Iranian Commander Threatens to Destroy Haifa, Tel Aviv

Iran's regular army ground forces' commander Kiumars Heydari. Fars
Iran's regular army ground forces' commander Kiumars Heydari. Fars
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Iranian Commander Threatens to Destroy Haifa, Tel Aviv

Iran's regular army ground forces' commander Kiumars Heydari. Fars
Iran's regular army ground forces' commander Kiumars Heydari. Fars

Iran will raze the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa should its enemy Israel make any mistake, Commander of the Iranian army ground forces Kiumars Heydari threatened on Tuesday.

“For any mistake made by the enemy, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground by the order of the Supreme Leader,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the Iranian commander as saying.

Heydari said all units of the army are being equipped with precision-guided, long-range and smart weapons, adding that the range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and that the operational missiles of the army have increased.

He underlined that the military and defense achievements of the Iranian army are a thorn in the enemies' eyes.

“All this equipment is to respond to the stupid aggressions of the enemies of the Islamic Revolution,” Heydari noted.

The Army commander reiterated that the usurper Zionist regime has occupied Muslim lands and these lands will return to Islam in less than 25 years.

However, Heydari failed to refer to any of the security developments that shook Iran lately.

Last May 25, an engineer died and another employee was injured after an accident in a research center at the Parchin military site affiliated with Iran's Defense Ministry.

The next day, Iranian authorities confirmed the death of engineer Ehsan Ghad Beigi in an "industrial accident" at the military site.

The New York Times said that according to three Iranians with knowledge of the attack and to a US official, a drone strike targeted the highly sensitive military site outside Tehran where Iran develops missile, nuclear and drone technology.

The attack came four days after a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Col. Sayad Khodayee, was assassinated in Tehran outside his home, according to a statement by the Guards.

NYT said Israel told the United States that it was behind his killing, according to one intelligence official.

The Israelis intended it as a warning to Iran to stop targeting Israeli citizens abroad, the official said.

Few days following the Parchin explosion, another commander of IRGC Quds Force died under suspicious circumstances in Karaj. There were conflicting reports concerning the reason for his death, his role at the IRGC and his link to Khodayee.

Later, reports revealed that Ayoob Entezari, a senior Iranian engineer who held a PhD in aerospace engineering and was reported dead under unclear circumstances early this month, had been intentionally poisoned in the city of Yazd.

A letter written by the governor called him a "martyr" and a picture allegedly showed officials paying a condolence visit to his home.

Khodayee’s killing and the Parchin bombing dealt a major blow to Iranian authorities, who tried to reduce Israel’s ability to carry out operations deep inside Iranian territory, especially after hardliner Ibrahim Raisi was elected President.



Man Arrested after Pepper Spray Attack in London's Heathrow Airport Parking Garage

File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
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Man Arrested after Pepper Spray Attack in London's Heathrow Airport Parking Garage

File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)
File photo: A plane prepares ahead of taking-off, after radar failure led to the suspension of outbound flights across the UK, at Heathrow Airport in Hounslow, London, Britain, July 30, 2025. (Reuters)

Police arrested a man in London on Sunday after a group of people were assaulted with pepper spray in a parking garage at Heathrow Airport.

The victims were taken to the hospital by ambulance but their injuries were not believed to be serious, the Metropolitan Police said.

The incident in the Terminal 3 garage occurred after an argument escalated between two groups who knew each other. It was not being investigated as terrorism, police said.

One man was arrested on suspicion of assault and held in custody. Police were searching for the other suspects who left the scene.


US Envoy Kellogg Says Ukraine Peace Deal Is Really Close

A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
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US Envoy Kellogg Says Ukraine Peace Deal Is Really Close

A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks near apartment buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in the frontline town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 15, 2025. (Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)

US President Donald Trump's outgoing Ukraine envoy said a deal to end the Ukraine war was "really close" and now depended on resolving two main outstanding issues: the future of Ukraine's Donbas region and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The Ukraine war is the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War.

US Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in "the last 10 meters" which he said was always the hardest.

The two main outstanding issues, Kellogg said, were on territory - primarily the future of the Donbas - and the future of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is under Russian control.

"If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well," Kellogg said on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. "We're almost there."

"We're really, really close," said Kellogg.

Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq, said the scale of the death and injuries caused by the Ukraine war was "horrific" and unprecedented in terms of a regional war.

He said that, together, Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including dead and wounded since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose credible estimates of their losses.

Moscow says Western and Ukrainian estimates inflate its losses. Kyiv says Moscow inflates estimates of Ukrainian losses.

Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

A leaked set of 28 US draft peace proposals emerged last month, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said it bowed to Moscow's main demands on NATO, Russian control of a fifth of Ukraine and restrictions on Ukraine's army.

Those proposals, which Russia now says contain 27 points, have been split up into four different components, according to the Kremlin. The exact contents are not in the public domain.

Under the initial US proposals, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose reactors are currently in cold shutdown, would be relaunched under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the electricity produced would be distributed equally between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that he had had a long and "substantive" phone call with Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The Kremlin said on Friday it expected Kushner to be doing the main work on drafting a possible deal.


7.0 Earthquake Hits in Remote Wilderness Along Alaska-Canada Border

 Hubbard Glacier, located near Yakutat, Alaska, is seen on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hubbard Glacier, located near Yakutat, Alaska, is seen on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
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7.0 Earthquake Hits in Remote Wilderness Along Alaska-Canada Border

 Hubbard Glacier, located near Yakutat, Alaska, is seen on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)
Hubbard Glacier, located near Yakutat, Alaska, is seen on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP)

A powerful, magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck in a remote area near the border between Alaska and the Canadian territory of Yukon on Saturday. There was no tsunami warning, and officials said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

The US Geological Survey said it struck about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northwest of Juneau, Alaska, and 155 miles (250 kilometers) west of Whitehorse, Yukon.

In Whitehorse, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Calista MacLeod said the detachment received two 911 calls about the earthquake.

“It definitely was felt,” MacLeod said. “There are a lot of people on social media, people felt it.”

Alison Bird, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada, said the part of Yukon most affected by the temblor is mountainous and has few people.

“Mostly people have reported things falling off shelves and walls,” Bird said. “It doesn’t seem like we’ve seen anything in terms of structural damage.”

The Canadian community nearest to the epicenter is Haines Junction, Bird said, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) away. The Yukon Bureau of Statistics lists its population count for 2022 as 1,018.

The quake was also about 56 miles (91 kilometers) from Yakutat, Alaska, which the USGS said has 662 residents.

It struck at a depth of about 6 miles (10 kilometers) and was followed by multiple smaller aftershocks.