JUST IN: Iran Suspends Negotiations with US Over Israeli Strikes in Lebanon

Trump announces major breakthrough in Iran war negotiations: 'All shooting will stop'

President Donald Trump announced Monday that a key obstacle standing in the way of his administration’s negotiations with Tehran to end the U.S. war against Iran had apparently been addressed, potentially clearing the path to an end to the conflict.“I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, [Lebanon], and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. “Likewise, through highly placed Representatives, I had a very good call with Hezbollah, and they agreed that all shooting will stop – That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.”Trump’s inability to pressure Israel to halt its bombardment and invasion of Lebanon – which he explicitly demanded in April – has been a key factor in the negotiation stalemate between Washington and Tehran. Iranian officials have demanded that any agreement to end the conflict include Israel halting its bombardment of Lebanon, which since early March has killed more than 3,100 Lebanese and injured nearly 10,000.Whether Israel abides by Trump’s latest request to cease hostilities remains to be seen, with the Middle East nation having flagrantly disregarded the president’s demands in the past.

Iran Axes Peace Talks With U.S. as Trump Spirals

Iran on Monday suspended all peace talks with the U.S., just hours after President Trump claimed Iran “really wants to make a deal.”Tehran placed the blame on Israel, which it said violated the trifold ceasefire agreement when Israeli troops captured Beaufort Castle, a twelfth-century Crusader fortress in southern Lebanon, over the weekend.Israel previously used the castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, as a military base during its occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000. The offensive marked Israel’s deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than 26 years. On Monday, Israel issued an evacuation order to residents in southern Beirut.Iranian state media reported that “there will be no dialogue” regarding U.S.-Israel-Iran peace efforts until the “aggressive and brutal operations of the Zionist regime’s army in Gaza and Lebanon” is quelled.Tehran said it would completely close the Strait of Hormuz, as well as another narrow trade route nestled between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula—the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—as a consequence.Trump optimistically insisted on Truth Social late Sunday that Iran was eager to negotiate, and blamed his negotiating woes on Democrats and dissident Republicans. It is unclear what comes next: Trump casually revealed on Saturday that the U.S. would “finish it off militarily” if he did not reach a good deal with Tehran.The president repeated that he’s in “no hurry” to negotiate, and that—despite the war’s monumental impact on global gas prices—he believes if he’s in a hurry he’s “not going to make a good deal.”“And slowly but surely, we’re getting, I think, what we want. And if we don’t get what we want, we’re going to end it a different way,” Trump told his daughter-in-law on Fox News’s My View With Lara Trump.In the same interview, Trump referred to Venezuela as a “one-day win” and said that the situation with Iran is “a win already,” as the U.S. has “essentially defeated their military.”But it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what a “win” in the Middle East looks like when the aims of the war were never clear to begin with. While the Iranian regime has suffered major losses over the span of the conflict—including dozens of senior leaders—it has also become more extreme as a result.Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, argued in The Guardian late last month that Trump would—at this late stage—be “lucky” to strike a deal similar to former President Barack Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump ended during his first term.The U.S. has so far been at war with Iran for more than 13 weeks and spent an estimated $98 billion in the process. The regional conflict has damaged strategic alliances, stalled global trade, and thrust the world into an energy crisis due to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. It has also killed thousands of people.This story has been updated.

Iran to Halt Message Exchanges With US Over Israel, Tasnim Says

Iran said it would halt talks with the US in protest over Israel’s expanded ground assault in Lebanon, escalating tensions as Washington and Tehran seek to reach an interim peace agreement. Ed Price, Senior Non-Resident Fellow at New York University, discusses the latest out of the Middle East and how the conflict is playing out in sectors across the globe. (Source: Bloomberg)

US says it struck Iranian radar sites as Iran targets American forces in Kuwait

Iran and the US say they have carried out fresh strikes around the Strait of Hormuz, with Kuwait condemning "repeated" Iranian attacks.

Satellite images reveal Iran has hit US military bases far worse than Trump has admitted

Iran has struck at least 20 American military facilities across the Middle East since the start of the war, according to a new satellite imagery and video analysis — significantly more than the United States has publicly acknowledged.The attacks have targeted key bases across eight countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman, causing damage that analysts say runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the analysis by BBC Verify – and some experts put the number of bases hit as high as 28.Among the most significant losses are three Terminal High Altitude Area Defense — or THAAD — batteries, among the most sophisticated anti-missile systems in the American arsenal. The U.S. is known to operate only eight such batteries worldwide, each costing approximately $1 billion to manufacture, and a former senior Irish defense official told BBC Verify the batteries form the core of a "highly complex" regional defense network that cannot be "quickly or easily replaced."At Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, satellite images show damaged refueling and surveillance aircraft, smoking craters and what analysts identified as a destroyed E-3 Sentry surveillance plane that could cost up to $700 million to replace and the report showed least 42 aircraft in total — including F-15s, F-35s, 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones and an A-10 attack plane — have been destroyed or damaged since February.Analysts say Iran's tactics evolved significantly as the conflict progressed, shifting from mass missile barrages designed to overwhelm defenses to smaller, precisely targeted strikes on high-value assets. Experts told BBC Verify that American forces "appear to have been guilty of a degree of early-war complacency" in failing to relocate aircraft as Iranian tactics sharpened.The Pentagon has not disputed the BBC's findings, with a defense official declining to comment citing "operational security." The U.S. also requested that Planet, a major satellite imagery provider, impose an indefinite restriction on new images of Iran and much of the Middle East.With the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire again under strain, analysts warn that depleted air defense stocks leave American bases across the Gulf increasingly vulnerable should fighting resume.

Democrats vow to challenge Trump’s $1.8bn ‘Maga slush fund’ in US Senate

Chuck Schumer shares plans to force vote on ‘anti-weaponization’ fund and accuses Trump of ‘corruption’Democrats in the US Senate vowed to force Republicans to vote on a $1.8bn “MAGA slush fund” established as part of a resolution of Donald Trump’s long-shot lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service.The US president has described the secretive and loosely controlled “anti-weaponization fund” as a means of paying the victims of politicized prosecutions. Members of his own party are among those who have expressed alarm. Continue reading...

Bowen: Trump needs this war to end but Iran is not backing down

Under pressure from the polls and Gulf allies, the White House is pushing for a deal but Iran wants concessions.

Iran's Regime Fires on U.S. Troops, Then Accuses Israel and U.S. of Ceasefire Violations