US moves B-2 stealth bombers capable of carrying ‘bunker-busting’ bombs as Israel hits nuclear reactor and Iran’s supreme leader names successor: LIVE UPDATES

Six of the US’s B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri appear to be en route to a US air force base in Guam, flight tracker data suggests.

The movement of the jets is sigificant as Israel continues its bombing campaign against Iran targeting nuclear and military targets.

The US is the only nation thought to have the ‘bunker-busting’ bombs that would be needed to damage Iran’s deepest nuclear facility, the Fordo plant.

The bombers refueled after launching from Missouri, suggesting they launched without full fuel tanks due to a heavy onboard payload, which could be bomb

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his country’s right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme cannot be taken away by war.

‘Iran has always announced that it is ready to provide guarantees and build confidence in its peaceful nuclear activities within the framework of international law,’ Pezeshkian told Emmanuel Macron in a phone call.

‘The rights granted to countries and nations by international law cannot be taken away from them by threats or war.’

Israel said on Saturday that an Iranian plot to attack Israeli citizens in Cyprus had been foiled.

Posting on X, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the planned attack by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was thwarted ‘thanks to the activity of the Cypriot security authorities’.

No further information was given.

Cyprus police said they have arrested a man on espionage and terror charges on Saturday, with local media reporting the suspect has ties to Iran.

Police declined to provide extensive details, citing ‘national security’, but local media said the suspect was seen acting suspiciously near a British air force base at Akrotiri, outside the southern coastal city of Limassol.

Cypriot news outlet Philenews reported the man had links to ‘Iranian operatives’ and had arrived on the Mediterranean island last month posing as a British tourist.

It said the arrest in Limassol on Saturday was based on information from a foreign intelligence service.

The Israeli military has shared further details on its strikes on southwestern Iran today.

It said it had struck ‘dozens of military targets’ using 30 jets and over 50 munitions.

A IDF spokesperson said: ‘As part of the strikes, IAF fighter jets struck a site where missile launchers were stored, some of which had launched missiles in the past toward the State of Israel.’

Assisted departure flights from Israel for US citizens have begun on Saturday, the State Department has said.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee encouraged US citizens and lawful permanent residents in Israel and the West Bank, who want government assistance to depart, to complete a form on the department’s website.

Violence has erupted on the streets of London as police arrested a suspect for throwing a bottle at pro-Israeli counter-protesters as thousands marched through the capital in support of Palestinians.

Activists calling for urgent aid to be sent to Gaza and for Israel to stop bombing Iran yelled ‘shame on you’ at the pro-Israeli counter-demo.

Demonstrators were heading to Whitehall from Russell Square in central London and waved Palestinian flags and chanted ‘free, free Palestine,’ ‘occupation no more, ‘Israel is a terrorist state,’ and ‘stop bombing Iran’.

Campaigners gathered in large numbers under the banner of the Palestine Coalition.

But things took an ugly turn as they passed a group of counter-protesters assembled near Waterloo Bridge by the pro-Israeli group Stop the Hate.

The head of security to the late Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike while in Iran, a Hezbollah official said Saturday.

Abu Ali Khalil, better known as Abu Ali Jawad, was killed after he went to Iran from neighboring Iraq, the official said.

For many years, Abu Ali was seen behind Nasrallah during most of his public appearances.

After Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstike in a Beirut suburb in September, his bodyguard was put in charge of his tomb in Beirut.

The Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the airstrike that killed Abu Ali occurred earlier Saturday.

Yemen’s Houthis have said that they will target US ships in the Red Sea if it gets involved in Israeli attacks on Iran.

The group, which has repeatedly targeted British and American ships during the conflict in Gaza, has now threatened once again to hit US boats.

The Houthis are widely considered to be funded by Iran.

In May, the US and the Houthis agreed to a ceasefire under which neither side would target the other.

Deadly stealth bombers, which only the US has in their arsenal, are on their way to a US Air Force base in Guam amid growing tensions with Iran, according to reports.

Six B-2 stealth bombers, docked at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, appeared to be on the move on Saturday morning, according to Fox News.

The bombers are said to have been refueled, which means they could have launched without full tanks due to the extraordinarily heavy bunker-buster bombs.

The B-2 is capable of carrying a 30,000-pound bomb, which experts have concluded could be the only way to destroy Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site, Fordo.

The bomb, known as the GBU-57 or the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, is something only the US military possesses.

An Australian reporter has shared the terrifying moment she had to run for cover from a missile strike in Israel while reporting on escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Channel 7’s Europe Correspondent Jacquelin Robson told Sunrise she was reporting with her camera crew on Friday when she received an urgent alert to seek shelter.

The group rushed towards what they believed to be a safe haven only to discover it was nonexistent.

‘Some locals called us over to a bunker, but we soon discovered that bunker didn’t exist,’ Robson said on Saturday.

‘When the final siren sounded, we had no choice but to run and find shelter.

‘We managed to squeeze between a few buildings.’

A senior Iranian official said on Saturday that proposals put forward by European powers at talks in Geneva about his country’s nuclear programme were ‘unrealistic’, suggesting that if they stuck to them it would be difficult to reach an accord.

There were few signs of progress on Friday after the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany, known as the E3, plus the EU met their Iranian counterpart in a bid to prevent the conflict between Israel and Iran from escalating.

‘The discussions and proposals made by the Europeans in Geneva were unrealistic. Insisting on these positions will not bring Iran and Europe closer to an agreement,’ the senior official told Reuters, while speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘In any case, Iran will review the European proposals in Tehran and present its responses in the next meeting,’ the official said.

Both sides signalled on Friday their readiness to keep talking, although no new date was set.

European diplomats said Friday’s talks had been aimed at testing Tehran’s willingness to negotiate a new nuclear deal despite there being no obvious prospect of Israel halting its attacks soon.

While neither side disclosed details of what was put forward, two European diplomats said the E3 did not believe that Israel would accept a ceasefire in the near term and that it would be difficult for Iran and the US to resume negotiations.

The UN nuclear agency confirmed on Saturday that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site had been hit, in the latest strike amid Israel’s bombing campaign.

It said there was ‘no nuclear material’ at the site hit by Israel, meaning there are no concerns about radiological consequences.

‘A centrifuge manufacturing workshop has been hit in Esfahan, the third such facility that has been targeted in Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear-related sites over the past week,’ the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement quoting its chief Rafael Grossi.

‘We know this facility well. There was no nuclear material at this site and therefore the attack on it will have no radiological consequences,’ Grossi was quoted as saying.

Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters have marched through Central London today yellow ‘shame on you’ and ‘stop bombing Iran’ at pro-Israeli counter-demo.

Demonstrators were heading to Whitehall from Russell Square in central London and waved Palestinian flags and chanted ‘free, free Palestine,’ ‘occupation no more, ‘Israel is a terrorist state,’ and ‘stop bombing Iran’.

Campaigners gathered in large numbers under the banner of the Palestine Coalition.

Many shouted ‘shame on you’ as they passed a group of counter-protesters assembled near Waterloo Bridge by the pro-Israeli group Stop the Hate.

The march, which began around midday in Russell Square, is moving through Aldwych and the Strand before concluding with a rally and speeches in Whitehall.

Six B-2 bomber planes are reported to have left the US from a base in Missouri.

They are understood to be on their way to Andersen Air Force base in Guam, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The B-2 stealth bomber is capable of carrying a 30,000-pound bomb, which experts have concluded could be the only way to destroy Iran’s most heavily fortified nuclear site: Fordo.

The bomb, known as the GBU-57 or the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, is something only the US military possesses.

The Fordo fuel enrichment plant is buried deep within a mountain system in Iran, but experts don’t know exactly how deep, which complicated a potential US mission to neutralize it.

Experts who spoke to The New York Times believe the facility at its shallowest is 250 feet deep, but could be as much as 30 feet deeper.

Nonetheless, GBU-57 is the only way to assuredly wipe out the facility, short of using a nuclear device.

Early Saturday, smoke could be seen rising from an area near a mountain in Isfahan, where a local official said Israel had attacked the nuclear research facility in two waves.

The target was two centrifuge production sites, and the attacks came on top of strikes on other centrifuge production sites elsewhere in recent days, according to an Israeli military official speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines to brief reporters.

It was the second attack on Isfahan, which was hit in the first 24 hours of the war as part of Israel’s goal to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.

Akbar Salehi, Isfahan province’s deputy governor for security affairs, confirmed the Israeli strikes had caused damage to the facility but said there had been no human casualties.

Iran launched a new wave of drones and missiles at Israel but there were no immediate reports of significant damage, and the Israeli official called it a ‘small barrage’ that was largely intercepted by Israel’s defenses.

An alleged member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who claimed he was a British tourist has been arrested on terror charges as he is accused of spying on a British RAF base in Cyprus.

The individual, from Azerbaijan, was arrested by the country’s Anti-Terrorism Squad after receiving intelligence he was planning an imminent terrorist attack from a cooperating foreign service, sources claim.

The man is accused of having the British RAF military base in nearby Akrotiri under surveillance since mid-April, as well as Cyprus’s own Andreas Papandreou Air Base in the western region of Paphos, which is currently also being used by the US. Sources say he was planning an immediate terrorist attack.

Two further arrests linked to the case are said to have been made in the UK in an operation that involves intelligence services, Europol and Interpol.

84 Squadron is based at the British RAF base in Akrotiri, with extra British Typhoon planes being sent to the island in recent weeks as tensions ratchet up across the Middle East.

Donald Trump this week told defence officials it would only make sense for the US 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 US 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.

He previously said he would give Iran a maximum of two weeks to get back to the negotiating table before possibly joining Israel in strikes.

Israel said on Saturday it had killed a veteran Iranian commander as the countries traded attacks, a day after Tehran said it would not negotiate over its nuclear programme while under threat and Europe tried to keep peace talks alive.

Saeed Izadi, who led the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ overseas arm, was killed in a strike in an apartment in the Iranian city of Qom, said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.

Calling his killing a ‘major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force’, Katz said in a statement that Izadi had financed and armed the Palestinian militant group Hamas ahead of its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.

The Revolutionary Guards said five of its members had been killed in attacks on Khorramabad, according to Iranian media reports that did not mention Izadi, who was on US and British sanctions lists. The IDF claims to have killed three Iranian commanders overnight.

Israel accused Izadi of being responsible for ‘military coordination between senior commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime, and key figures in the Hamas terror organization.’

The IDF added this was particularly the case before October 7, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed in a suprise attack by terror group Hamas.

Izadi was said to have helped finance and arm the group as part of a plan to ‘destroy Isreal’.

Izadi, who is under US and British sanctions, was described by the Israeli military as ‘one of the main orchestrators of the October 7th massacre and one of the few people who knew about it in advance’. Iran denies any involvement.

Several ‘powerful explosions’ were heard Saturday afternoon in southwestern Iran’s Ahvaz, the daily Shargh reported, on the ninth day of hostilities between the Islamic republic and Israel.

Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan province, which is situated on the Iraqi border and is Iran’s main oil-producing region. The Israeli military had previously announced it was striking ‘military infrastructure’ in the southwest.

It comes as Iran reported that more than 400 people have been killed in the country since June 13, with more than 50 of those being women and children.

Another 3,056 people have been injured, according to state media.

Meanwhile in Israel at least 24 people have been killed in retaliatory strikes.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made the remarkable decision to name his potential successors in the event that he is assassinated.

Khamenei, who is hiding out in a bunker, picked an array of leaders to take over both his military and political duties if he is killed in Israeli airstrikes, the New York Times reports.

Tensions in the Mideast region have fired up in recent days – with both Iran and Israel launches barrages of strikes on one another as Donald Trump toys with the decision for US military intervention.

Israel has launched the largest military assault on Iran since the war in Iraq, intensifying the already fragile relationship between the two regions.

Officials told the New York Times that Khamenei is instructing the nation’s Assembly of Experts, the body of government overseeing the supreme leader, to choose his successor from the three names he provided.

Good afternoon and welcome to MailOnline’s live blog on the conflict in the Middle East.

We’ll be keeping you updated on all the latest news throughout the day.