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Iran war live updates: Regime issues threat against protesters; drone reportedly hits major US diplomatic facility in Iraq

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre says it has received a report of an incident 25 nautical miles northwest of the United Arab Emirates, in the strait of Hormuz. According to the UKMTO, a container ship has sustained damage from an unknown projectile. Crew members are said to be safe, but the extent of the damage of the vessel is currently unknown. Maritime records show that only two vessels not linked to Iran or Russia have attempted to make the run through the strait of Hormuz since Donald Trump said he would “ensure the free flow of energy to the world.” The Hormuz sea passage, one of the world’s most strategically important choke points, would normally have about 100 vessels a day either exiting or entering the Gulf. In response to the US and Israeli attacks, Iran has effectively shut the strait, attacking at least 10 ships which were seeking to traverse it in the early days of the crisis.

‘If I go home, we don’t have enough money’: the low-paid Filipino workers caught up in the war on Iran

Sirens warning of Iranian missiles blare out so frequently that Joycee Pelayo, a Filipino living near to Tel Aviv, doesn’t leave the house any more. Each time an alert sounds, she rushes to help the older man she cares for, supporting him into a wheelchair, then down the steps into a nearby shelter. “Last night, there were three alerts. We received it at about 2am, in the middle of the night, and then 3am, and then 4am,” says Pelayo. She is among 2.4 million Filipinos living across the Middle East, who moved in pursuit of higher wages and a chance to give a better life to families back home, but now find themselves living with a daily barrage of drone and missile strikes. The war that has erupted between the US, Israel and Iran, engulfing the region, has already proved deadly to Filipinos workers abroad. On 28 February, 32-year-old Mary Ann De Vera, a Filipino working as a carer, became the first casualty of the conflict in Israel. She was killed in Tel Aviv after being hit by shrapnel while escorting her employer, an older woman, to a shelter. Her employer survived. Migrant workers have repeatedly found themselves in the frontlines of recent conflict in Israel. Thai nationals, who help power Israel’s agricultural industry, accounted for the highest number foreign victims of the Hamas attacks in October 2023. At least 47 Thais were killed, while 28 Thai hostages were eventually released. Four Filipinos were also killed in the Hamas attack. The Middle East is one of the main destinations for Filipinos who work abroad, and the salaries offered in the region – in jobs ranging from domestic work and healthcare, to construction and engineering – can be many times higher those available back home. In the Philippines, those who go abroad to work are praised by politicians as modern day heroes, because of the tens of billions of dollars they remit home every year. But such work comes at a high personal cost. They endure long periods away from children and partners, and can be vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment, especially in countries with a kafala (sponsorship) system, where workers are heavily dependent on their employers. Over recent years, pressures have increased pressures further, with workers facing instability through the pandemic, and, for the 31,000 Filipinos based in Israel, repeated bouts of conflict. Some are now weighing up whether to try to return home – questioning if the crisis could intensify further, and how relatives who rely upon their salaries would manage if they did return. However airspace closures and restrictions mean those who want to go home have very limited options. Robert Laurince Ramil, moved to Qatar seven months ago to work in the mechanical department of a gas plant. Of the six men in his dorm room, four of them, including Ramil, want to leave. “We can find work anywhere, but your safety and life are more important,” he says. Staff are staying in their dormitories 24/7, and leaving only to eat at an on-site canteen, he says. He spends his time following news updates and speaking to family members, including his wife and two sons, back home. The daily blasts are so loud the floor shakes. Work for now has been cancelled, though the workers are still being paid. Others though say they feel safe. Salhee Enriquez, 48, a carer in Tel Aviv, says life has continued as normal. “Every establishment has their own bomb shelter,” she says, adding that after years of conflict, people have become used to the situation. She cares for a woman with dementia, but was told by the woman’s daughter to prioritise her own safety in the event of a siren. “She said, you have a family, they are waiting for you, you are young, so go and save your life first.” Enriquez’s family in the Philippines calls her constantly, waking her in the night to check she is OK, and asking her to return. She is a single parent who moved abroad to support her daughter. “If I go home, we don’t have enough money to provide for us,” she says. Besides, she tells relatives, the airport is closed. Campaigners in the Philippines have frequently called on the government to create better job opportunities at home, so that people aren’t forced to go overseas. Pelayo’s daughter was only two years old when she moved away, but in Israel she earns 10 times more than the pay she received in her past job. High air fares and fears about leaving her employer in the lurch, meant six years passed before she was able to fly home for a holiday to see her daughter again. “Of course I want to go home and be with my family,” adds Pelayo. “But there is no job that will [match] my salary here. It’s a big difference.” “My daughter now is asking me – because they heard about what’s happening, they saw the news in the Philippines – she’s asking me mama why you don’t go home,” says Pelayo. “[I asked her] pray for me.”

Five killed in strikes on Lebanon, health ministry reports – as it happened

This blog is closing now. Our live coverage is continuing here. Here is a summary of the day so far: Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan has warned Iranians on state TV that anyone who takes to the streets “at the enemy’s request” will be “confronted as an enemy, not a protester”. Radan said security forces are stationed in the streets “day and night”. Lebanese health authorities said Israel’s raids on the southern town of Qana, in the Tyre district, on Wednesday have killed five people and wounded five others. The Israeli military said it had begun an “additional wave” of strikes on targets in Tehran. It followed the IDF saying earlier that it had struck key command centres of the Iranian armed forces in Tehran and Tabriz. It comes as Iran’s UN ambassador accused the US and Israel of deliberately targeting civilians – saying that almost 10,000 civilian sites have been hit in the country, including about 8,000 residential homes, and the death toll has reached more than 1,300 people. Amir Saeid Iravani said “populated residential areas” and “critical civilian infrastructure” had been hit in attacks he described as “horrific crimes”. Donald Trump said the US has hit and “completely destroyed” 10 inactive mine-laying vessels, warning that more would follow. US Central Command added that it “eliminated” 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the strait of Hormuz. The updates came shortly after the US president initially said there had been “no reports” of Iran placing mines in the strait, but warned that if it had, they must be moved “IMMEDIATELY” or Iran would face military consequences “at a level never seen before”. US officials earlier told CBS News that Iran may be preparing to deploy naval mines in the strait to further disrupt the crucial shipping lane. According to CNN, a few dozen mines have been laid in recent days. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the US Navy has not escorted an oil tanker through the strait of Hormuz, after the US energy secretary Chris Wright said it had happened in a swiftly deleted X post. Leavitt also said that the US military is “drawing up additional options” to keep strait open. Leavitt also said that the US and Israel’s war won’t end until Iran’s “complete and unconditional surrender” and when Trump decides his objectives have been met and determines that Iran does not pose a direct threat. She told reporters that the US military is “making tremendous strides towards achieving our military objectives”, and is now moving to “dismantle Iran’s missile production infrastructure”. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”. Here’s our story. The United States reportedly asked Israel to halt strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure, marking the first time the US has reined in its ally since they went to war 11 days ago. It comes after an Israeli bombing of fuel storage facilities blanketed Tehran - a city home to some 10 million people - in toxic black smoke and acid rain over the weekend, raising urgent health warnings for ordinary Iranians. Israel is set to expand its defence budget by almost 40 billion shekels (US$13bn) to fund the war in Iran, according to a finance ministry official, who wished to remain anonymous, Bloomberg reports. The defence budget will be expanded by 28bn shekels, with an additional 10 billion put aside as reserves for possible military needs, the offical said. A total of seven members of the Iranian women’s football team have now been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, home affairs minister Tony Burke has confirmed. An additional two women had sought asylum before the rest of the Iranian team departed Sydney on a flight to Malaysia on Tuesday night, one player and one support member, Burke told a press conference on Wednesday morning. Russia denied sharing intelligence with Iran on US military assets in the Middle East, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said. It follows reports on Friday that Moscow was providing Tehran with targeting information that included locations and movements of US warships and aircraft in the region. “Yesterday on the call with the president, the Russians said that they have not been sharing,” Witkoff said when asked if Washington thought Moscow had shared intelligence about the location of US military assets with Tehran. “We can take them at their word. But they did say that. And yesterday morning, independently, Jared [Kushner] and I had a call with [Kremlin aide Yuri] Ushakov who reiterated the same.” Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed repeated claims from the Trump administration that Iran was planning a preemptive or preventive strike against the US or its military forces as “a sheer and utter lie”. “The sole purpose of that lie is to justify Operation Epic Mistake, a misadventure engineered by Israel and paid for by ordinary Americans,” Araghchi said in a post on X – riffing on the US’s name for the military operation, Operation Epic Fury. Approximately 140 US service members have been wounded since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to the Pentagon, eight of them severely.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy accuses Hungary of ‘banditry’ over $82m of seized gold

The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has ordered that a shipment of Ukrainian cash and gold seized last week by Hungarian authorities be held in custody for up to 60 days while his country’s tax authority investigates the case. The gold and the money was being transported through Hungary by road when Hungary seized it last Thursday. Authorities said they suspected money laundering. The shipment included $40m and 35m euros in cash, as well as 9kgs (19.8 pounds) of gold worth about $82m, based on current rates. The seizure followed a dispute over gas supplies, in which Hungary and Slovakia accused Kyiv of deliberately stalling on repairs to an oil pipeline after it was hit in an apparent Russian drone attack. The seizure has outraged Ukrainian authorities who accused Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of acting illegally. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accused Budapest of “banditry” over its seizure of the bank transport, and the temporary detention of its Ukrainian crew. Zelenskyy urged European leaders not to stay silent about Budapest’s actions. Russian and Ukrainian officials made rival claims of battlefield success, with Ukraine saying it pushed Moscow’s forces back across places on the frontline and the Kremlin insisting Russia’s invasion is making progress. Ukrainian forces have recently retaken nearly all the territory of the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region during a counteroffensive, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 sq kilometres (150 sq miles), Maj Gen Oleksandr Komarenko claimed to media outlet RBC-Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, claimed on Tuesday that Russian forces have extended their gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, whose capture Moscow has made one of the goals of its invasion. Ukraine controlled about 25% of the Donbas six months ago, but it now holds just 15% to 17%, Putin claimed. The US has proposed another round of Russia-Ukraine talks, mediated by Washington, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. The talks could be held in Switzerland or Turkey, he said, after initial plans for a meeting in the United Arab Emirates was disrupted by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Zelenskyy said Ukraine-Russia PoW swaps could be on the agenda. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said on Tuesday: “The conflict in Iran must not obstruct the peace efforts for Ukraine.” Moscow’s deportation and forcible transfer of thousands of children from Ukraine to Russia amounts to a crime against humanity, a UN team of investigators said on Tuesday. The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said it had evidence leading it to conclude that “Russian authorities have committed the crimes against humanity of deportation and forcible transfer, as well as of enforced disappearance of children”. The inquiry said Russia had deported or transferred “thousands” of children from occupied areas of Ukraine, of which it had so far confirmed 1,205 cases. “Four years on, 80% of the children deported or transferred in the cases investigated by the commission have not returned,” it said. Ukrainian forces struck a key plant producing missile components on Tuesday in Russia’s border region of Bryansk, Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s military said British Storm Shadow missiles were deployed against the Kremniy El factory. It said the facility produced critical missile components. The governor of Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Telegram six civilians were killed and 37 injured. A Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian frontline city of Sloviansk killed four people and injured 16 others, local governor Vadym Filashkin said on Tuesday. Filashkin said Russia had dropped three guided bombs on the city, and that a 14-year-old girl was among those wounded. A decision by the Venice Biennale to allow Russia to participate in this year’s event came under fire from the EU on Tuesday, which warned it could cut funding. “We strongly condemn the decision” and are looking at taking action, including suspending an EU grant to the organising body, two top members of the European Commission said in a statement. Kyiv last weekend called on the Biennale to reverse its decision and to exclude Russia, as it had done at the last two Venice art exhibitions, in 2022 and 2024.

Antonio Tejero obituary

Lt Col Antonio Tejero, who has died aged 93, terrorised much of Spain on 23 February 1981 when he led an armed assault on the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, in Madrid. At 6.23pm, some 250 civil guards burst into the semi-circular chamber of the lower house during the investiture of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo as the new prime minister. For 18 hours the entire parliament was held hostage until a negotiated surrender the following morning; the Communist party leader Santiago Carrillo said he had expected to be shot. Tejero’s bushy moustache, angry stare and traditional civil guard tricorne hat became iconic images of the failed coup, the attempted return to the fascist Spain of the Franco dictatorship of 1939-75. Pistol in hand, Tejero strode to the rostrum shouting “¡Quieto todo el mundo!” (“No-one move!”). A few minutes later, with shots fired into the ceiling – since conserved to commemorate the defeat of the coup – he screamed the notorious phrase “¡Se sienten, coño!” (“Sit down, fuck it!”). The coup followed a year of crisis for the new democracy, born in the 1977 elections. The Basque terrorist group Eta had been killing members of the army and police every week. The government of Adolfo Suárez was in freefall in the midst of economic slump. Several politicians were irresponsibly calling for “a touch on the rudder”, ie a bloodless intervention to “correct” the faltering democracy. There were three main conspirators, Tejero, General Jaime Milans del Bosch, the head of the army in Valencia, who brought the tanks out on to the streets of the eastern city, and General Alfonso Armada. That night, Armada went to the congress, ostensibly to negotiate with Tejero and protect the kidnapped members of parliament. Armada had been secretary to the royal household, and the conspirators sought to give the impression that King Juan Carlos supported the coup. At 1.12 am, seven hours after the start of the coup, the king went on television in full military uniform to condemn the insurrection and defend the democratic process. By noon Tejero had surrendered. By coincidence, Tejero died the very day that government documents on the coup were declassified, 45 years after the event. The documents support the official version: that the king saved the day by vigorously opposing the conspirators. However, Tejero, in an interview with the online newspaper El Español in October 2023, said that he himself halted the coup when he realised that Armada wanted a “government of national salvation” including leftwing representatives, instead of a full-blown military dictatorship. He felt betrayed, used for the dirty work then, in the words of his wife, Carmen, “tossed aside like a used cigarette butt”. While in prison on remand after the coup, Tejero set up a political party, Solidaridad Española (Spanish Solidarity), with the striking slogan “Enter Parliament with Tejero!”. In the 1982 general election he received only 28,451 votes and failed to enter it by democratic means. Tejero, one of 32 conspirators to be tried, was convicted in June 1982 and sentenced to 30 years. Despite expulsion from the civil guard, he spent several years in a military prison in Figueres where conditions were comfortable and staff sympathetic. He was released in 1996. After leaving prison, Tejero devoted himself to painting and gardening. He lived between Torre del Mar, a coastal town near Málaga, and Madrid. He attended weekly mass. He kept a low political profile, but on the few occasions he appeared in public, it was clear that his politics had not changed. All his life he defended military dictatorship to conserve the unity of Spain. In 2019 the socialist government ordered the removal of Franco’s remains from his mausoleum at the Valle de Cuelgamuros and his reburial in the family tomb. Tejero was present, and was greeted by the crowd of fascists with cries of “Long live Spain! Long live Tejero!” He was rumoured to have written his memoirs in prison, but when in 2000 the publishers Planeta offered him a blank cheque for them, he was not interested. The 1981 assault on the Spanish parliament was not Tejero’s first military rebellion. In 1978 he had conspired to attack the Moncloa palace – the office and residence of the prime minister – and arrest the entire cabinet. The plot was named “Galaxia” after the Madrid cafe where the conspirators met. The coup was stillborn because someone invited to take part informed the police. Remarkably, Tejero was sentenced to only seven months in prison and was not demoted or expelled from the civil guard, which left him in a position to try again. Tejero was born in Alhaurín el Grande, near Málaga in southern Spain, into a poor family with military connections. His father was a rural school teacher. He attended the Military Academy in Zaragoza and entered the civil guard at the age of 19. He led a typical military life, posted to at least six destinations during the following 20 years, and was steadily promoted until becoming lieutenant colonel in the Basque country in 1974. In 1958 he married Carmen Díez Pereira, herself the daughter of a civil guard officer. She predeceased him. Tejero is survived by their three sons, three daughters and 16 grandchildren. • Antonio Tejero Molina, military conspirator, born 30 April 1932; died 25 February 2026

Iran is becoming more defiant in face of US-Israeli onslaught

Iran has spurned two messages from Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, seeking a ceasefire as its leaders sense it is not losing the war and the US president is at the minimum feeling the political pressure. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has further said a unilateral declaration from Trump that the US had won the war would not bring an end to the conflict. The implication is that even if the US announced a willingness to end its attacks, Iran might be willing to continue the conflict in some form, or keep its chokehold on shipping seeking to navigate the strait of Hormuz. Iran believes there can be no end to the conflict until it believes Trump has been shown the economic, political and military cost is so high that it is not worth repeating. It is instead insisting on a permanent deal that includes a US commitment not to attack Iran again. “If a ceasefire is to be established or the war stopped there must be a guarantee that aggressive actions against Iran will not be repeated. Otherwise if another attack occurs after a few months such a ceasefire would be meaningless,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy foreign minister. The defiance is remarkable for a regime that at the start of the war 11 days ago was seeking little more than its own survival. Nevertheless, the foreign ministry in conversations with the large number of countries offering to mediate is exploring whether it is feasible for the war simply to stop as it did in June last year, or must end with some kind of pact that might include a conditional lifting of US economic sanctions. But the overall mood among Iranian regime figures is that it is going to survive and should not at this stage seek any agreement. It will come under intense diplomatic pressure at the UN security council on Wednesday when more than 80 nations will sponsor a Bahrain-sponsored resolution condemning Iran for its attacks on the Gulf States, but voicing no criticism of the US or Israel. Russia may sponsor a separate motion calling for a ceasefire. “We are absolutely NOT seeking a ceasefire,” the speaker of the parliament, Mohammed Ghalibaf, posted to social media. “Let the enemy know that whatever they do, there will certainly be a proportionate and immediate retaliation […] We are fighting eye for eye, tooth for tooth, without compromise or exception.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has stressed that it will control the strait of Hormuz, which carries nearly 20% of the world’s crude oil and about 20% of liquefied natural gas. “At the beginning of the war we announced and we announce again no vessel associated with aggressors against Iran has the right to pass through the strait of Hormuz,” it said. “If you have doubts, come closer and find out.” The IRGC has also said it will allow ships though from countries that expel their US and Israeli ambassadors. Even the less militant president, Masoud Pezeshkian, sounded a defiant note arguing “the destroyers have come and gone. Iran remains.” Iranian diplomats argue that after two previous rounds of diplomatic talks being cut short by US-Israeli airstrikes, there is simply no basis to reach an agreement. Trump at his press conference on Monday night was meanwhile rehearsing the various arguments for a declaration of victory, possibly because the US had sufficiently damaged its ballistic missile launchers and nuclear programme that there was no need to continue the attack. But ultimately he refused to assert US victory was complete. Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said: “The regime overall think they can stay in this war and it might actually legitimise them because otherwise they have been a disaster for the country.” He blamed some of Israel’s attacks on energy infrastructure – which sent clouds of black smoke through Tehran – for alienating Iranian opinion. “Over the course of 24 hours you could sense the shift in Iranian public opinion from a war against regime to a war on Iran,” he said. Emile Hokayem from the International Institute for Strategic Studies nevertheless pointed to Iran’s significant self-inflicted problems. “The regime is still standing but faced a massive issue of resources,” he said. “Where do the resources come from when you have lost your ability to export when Hormuz is closed because of your own threats when the region does not want to trade with you and the United Arab Emirates is considering to freeze its assets.”

US weighs sending forces into Iran to secure nuclear stockpile, reports say

The Trump administration is reportedly considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), which experts say could be used to make at least 10 nuclear warheads. Preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb is one of Trump’s stated war aims, and the 440kg HEU stockpile represents the greatest nuclear threat as it could be turned into weapons-grade uranium relatively easily. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has told Congress that “people are going to have to go and get it”. Rubio did not go into greater detail, but there have been US and Israeli reports on discussions between the two countries on how such a mission might be carried out by special forces from either or both militaries. But nuclear experts say the complexity and risk involved would be considerable. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Monday that the UN watchdog body believed that 200kg of Iran’s HEU stockpile was in deep tunnels at its nuclear complex outside the city of Isfahan. He added that there was another “amount” of HEU in another nuclear centre at Natanz, where Iranians have constructed a new fortified and deeply buried facility called Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, known to western analysts as Pickaxe Mountain. The HEU is in the form of uranium hexafluoride, which is solid at room temperature but turns into a gas when heated allowing it to be further enriched. It is believed to be stored in metal canisters each about the size of a scuba diving tank, stored down deep shafts. US and Israeli special forces have long trained for missions to extract nuclear materials from hostile environments, and the US has developed equipment, known as the Mobile Uranium Facility, designed to contain and remove HEU. But deploying it along with specialists and a force to protect them would involve major ground operations in at least two sites, both deep in Iran’s interior. “That would be tough. It is pretty well defended and it’s large and bulky, so you’re not going to just go in and pick it up,” Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “Is a C-17 [military transport plane] going to land in the desert and you’re going to set up a security perimeter and cranes are going to drive off it? Or maybe you go in and blow it up and make a mess? All of these options seem fanciful to me,” Lewis said. Questioned on the issue on Saturday, Donald Trump acknowledged the challenge involved, and suggested such an operation was not imminent. The president said US troops would not be sent in until Iranian defending forces “would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight on the ground level”. He did not rule out a ground operation to secure nuclear material but said it would be at a later stage in the conflict. “At some point maybe we will,” he said. “We haven’t gone after it. We wouldn’t do it now. Maybe we will do it later.” The administration’s critics have expressed astonishment that a mission to secure the HEU did not appear to have been thought through before the war was launched. A Democratic congressman, Bill Foster, emerged from a classified briefing on the war last week saying he had heard nothing about a plan to address Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium should be the administration’s primary focus. That is clearly not the case,” Foster said. Matthew Bunn, a nuclear policy analyst at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it was “just shocking to launch a military operation like this, justified by the nuclear danger, and not have a plan for dealing with the most urgent part of the nuclear danger”. “Clearly, something should be done to address that HEU stock – it’s the most important element of potential nuclear weapons capability in Iran,” Bunn said. He added that the best solution was a postwar deal in which the HEU was diluted or shipped out of the country. Such solutions were being negotiated in US-Iranian talks brokered by Oman that were under way when Israel and US launched their attack on 28 February. Trying to ship the HEU without Iranian compliance, blending it down or blowing it up where it is, all posed enormous problems, Bunn said. “For now, it appears the United States and Israel are relying on close monitoring of the site to make sure the canisters aren’t removed, while they figure out what to do longer-term,” he said. “As long as it stays in Iran, the plan is that if anyone gets near it, they will be killed. That is the strategy as it stands,” said Meir Javedanfar , an Iran expert at Reichman University in Israel. He added that the monitoring strategy was not foolproof. “Someone could build a tunnel and go seize it. You can’t be 100% sure.” Even if they were able to whisk the HEU out of sight, the surviving members of the Iranian regime meanwhile would also face enormous risks if they attempted to “race to a bomb”. Further enrichment, turning the weapons-grade uranium into a metal, shaping it, building an explosive device to trigger it and putting it on a missile or other delivery system, could theoretically be done in a few months, but doing it without being detected would be extremely hard. Robert Malley, who was the US special envoy to Iran in the Biden administration, said that was the dilemma that had faced the Iranian regime for years. “In the period I was there, there was increasing chatter openly in Iran and in other channels that suggested that they were thinking for the first time in a long time seriously about whether they should acquire a bomb,” Malley said. “I think the problem was always from the moment you make the decision to the moment you acquire the bomb, that’s the zone of maximum danger when you’re likely to be detected,” he added. “And if you’re detected you’re almost certain to be bombed. And that problem hasn’t evaporated.” He added: “I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would be a really very dangerous gamble.”