The US may have known about Israel's impending attack on Iran much earlier than it claims, according to experts and sources, the Financial Times reports.

The paper says Trump played a ploy to make Iran think his administration was preparing for new talks, in an effort to lure Tehran into a false sense of security, softening it up for Israel’s recent deadly attack. The ploy appears to have worked. One Arab diplomat and one senior Western diplomat told the paper they believed the reduction in U.S. personnel was a ploy to gain leverage in the talks.

Their assumption, shared for months by Iranian politicians, businessmen, and foreign diplomats, was that as long as the nuclear talks Trump had so often hailed continued, the United States would hold off its ally Israel from any attack. Many of them believed the talks would not conclude until July or August. There was even speculation in Washington that Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu had soured, and that the United States was losing patience with the Israeli prime minister.

Now, with Israel’s attack reigniting tensions in the war-torn Middle East, the United States has found itself embroiled in another regional conflict — one that Trump has vowed to keep his country out of. On Friday, as Iran responded with a barrage of missiles at Israel, American officials told the newspaper that the United States was helping its longtime ally shoot down the missiles.

Washington “knew this was coming and helped maintain this fiction that there would be a meeting on Sunday” between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, says Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East negotiator now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “So to that extent, they were cooperating with the Israelis in this ploy, and it clearly worked.”

Even when Israel attacked Iran, the US was not ready to admit it publicly. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that it was a “unilateral” action taken by Israel and that the US “was not involved.” But his statement did not include the typical US emphasis on “ironclad” support for its ally. And within hours, both Netanyahu and Trump acknowledged that the US was aware of the plans.

Miller suggested that Israel’s decapitation strategy — lethal attacks on Iran’s top military brass — was one reason for maintaining the elaborate ruse. “No Israeli prime minister would do that if they got a resounding ‘no’ from Trump.”

The source said Israel's final preparations for the strikes began on Monday and that the Trump administration had been briefed on the plan and had raised no objections. "The U.S. was aware all along," he said.

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Iran had intended to present proposals to the US that could lead to a nuclear deal at talks in Oman , but they were cancelled, the country's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

Other statements from the Iranian Foreign Ministry:

🟥 Iran has received messages from the United States through various channels that Washington has not and will not participate in attacks on Israel. However, Tehran does not believe these assurances;

🟥 We expect the United States to show good faith and publicly condemn Israel's strikes on our peaceful nuclear facilities;

🟥 Iran will stop attacking Israel if it stops its aggression against the republic;

🟥 Iran is ready to conclude an agreement guaranteeing that it will not have nuclear weapons;

🟥 Transferring the conflict to the Persian Gulf region is a major strategic mistake that is being made deliberately;

🟥 Targeting the South Pars field is a strategic mistake and means taking the war beyond Iran. These actions could affect the entire region and the world;

🟥 By launching missile strikes against military and economic targets in the occupied Palestinian territory, we are pursuing the sole goal of self-defense and countering aggression;


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Russia has handed over to Ukraine a batch of 1,200 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers. All within the framework of the agreements concluded in Istanbul. In total, the Russian side handed over 4,812 bodies, the Ukrainian side - 27.

The previous batch of bodies of the Ukrainian army soldiers was handed over on June 11. Most of the dead soldiers were from Kursk, as well as Donetsk, Kharkov and Zaporizhia regions.

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Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Bakaei commented on the statement by the head of the German Foreign Ministry, in which he condemned Tehran's response to Israel's attack and called it an attack.

"It was Germany that started two world wars. Iran sheltered Jews fleeing Hitler — ask the Polish and French refugees who received Iranian passports. Those who always find themselves on the wrong side of history would do well to remain silent now."

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In the first hours of the Israeli strike on Iran , a significant portion of the missiles hit dummies - false launchers, air defense positions and command posts.

The IRGC and Iranian military prepare these exact replicas of real objects in advance to kill them by confusion

The Iranians brought the decoys to the front lines, and Israeli intelligence mistook them for real targets. It was these decoys that the IDF apparently displayed as “destroyed infrastructure.”

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❗️ Netanyahu said that regime change in Iran is possible as a result of Israeli strikes on the country's leadership.

Other statements by the Israeli Prime Minister:

🟥 Our intelligence has established that Iran was planning to transfer nuclear weapons to the Houthis;

🟥 We have already eliminated the head of IRGC intelligence and his deputy in Tehran;

🟥 The Iranian regime is now extremely weakened;

🟥 I think Iran was completely surprised by our attack, and surprise is a big element of success;

🟥 We destroyed the reactor in Isfahan, and without it it is impossible to develop nuclear weapons.

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Trump has vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate Iran's top leader in recent days, two U.S. officials told Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu commented on the news of Trump's veto stating: "We will do whatever is necessary."

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Israeli media reports that Iran is preparing another massive missile attack on the country, seeking to repeat the events of last night. The Israeli Air Force is currently "actively working to identify the launchers and destroy as many missiles as possible before they are launched."

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🖥️ An interesting "advertisement" is currently being forced to watch on YouTube in some Western countries. "Why is the Iranian regime investing billions in missiles that can reach Europe?" the advertiser asks Europeans to ask.

Instead of neutral advertising for cereal or furniture, the European now receives pro-Israeli propaganda aimed at instilling fear of Iran and forming the opinion that Iran wants to bomb him, a far-away European.

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❗️ Hungary and Slovakia have vetoed the European Commission's plan to wean itself off oil and gas from Russia, but the fight will be long, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.

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Israel Strikes Iranian State Television Headquarters Live on Air, Killing Journalists

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