Revealed: How Trump ‘backed out of nuking Iran because only a tactical nuclear weapon would destroy Fordow bunker’ – as Kremlin issues nuclear war warning

Thousands of people joined a protest against Israel in the Iranian capital on Friday after weekly prayers, chanting slogans in support of their leaders, images on state television showed.

‘This is the Friday of the Iranian nation’s solidarity and resistance across the country,’ the news anchor said.

Footage showed protesters holding up photographs of commanders killed since the start of the war with Israel, while others waved the flags of Iran and the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah.

Support for the Iranian regime itself remains divisive. A major poll of 158,000 people in Iran in 2023 found more than 80 per cent of people reject the Islamic Republic and prefer a democratic government.

Iranian worshippers wave Iranian flags as one holds up a poster of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a protest against Israeli attacks, in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, June 20, 2025

Australia has shuttered its Tehran embassy and ordered officials to leave Iran, the government said Friday, citing a ‘deteriorating security situation’.

It joins a string of countries closing diplomatic missions in Iran since Israel launched air strikes a week ago, claiming its arch enemy was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon.

Australia has directed all its officials and their dependents to leave Iran, and suspended its Tehran embassy operations, Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a news conference in Adelaide.

‘This is not a decision taken lightly. It is a decision based on the deteriorating security environment in Iran,’ she said.

The government advised all Australians to leave Iran if they can do safely.

Wong said there were about 2,000 Australians and family members registered in Iran who wanted to depart, and another 1,200 in Israel.

Other nations that have suspended Tehran embassy operations include Bulgaria, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland.

Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Commission said on Friday that any military attacks on civilian nuclear facilities violate international law, following Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear sites amid an air war between the two countries.

Israeli action in Iran is said to be significantly advancing an agreement for the establishment of relations between long-time rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, an Arab source told i24NEWS on Tuesday.

The rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the biggest economies in the region, have already spoken with Iran’s president to express solidarity, and have repeatedly condemned Israel’s attacks.

Saudi Arabia and Iran formally restored ties in March 2023 thanks to Chinese-Iraqi brokered talks, but relations have been strained since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

Iran has allegedly arrested a ‘Mossad Agent’ alleged to have been sending information on Iranian air defence installations back to handlers in Israel via WhatsApp.

The claims were aired by Iran’s state broadcaster on Friday.

Israel began pounding Iran last Friday, in a conflict that has the world holding its breath amid fears it could rapidly escalate and drag Britain and the US in.

The IDF’s blistering aerial assault – codenamed ‘Operation Rising Lion’ – has targeted dozens of key nuclear sites, military bases and surface-to-air missile launchers. Oil and gas infrastructure have also been hit, as well as Iran’s state news broadcaster, which was struck while live on air.

Among the eliminated are nuclear scientists and senior Iranian commanders, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – an elite wing of Tehran’s military.

As the conflict enters its eighth day, see our graphics below of every strike in Iran and Israel plus more here:

The war between Israel and Iran could see migration to Europe surge, Turkey’s President has warned.

‘The spiral of violence triggered by Israel’s attacks could harm the region and Europe in terms of migration and the possibility of nuclear leakage,’ President Recep Erdoğan’s office quoted him as saying in a phone conversation with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that Iran will give a ‘more forceful’ response if Israeli strikes continue.

‘We have always pursued peace and stability,’ Pezeshkian said in a statement.

‘Under the current circumstances, lasting peace will only be possible if the Zionist enemy ceases its hostilities and provides firm guarantees to end its terrorist provocations.’

But ‘failure to do so would result in a far more forceful and regrettable response from Iran’, he said.

Israel this morning said that it would intensify strikes on the capital, aiming to destabilise it with attacks on regime symbols.

The head of Iran’s health ministry said that another hospital in Tehran was targeted by Israeli bombs today.

‘In seven days of cowardly aggression, there were more than six cases of violation of international conventions by [Israel],’ the ministry’s head of PR said in a statement.

Iran has said that it will not negotiate until Israeli strikes stop. But dissidents opposing the regime within Iran have also said it remains too unsafe to go out into the streets in protest while Israeli jets are striking targets overhead.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that he had instructed the military to intensify attacks on ‘symbols of the regime’ in the Iranian capital Tehran, aiming to destabilise it.

‘We must strike at all the symbols of the regime and the mechanisms of oppression of the population, such as the Basij (militia), and the regime’s power base, such as the Revolutionary Guard,’ Katz said in a statement.

Tehran has been hit more than 100 times in the last 24 hours, according to data from the ISW and AEI’s critical threats project.

Iran has said that it will not negotiate with any party while sustaining fire from Israel.

Imagery from Iran purports to show a drone strike in the capital on Friday

Danish shipping giant Maersk has announced Friday that it is temporarily suspending vessel calls in Israel’s Haifa port due to the country’s conflict with Iran.

Maersk said in a statement that it made the decision ‘after carefully analysing threat risk reports regarding the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran – particularly the potential risks of calling Israeli ports and their implications for the safety of our crews’.

French President Emmanuel Macron said it is ‘essential to prioritise a return to negotiations’ on Iran as Donald Trump dwells on potential U.S. involvement in the conflict.

Macron said that European powers will try to offer a ‘diplomatic solution’ to the conflict on Friday as foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany met with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva.

Macron, who was arriving at the Paris airshow on Friday, added that there was ‘no justification’ for strikes against either energy infrastructure or civilian populations.

European leaders have urged de-escalation in Iran’s war with Israel, while Trump has said he would decide ‘within the next two weeks’ whether to involve the United States in the fighting.

Israeli media is reporting an Iranian nuclear scientist was today assassinated following a strike on Tehran.

Reports from Israeli Army Radio, which is operated by the IDF, said the scientist was killed along with two assistants during the night.

Israel military said it struck dozens of targets in Tehran overnight, including what it called a centre for the ‘research and development of Iran’s nuclear weapons project’.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy said ‘a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution’ over the Iran crisis as European foreign ministers met for nuclear talks with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva.

European officials are set to hold nuclear talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today, as President Donald Trump mulls the prospect of US involvement in the Iran-Israel war.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit, Lammy agreed with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments that Iran ‘can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon’.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said the United States was both aware and supportive of the meeting taking place in Geneva.

France’s foreign ministry spokesperson Christophe Lemoine said the diplomatic route would be the only way to ensure Iran respects its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran’s Araghchi, however, rejected any prospect of talks with the United States so long as Israel continues its attacks.

Tripods are set up outside the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations in Geneva ahead of a meeting for the Iran-EU nuclear meeting

Donald Trump has received extensive briefings on Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow – including the risks and benefits of launching a U.S. attack.

According to insiders, Trump has told his defence officials it would only make sense to join Israel in striking Iran if American ‘bunker buster’ bombs are guaranteed to be able to destroy Fordow.

In order to do that, officials have been told the U.S. would have to soften the ground with conventional bombs before dropping a tactical nuclear weapon from a B2 Bomber to destroy the site 90-metres underground.

It has since been reported Trump has ruled out the use of a nuclear weapon in Iran.

Here is the facility at the centre of the conflict:

Some 8,190 people have been evacuated from their homes in Israel as the conflict with Iran enters its eighth day, Israeli media is reporting.

The Property Tax Compensation Fund said that since the crisis erupted, thousands have been displaced and some 30,000 claims for compensation filed for damage to buildings, vehicles or contents and equipment, Ynet News reports.

Iran’s foreign minister will address the UN Human Rights Council on Friday on the sidelines of talks with European counterparts aiming for a diplomatic solution to the Iran-Israel war.

Abbas Araghchi ‘will intervene in person… at the beginning of the council’s afternoon meeting’ at 1300 GMT, after which the council will resume its normal programme, Pascal Sim, spokesman for the UN’s top rights body, told a press briefing.

UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci added that Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, would be outside the council chamber at 1230 GMT to deliver a ‘press statement on Iran’.

Araghchi is meeting his French, German, British and EU counterparts in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel no longer participates in the Human Rights Council, boycotting its meetings over ‘anti-Semitism’.

Diplomats are meeting in Geneva today to begin talks around the Iran crisis and Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Initial talks are not expected to yield major progress towards peace. But they could carve out a space for dialogue between Iran and the U.S., mediated by Britain and Europe.

Russia, too, has been eyeing a mediating role in the growing crisis.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, is said to have already spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines.

A French diplomatic source told The Guardian that Rubio emphasised that the U.S. is ‘ready for direct contact with the Iranians at any moment’.

Johann Wadephul, the German foreign minister, said ahead of meeting with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, that if today goes well, it could pave the way for more talks.

‘This requires Iran’s serious willingness to renounce any enrichment of nuclear material, which could lead to nuclear weaponisation,’ he said, according to Reuters news agency.

Donald Trump told defence officials it would only make sense for the U.S. to join Israel in striking Iran if its ‘bunker buster’ bombs are guaranteed to be able to destroy the key enrichment site at Fordow, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Officials were said to have been told that the U.S. would have to soften the ground with conventional bombs before dropping a tactical nuclear weapon from a B2 Bomber to completely destroy the site, believed to be some 90 metres underground.

But Trump is said to have ruled out nuking Iran, insiders told the Guardian. The possibility was said not to have been raised by defence secretary Pete Hegseth or chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Dan Caine during recent meetings in the Situation Room.

Fox News reported subsequently that the White House had refuted the entire Guardian report, indicating that the use of a tactical nuclear weapon had not yet been ruled out.

Trump said late on Thursday that he will now decide in the next two weeks whether to join in military action against Iran, before British and European diplomats were to meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday.

Russia warned today that any use of tactical nuclear weapons in Iran would be ‘catastrophic’ amid fears it could spark wider conflict across the Middle East.

These pictures show Israeli bomb experts at the scene of the latest Iranian ballistic missile attack in southern Israel today.

For the second day in a row Beersheba has come under attack as the missile struck a road near several apartment blocks.

The strike has created a large crater and caused several cars to catch alight. The Times of Israel is reporting seven people suffered minor injuries with some substantial damage to homes.

Donald Trump is said to be increasingly relying on a small group of advisors for input on Iran as he debates whether or not to join Israel’s military action.

Two defence officials and a senior administration official told NBC News that the U.S. President has closed his inner circle in a report published on Friday.

Another senior administrational official said that while Trump routinely crowdsources for ideas, he is listening to only a handful of officials for decision-making.

These include his Vice President, chief of staff, deputy chief of staff and Secretary of State, the official said.

Trump was also said to have sidelined National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who opposes strikes in Iran.

And he has not been leaning on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, officials said.

The possibility of kinetic action against Iran remains deeply divisive within the administration and without.

United States President Donald J Trump on June 18

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has claimed Tehran has refused talks with Washington because it is a ‘partner’ in Israeli ‘crimes’.

Speaking on state television, Araghchi said Iran is not planning any contact with the US for the time being.

His remarks come just hours after the White House indicated Donald Trump will decide whether or not the US gets directly involved in the conflict within the next two weeks.

Araghchi said that while negotiations with the US are not on the horizon, Iran had no issue engaging with other countries as officials meet European leaders in Geneva later today.

The minister said those talks were limited to nuclear and regional issues and that Iran will not negotiate regarding its missile capabilities.

The Iranian Khondab heavy water research reactor was damaged in Israeli strikes on Thursday, but no ‘radiological consequence’ is expected, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog assessed that because the facility was still under construction and not operational, it contained no nuclear material.

Rafael Grossi assured that, as a result, no radiological consequence was expected.

Reactors like the facility near the city of Arak can be used for scientific purposes, but will create plutonium as a byproduct. This could be used for nuclear weapons.

Iran’s fragmented opposition groups think their moment may be close at hand, but activists involved in previous bouts of protest say they are unwilling to unleash mass unrest, even against a system they hate, with their nation under attack.

Exiled opponents of the Islamic Republic, themselves deeply divided, are urging street protests. In the borderlands, Kurdish and Baluchi separatist groups look poised to rise up, with Israeli strikes pummelling Iran’s security apparatus.

While the Islamic Republic looks weaker than at nearly any point since soon after the 1979 revolution, any direct challenge to its 46-year rule would likely require some form of popular uprising.

Triggering regime change is certainly one war goal for Israel, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Iranians to say ‘we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom’.

But while Israeli strikes have targeted a security hierarchy that crushed previous bouts of protest, they have also caused great fear and disruption for ordinary people – and anger at both Iranian authorities and Israel, the activists said.

Smoke rises following an Israeli attack on the IRIB building, the country’s state broadcaster, in Tehran, Iran, June 16, 2025.

The Iranian Red Crescent ambulance targeted in the Israeli attack on June 16 in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, in which two healthcare workers lost their lives, is being displayed in Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran, Iran on June 19, 2025

‘How are people supposed to pour into the streets? In such horrifying circumstances, people are solely focused on saving themselves, their families, their compatriots, and even their pets,’ said Atena Daemi, a prominent activist who spent six years in prison before leaving Iran.

One activist, who was jailed for five months after the 2022 protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, said she believed in regime change in Iran but that it was not time to take to the streets.

She and her friends were not planning to stage or join rallies, she said, and dismissed calls from abroad for protests. ‘Israel and those so-called opposition leaders abroad only think about their own benefit,’ she said.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy is to join with top European diplomats and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.

Foreign ministers from France, Germany, Britain and the EU are urging de-escalation, with David Lammy saying the next two weeks are ‘a window… to achieve a diplomatic solution’.

Lammy yesterday met with American Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House.

Al Jazeera, reporting from Washington, reports: ‘We’re told that Lammy came away with a genuine feeling that Trump does want to see a deal [with Iran]’.

After days of escalatory comments suggesting the U.S. could join Israel in its hitherto unilateral strikes against Iran, Donald Trump decided overnight to open a two-week negotiating window before deciding on striking Iran.

‘Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,’ a readout from Trump said, shared late Thursday.

Leaders will today convene in Geneva to see if there is a way back to the negotiating table, after talks in Oman were called off.

‘I’ve received several phone calls reassuring me that the Zionist regime [Israel] would not target’ Araghchi en route to Geneva, his adviser Mohammad Reza Ranjbaran said on X.

Separately, the UN Security Council is also due to convene on Friday for a second session on the conflict, at Iran’s request with support from Russia, China and Pakistan, a diplomat told AFP on Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, London on Wednesday, June 18

‘I am 200 per cent sure Lebanon will not enter the war,’ senior politician and parliament speaker Nabih Berri told local MTV News last night.

‘It has no interest in doing so and would pay a heavy price. Iran does not need us. It is Israel that needs support.’

Israel has been cautioning Iranian proxy group Hezbollah not to involve itself as Israel and Iran continue to exchange blows.

Late last year, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to terms that would see Hezbollah retract and more Lebanese army troops brought in to patrol the border with the U.N.

Israel has nonetheless continued strikes into Lebanon, hitting southern Beirut on the eve of Eid Al Adha earlier this month.

The military claimed it had identified a Hezbollah unit producing ‘thousands’ of drones underground, funded by ‘Iranian terrorists’.

Ali Shamkhani, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is alive and in a stable condition, according to Iranian media, after being reported dead earlier this week.

Shamkhani was said to have been seriously wounded in an Israeli attack a week ago. Iranian state TV network IRINN reported that he succumbed to injuries and died.

But now the semi-official Tasnim news agency, based in Iran, has quoted him as having said ‘I am alive and ready to sacrifice myself’ in a message to the Ayatollah and the Iranian nation.

Shamkhani, a close aide to the Ayatollah Khamenei, was reported to have died earlier this week. Now, Iranian media says he is alive and ‘ready to sacrifice myself’.

Iranian missiles struck near a military branch in Israel’s Beersheba (Be’er Sheva) on Friday, Al Jazeera is reporting.

Strikes were said to have damaged a Microsoft office in the Gav-Tam Negev advanced technologies park.

The park borders Ben Gurion University and the C4i branch campus of the Israeli army, its telecoms branch, the Qatari outlet says, noting the strikes would have come down before typical business hours.

Seven people are reported to have been injured in the attack.

Emergency personnel work next to burnt cars and damaged residential buildings at an impact site following Iran’s missile strike on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel, June 20

Israeli soldiers work next to a damaged residential building at an impact site following Iran’s missile strike on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel, June 20

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz warned Lebanon’s Hezbollah to exercise caution on Friday, saying Israel’s patience with ‘terrorists’ who threaten it had worn thin.

The head of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said on Thursday that the Lebanese group would act as it saw fit in the face of what he called ‘brutal Israeli-American aggression’ against Iran.

Hezbollah’s military leadership was vanquished late last year after Israel launched a ground invasion of Lebanon to oust the Iranian-proxy group, citing failure to uphold the terms of a long-established ceasefire agreement.

An even heavier blow to Hezbollah was the fall in December of Syria’s Bashar Assad when Sunni rebels marched on the capital and removed him from power. Now, a government hostile to Iran and Hezbollah rules from Damascus.

Supporters of Iraq’s Hezbollah Brigades attend a gathering to condemn Israel’s attack on Iran in the city of Nasiriyah, in Iraq’s southern Dhi Qar province on June 19, 2025

Israel’s military said on Friday that it had struck dozens of targets in Tehran overnight, including what it called a centre for the ‘research and development of Iran’s nuclear weapons project’.

In a statement, the army said it had ‘completed a series of strikes in the heart of Tehran’ as the crisis entered its eighth day.

‘Dozens of targets were struck, including military missile production sites and the SPND (Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research) headquarters for research and development of Iran’s nuclear weapons project,’ it claimed.

According to the Israeli military the SPND headquarters ‘is used for research and development of advanced technologies and weapons supporting the Iranian regime’s military capabilities.’

The army said that during the night on Thursday more than 60 fighter jets struck dozens of military targets.

‘Among the targets were sites producing missile components and facilities manufacturing raw materials used in casting missile engines,’ it added.

The military also said it intercepted overnight four UAVs launched from Iran.

American use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East would lead to catastrophic consequences, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Russian TASS news agency.

‘There have been a lot of speculations,’ Peskov caveated, responding to media reports that Washington had not yet ruled out the use nuclear weapons to attack the entrenched underground Fordow enrichment site in Iran.

‘This would be a catastrophic development,’ he said. ‘But there are so many speculations that in fact, it’s impossible to comment on them.’

Fordow remains the most heavily defended known enrichment site in Iran, buried some 80 to 90 metres underground.

Israel is believed to lack the capability to destroy the site with its current arsenal, though insiders have suggested multiple raids could weaken the site.

The American B-2 Spirit bombers, capable of carrying GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), could deal heavy damage – though would require U.S. intervention.

Russia has presented itself as a possible mediating force between U.S.-backed Israel and Iran in recent days, though U.S. President Donald Trump has publicly been reluctant to accept the offer.

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage of the Iran-Israel conflict as it enters its eighth day.

Russia has today warned America any use of tactical nuclear weapons in Iran would be ‘catastrophic’ as it wades into the situation in the Middle East.

Russian news service Tass is reporting the Kremlin has issued a fresh plea for Trump to avoid using bunker busting bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities

It comes as Donald Trump will decide within the next two weeks on whether the U.S. will conduct a strike on Iran.

Stick with us for the latest updates throughout the day plus the most eye-catching pictures and videos