post on X that Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery showed that U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles severely damaged a uranium facility at Isfahan and an impact hole above the underground enrichment halls at Natanz reportedly caused by a Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker-busting bomb that "likely destroyed the facility."

Albright questioned the U.S. use of cruise missiles in Isfahan, saying that those weapons could not penetrate a tunnel complex near the main nuclear research center believed to be even deeper than Fordow. The IAEA said the tunnel entrances "were impacted."

He noted that Iran recently informed the IAEA that it planned to install a new uranium enrichment plant in Isfahan.

"There may be 2,000 to 3,000 more centrifuges that were slated to go into this new enrichment plant," he said. "Where are they?"

Reuters

Israeli forces recover bodies of three hostages from Gaza

Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of three hostages which had been held in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant group Hamas' 2023 attack, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

The hostages were identified as civilians Ofra Keidar and Yonatan Samerano, and soldier Shay Levinson. All were killed on the day of the attack, on October 7, 2023, the military said.

With their retrieval, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

The abduction of Samerano, 21 at the time of his death, by a man later identified by Israeli officials as a worker at the U.N.'s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, was caught on CCTV.

Around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

The subsequent Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 55,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run strip, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into humanitarian crisis and left much of the territory in ruins.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine fighting 10,000 Russian troops in Kursk region, Ukrainian commander says

Around 10,000 Russian soldiers are fighting in Russia's Kursk region, about 90 square kilometers (35 square miles) of which is controlled by Ukraine, Ukraine's top military commander said.

"We control about 90 square kilometers of territory in the Hlushkov district of the Kursk region of the Russian Federation, and these are our preemptive actions in response to a possible enemy attack," Oleksandr Syrskyi said without elaborating, in remarks released by his office for publication on Sunday.

The Ukrainian military said the activity in this area prevented Russia from sending a significant number of its forces to Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, where some of the heaviest fighting has taken place in the more than three-year-old full-scale invasion.

Syrskyi's troops are repelling Russian forces along the frontline, which stretches for about 1,200 km, where the situation remains difficult, the Ukrainian military said.

Russian gains have accelerated in May and June, though the Ukrainian military says it comes at a cost of high Russian casualties in small assault-group attacks.

While the military says its troops repelled Russian approaches toward Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region borders last week, the pressure continues in the country's eastern and northern regions.

The Russian military also continues its deadlydrone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian cities further from the front, prompting Ukraine to innovate its approaches to air defence.

Ukraine's military said it currently destroys around 82% of Shahed-type drones launched by Russia but requires more surface-to-air missile systems to defend critical infrastructure and cities.

The military said the air force was also working on developing the use of light aircraft and drone interceptors in repelling Russian assaults which can involve hundreds of drones.

Ukraine also relies on its long-range capabilities to deal damage to economic and military targets on Russian territory, increasing the cost of war to Moscow.

Between January and May, Ukraine dealt over $1.3 billion in direct losses in the Russian oil refining and fuel production industry, energy and transport supplies as well as strategic communications, the Ukrainian military said.

It also dealt at least $9.5 billion more of indirect damages through the destabilization of the oil refining industry, disruption of logistics and forced shutdown of enterprises, it added.

It was not clear whether the Ukrainian military included the damages from its operation "Spider's Web" which damaged Russian warplanes -- and Ukraine said cost billions in losses -- in the estimates.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky makes new threats against Russia

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has suggested that Kiev’s forces will conduct more long-range strikes targeting facilities deep inside Russian territory.

Ukraine has significantly escalated drone attacks deep into Russia in recent weeks, despite ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the actions as an attempt to derail the peace process.

In a post on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Zelensky wrote that he had held a meeting with the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, claiming that Kiev was keeping tabs on Russia’s “main pain points.” He pledged to “strike appropriate blows” with a view to “significantly reducing” Moscow’s military potential.

Zelensky also stated that Kiev was sharing its intelligence on Russia with its Western backers, with which it is “preparing joint defense solutions.”

Speaking to reporters also on Sunday, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Aleksandr Syrsky, similarly said that Kiev “will increase the scale and depth” of its strikes on Russian military facilities deep inside the country.

On June 1, Ukrainian intelligence conducted a coordinated attack on several Russian airbases across five regions, from Murmansk in the Arctic, to Irkutsk in Siberia.

Ukrainian media later reported that the operation codenamed ‘Spiderweb’ involved dozens of first-person view (PFV) kamikaze drones. At least some of them were reportedly launched in close proximity to the targets, from commercial trucks that had been covertly brought into Russia.

The strikes were said to have been prepared for more than a year and a half and focused on Russia’s “strategic aviation.”

The Defense Ministry in Moscow said that a number of aircraft in Murmansk and Irkutsk regions had caught fire as a result of the attack.

Kiev claimed that the strikes had damaged or destroyed approximately 40 Russian military aircraft, including Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov later dismissed these estimates as incorrect.

”The equipment in question… was not destroyed, but damaged. It will be restored,” the diplomat told TASS in early June.

Around the same time, Keith Kellogg, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, cautioned that “when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their nuclear triad… that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side’s going to do.”

Reuters/RT

The legal career of Joseph Chu’ma Otteh, whose mortal remains were committed to earth on 20 June, could easily have been different. He graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife in 1988, very much one of the best students in the set. In 1989, Joe enrolled as a lawyer in Nigeria. He had every opportunity to deploy his prodigious talents and considerable skills in the pursuit of personal fortune and no one could have begrudged him. Instead, he chose the path of legacy and impact through the pursuit of an unpredictable career in the defence of the excluded and marginalised.

As a lawyer, Joe worried about two intractable and inter-related problems: delay in justice delivery and judicial performance. His intellect and temperament were well suited to high judicial service. For someone who did not seek nor pursue a judicial career, however, his preoccupations were startling because ultimate control over the solutions to these issues lay in the hands of the judges, or so it was thought.

Early in his legal career, Joe chose to do something about these issues and he travelled around the world to prepare himself for that purpose, learning about models fit for adaptation in Nigeria. In pursuit of answers, he undertook two programmes of graduate studies in law, one at the University of Lagos in Nigeria and another at the New York University (NYU) in the United States of America. In between both programmes, in 1994, he also researched the same issue as a Research Fellow at the Danish Centre for Human Rights in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Three years earlier, in 1991, just fresh from completing his National Youth Service scheme, Joe had joined the staff of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO). There, he began his career as a lawyer to the under-privileged and under-represented in Nigeria whose encounters with justice were defined by the twin blights of exclusion and delay. For these people, entry into the court system was sometimes attainable but exit from it was almost always intractable. 

For context, this problem probably predated Frederick Lugard’s Amalgamation of 1914. In a memorandum to Frederick Lugard dated 11 February 1914, Edward Speed, the first Chief Justice of post-Amalgamation Nigeria, lamented that “the greatest enemy to the efficient administration of Criminal Law is delay.” It was to the redress of this century-old problem that Joe dedicated his professional life.

Joe realised he could not do this alone. So, in 1999, he founded Access to Justice as an organisation dedicated entirely to figuring out how to contribute to alleviating the twin problems of judicial (lack of) performance and delay in the legal process in Nigeria. The few lawyers who had adverted to this before him seemed to believe that the way to redress delay in litigation was to litigate more cases. They would file cases on behalf of specific victims of delay believing somehow that they could jump the queue of institutional dysfunction by inflicting more dysfunction on it.

Joe’s genius lay in his capacity for patient diagnosis. He saw this as a problem of judicial administration and court management. The answer, he believed, lay in working with the judges to re-design case management and judicial throughput. To address this, Joe invested patiently in cultivating the attentions of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) at the time, Mohammed Lawal Uwais, who died earlier this month. He was successful in persuading the Chief Justice Uwais to grant consent for a pilot project in monitoring the performance of judges.

Over a period of one year, monitors would record the way the judges ran their courts, documenting such minutiae as when they began sitting; how long they did; the number of motions, trials, cases that they did and the number of rulings, judgments and orders that they produced. The report was to be submitted to the CJN with whose authorization, under the initial proposal, it was to be issued after he must have reviewed it. The information captured from the pilot was so troubling, the Chief Justice was reluctant to make it public.

Joe was disappointed but not deterred. He repurposed the report into persuading the Chief Justice to endow the National Judicial Council (NJC) with a capacity to monitor judicial performance, an advocacy in which he achieved limited success.

But his ultimate revenge lay elsewhere. As CJN in December 1979, Atanda Fatayi Williams had enacted the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) (FREP) Rules to govern litigation for the enforcement of the fundamental rights guaranteed in Chapter IV of Nigeria’s Constitution. As a cottage industry in claims for fundamental rights grew in the quarter century thereafter, the desire to simplify access to remedies through the FREP Rules became subverted. Delay became chronic and some judges fixated on using the rules to achieve judgment without delivering justice.

Joe believed the only way to change this was to reform and re-enact the FREP Rules and he spent a decade persuading a succession of CJNs that this needed to be done. In this mission, he was relentless. In 2009, Joe finally persuaded Chief Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi to enact the revised FREP Rules. It is a revolutionary piece of work that advertises the full range of Joe’s acuity.

The 2009 FREP Rules could easily be called the “Otteh Rules” because Joe drafted them. Through those Rules and in them, Joseph Otteh wrote his own epitaph long before his earthly tour of duty ended on 28 March 2025.

The 2009 FREP Rules clearly set about fixing the major issues that Joe had diagnosed as the major afflictions that made redress of human rights violations in Nigeria difficult. Three things stood out. First, it addressed clearly the issue of standing to sue or locus standi in human rights cases. Second, it makes it an obligation for courts to “in a manner calculated to advance Nigerian democracy, good governance, human rights and culture, pursue the speedy and efficient enforcement and realisation of human rights.” Third, the 2009 FREP Rules require judges to also “proactively pursue enhanced access to justice for all classes of litigants, especially the poor, the illiterate, the uninformed, the vulnerable, the incarcerated, and the unrepresented.”

This was the constituency to whom Joe devoted his professional life. His convictions and deep thoughtfulness, intellect, integrity, industry, empathy and honour were formed early. Joe was the son of teachers who found virtue in advancing dignity, service, and faith with enlightenment. His Dad, an economics teacher from Okporo in then Orlu Division of Imo State, built life in Agbor in the old Mid-West.

Born 18 October 1965, primary school commenced for Joe at the end of the civil war at the Agbor Model School. His high school began in the famous Edo College in Benin-City in 1977, ending in 1982 at the Ika Grammar School in Agbor, where his Dad served also as the Vice-Principal.

As Africans, the investment in rituals of naming have rich symbolism. When Joe was born, his parents summed up their hopes and beliefs in the name that they gave to the first of their seven children, “Chu’ma” (God knows). It was a confession of total submission to the Almighty. It is also the one consolation that we are left with at his passing.

Most lawyers retail their skills, and are content to do their cases. Joe did his law wholesale. He took charge of upstream lawyering and chose to deploy his skills in building institutions, transforming how they are run, and taking hope to the poor and excluded. Untimely as his passing is, Joseph Chu’ma Otteh has left us with the most durable and consequential impact any professional could hope for in the FREP Rules 2009. He is survived by his mum, Adanma; his wife, Ogechi; their children – Chidimso, Samantha, and Ikechi; and siblings.

** Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a professor of law, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..