Category: 2. World

WASHINGTON — The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog warned Wednesday that the agency is not yet satisfied with Iran’s cooperation with international inspectors, just as European leaders appeared poised to reimpose sanctions on Tehran after a series of last-minute meetings failed to reach a diplomatic resolution on its nuclear program.

Despite Iran allowing inspectors back in for the first time since the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June, regaining access to crucial nuclear facilities is still “a work in progress,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Associated Press.

“I can say that it is important that the inspectors are back,” Grossi said in an interview. “At the same time, we still need to clarify a number of things, and we still need to address all the issues that are important in terms of the inspections that we have to carry out in Iran.”

Grossi, who has been receiving special police protection following a threat he said was “from the direction” of Iran, spoke with AP after meeting with high-level officials in Washington this week, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also spoke Wednesday with his counterparts from Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Rubio and Grossi discussed global nuclear safety and “IAEA efforts to conduct monitoring and verification activities, including in Iran,” the State Department said in a brief readout of the meeting.

Leaders from the three European countries — known as the E3 — have spent the past several weeks meeting with Iranian officials, seeking a solution ahead of a deadline this week on a threat to reimpose U.N. sanctions. They have warned that they would invoke the so-called “snapback mechanism” of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal over what the countries have deemed Iran’s lack of compliance.

Inspectors are back in Iran, but not with full access

The Europeans’ concern over the Iranian nuclear program, which had been enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels before its atomic sites were bombed in the war, had only grown since Tehran cut off all cooperation with the IAEA following the conflict.

The U.S. and the E3 agreed to set an Aug. 31 deadline for invoking the snapback mechanism if Iran fails to meet several conditions, including resuming negotiations with the U.S. over its nuclear program, allowing U.N. inspectors access to its nuclear sites and accounting for over 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

Grossi said it was a breakthrough that IAEA inspectors have been allowed to return to Iran for the first time since Israel and the U.S. attacked Iranian nuclear sites, including with bunker-buster bombs.

“This is important given that the attacks began in the aftermath” of the Israeli and U.S. strikes, he told AP before a briefing Wednesday with reporters. “There were many voices in Iran advocating the end of any cooperation with the agency, and there were voices in the world arguing that perhaps the IAEA would never go back and that we would lose this indispensable work that we carry out on behalf of the international community.”

So far, Grossi said IAEA inspectors have returned to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant but not yet the other sites, including those targeted by the U.S. strikes. He said he had no immediate plans to return to Iran — he last visited the country early this year — but remains in contact with Iranian officials to go over the logistics of IAEA access to all the sites.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday confirmed inspectors were at the facility to watch a fuel replacement, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency. But he reportedly cautioned that it didn’t represent a breakthrough on the IAEA visiting other sites.

Iran has long insisted its program is peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed nation enriching uranium at such a high level. The United States, the IAEA and others say Iran had a nuclear weapons program up until 2003.

U.S. and European leaders hold call as sanctions deadline looms

Rubio had a phone call Wednesday with the foreign ministers of Germany, France and the U.K. after the three European countries held meetings with the Iranians over the past week.

“All reiterated their commitment to ensuring that Iran never develops or obtains a nuclear weapon,” Tommy Pigott, deputy State Department spokesperson, said in a statement.

The call follows talks Tuesday in Switzerland between representatives of the E3 and Iran that “ended without a final outcome,” said a diplomat with knowledge of the meeting. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive discussions.

Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, said on X after the meeting that Tehran “remains committed to diplomacy″ and that it was “high time” for the European countries “to make the right choice, and give diplomacy time and space.”

Elite police unit guards Grossi

Grossi, who plans to run for United Nations secretary-general, is being protected by an Austrian police Cobra unit following a threat he said is from “the direction” of Iran.

“It’s very regrettable that some people threaten the lives of international civil servants, the head of an international organization,” Grossi told AP, adding that “we will continue our work.”

The elite unit under the Austrian Federal Ministry of Interior mainly handles counterterrorism operations, hostage rescues and responses to mass shootings. It also engages in personal protection and the protection of Austrian foreign representations abroad. In Austria, Cobra operatives are known for protecting the president and chancellor as well as the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the additional security for Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who has raised the profile of the IAEA with his trips into Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion and the agency’s work on Iran.

Israel attacked Iran in June after the IAEA’s Board of Governors voted to censure Iran over its noncooperation with the agency, the first such censure in 20 years. Iran accused the IAEA, without providing evidence, of aiding Israel and, later, the United States in its airstrikes targeting its nuclear sites.

Top Iranian officials and Iranian media called for Grossi to be arrested and put on trial if he returned to the country.

The former British prime minister Tony Blair has attended a White House meeting with Donald Trump to discuss plans for postwar Gaza, the Guardian understands.

After stepping down as prime minister in 2007, Blair took on the role of Middle East envoy until 2015 and spent time in Jerusalem trying to formulate a plan for a two-state solution.

The former Labour leader, 72, was in Washington DC on Wednesday for the meeting with Trump. The Axios website reported that Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was also in attendance.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the US was putting together a “very comprehensive” plan for “the next day” after the war.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Witkoff said he believed the war in Gaza could be ended in the next four months. “We’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year,” he said.

Asked about a plan for governing postwar Gaza, Witkoff said: “It’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together on the next day that I think many people are going to … see how robust it is and how well meaning it is, and it reflects President Trump’s humanitarian motives here.”

No details have been disclosed about the proposals under discussion.

The White House said: “President Trump has been clear that he wants the war to end, and he wants peace and prosperity for everyone in the region.”

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, also met his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, in Washington.

The meetings came after Pope Leo XIV demanded that Israel stop its “collective punishment” of the population in the besieged territory.

Ten Palestinians, including two children, have died from starvation in the last 24 hours, health authorities in Gaza said on Wednesday.

At least 313 people have died from hunger, including 119 children, since the war in Gaza began and Israel intensified its siege on the Palestinian territory.

The pope said: “I beg for a permanent ceasefire to be reached, the safe entry of humanitarian aid to be facilitated and humanitarian law to be fully respected.”

He referred to international law and its “prohibition of collective punishment, indiscriminate use of force and the forced displacement of the population”.

The pope was interrupted twice by applause as he called for a ceasefire in front of thousands of people in the Vatican auditorium.

Israeli tanks rolled into the outskirts of Gaza City overnight, destroying houses and displacing residents. Tanks shelled the Ebad al-Rahman neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of the city, causing injuries, as Israeli forces sought to clear a path into Gaza City before an expected offensive.

Israeli strikes and fire killed at least 76 people throughout Gaza in the previous 24 hours, the Gaza health authorities said.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been infiltrating Australia over years to surveil and harass members of the Iranian-Australian community, critics of the Tehran regime have consistently told the Australian government.

Hundreds of Iranian-Australians made submissions to a Senate inquiry three years ago saying embassy officials and Revolutionary Guards were monitoring, intimidating and threatening members of the diaspora and begging the government to proscribe the IRGC.

The Coalition lashed Labor for not listing the IRCG as a terrorist organisation in 2023 and said it was ready to vote to do so today. In question time on Wednesday, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, challenged Anthony Albanese over why he did not act sooner “when the warnings were so clear and the risks so grave”.

The shadow home affairs minister, Andrew Hastie, conceded though that while he had been “keen” to list the IRCG when he was chair of the intelligence committee before the 2022 election, there were mixed views within the Coalition government at the time.

On Tuesday, Asio said it had credible evidence that IRGC commanders were ultimately behind at least two – but likely more – antisemitic attacks in Australia last year: arson attacks on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and the Lewis’ Continental Kitchen kosher restaurant in Sydney. In response, the federal government expelled the Iranian ambassador and said it would legislate to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

There was no accusation current Iranian diplomats or embassy staff were involved.

Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian academic who had been held for 804 days by the IRGC, most of it in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, told the Guardian that diaspora members lived their lives in Australia for years “looking over their shoulders”.

“We know that there are a number of agents of the IRGC and of the Iranian regime here in Australia, as well as sympathisers and informants, people who might not be paid, trained agents, but who are feeding information back to Tehran on the Iranian-Australian community.”

Moore-Gilbert said agents were monitoring dissidents and refugees who have been critical of the Iranian government, and were also watching and filming people taking part in protests.

“I’ve experienced it,” Moore-Gilbert said, “and I know so many Iranian-Australians who have so many stories about threatening behaviour and being surveilled and followed.”

After the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa (Jina) Amini at the hands of Iran’s “morality police” in 2022 and the resulting worldwide protest movement, Woman Life Freedom, a Senate inquiry heard evidence of widespread surveillance and intimidation by the Iranian regime on Australian soil.

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The Senate inquiry received more than 1,100 submissions, hundreds of which had to be put on the record anonymously, citing fear of reprisals.

One submitter said embassy officials were “likely to be involved in infiltration, intimidation and harassment of Australian residents or citizens, and acts of terrorism”.

“These individuals, under diplomatic cover, pose a threat to our security. Embassy personnel filmed protesters … in Australia during demonstrations, intimidated and harassed Australian citizens here, or their families in Iran.

“In one case, the consular sector of the Iranian embassy in Canberra denied providing service to an Iranian-Australian and threatened him about the consequences he would face for participating in the demonstrations in Canberra.”

Setareh Vaziri cited the case of one Iranian-Australian woman who “upon voicing opposition to the Iranian regime was faced with anonymous threatening text messages, and whose family – still in Iran – were threatened with violence if she did not remain ‘silent’.”

Vaziri gave evidence to the committee that Iranian-Australians critical of the Tehran government had had their emails hacked and their social media accounts duplicated “to manipulate the work of activists”.

Dr Behzad Molavi told the committee: “The Islamic Republic of Iran regime has planted informants, apologists and infiltrators from among their family members, cronies and affiliates in Australia who are mostly active in the ‘cultural and religious centres’ or at the universities and scholarly institutes.

“They play a major role in harassing, intimidating and silencing dissenting voices of dual nationals.”

The Department of Home Affairs gave evidence to the committee it was “aware of reports that pro-Iranian government informants are surveilling former Iranian residents protesting against the regime in Australia and threatening their relatives in Iran as a result”.

Sara Zahedi, a lawyer and member of Woman Life Freedom Australia, told the committee members of the Iranian-Australian community had consistently reported incidents of harassment and intimidation.

“What we would really like to see is these concerns being taken a little bit more seriously by the AFP … we’re not getting a lot of follow-up on our questions and our concerns with regard to being harassed and being watched.

“I don’t think we should be waiting for incidents of violence before we see some serious action being taken.”

The Senate committee recommended that Australia list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation and said it should be prepared to expel any diplomats who are engaged in “intimidation, threats, or monitoring of Australians”.

Former senator and transparency advocate Rex Patrick obtained documents under freedom of information laws in January this year, showing the government sought legal advice on proscribing the IRGC in 2023 but determined that because the IRGC was a part of the Iranian state, it could not be banned under existing legislation.

The government is now moving to proscribe the IRGC as a terror group under changes to the federal criminal code to include state-linked organisations. Drafting is already under way but the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, says the government will take the appropriate time to amend the rules for groups like the IRCG to be prescribed.

The code defines terror groups as organisations that are directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting or fostering terrorist acts.

Challenged over the delay in listing the IRGC, Albanese told question time on Wednesday the government had acted “like adults” on the decision.

“On these issues, we take advice from the intelligence agencies, we go through our appropriate processes, including our national security committee,” he said.

Iran’s government finds itself further isolated after the revelations it was behind the arson attacks in Australia. But Moore-Gilbert told the Guardian that, from the perspective of the Revolutionary Guards, the attacks “have succeeded, to a certain extent, in creating division within the community in Australia and in heightening antisemitic sentiments in Australia”.

“And they’ve been doing this elsewhere as well. It’s not that it’s restricted to just Australia. It seems to be a broader strategy to do this throughout the western world.”

Moore-Gilbert said having spent hundreds of hours under interrogation by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, she had witnessed their virulent antisemitism.

“It’s difficult for them to target Israel, it’s difficult for them to go into Israeli territory, but Jewish communities in western countries who are just peacefully going about their lives, they’re an easy target.”

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Illustration: Guardian Design / Rich Cousins

Police are investigating online videos apparently posted by the shooter who killed two children and injured 17 other people at a Catholic church in Minneapolis on Wednesday, which describe an obsession with school shootings and show a rambling written statement and numerous guns painted with slurs, mass killers’ names and political messages.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara identified the suspected shooter as Robin Westman, who died from a self-inflicted wound after firing into Annunciation Catholic Church during a morning Mass. Westman, 23, graduated from Annunciation’s grade school in 2017, according to a yearbook photo obtained by CNN.

Authorities are now evaluating a series of bizarre videos posted to YouTube by a user identified as “Robin W” to authenticate them and potentially learn more about the motivations in the attack, police sources told CNN. The videos, which have been taken down, were uploaded on Wednesday.

O’Hara said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon that the shooter had posted a “manifesto” that was timed to be published on YouTube, and that investigators are going through it to “try and develop a motive from that.”

In the videos, two which were titled with Westman’s full name, the person recording the video pages through a handwritten notebook and displays a shooting target with an image of Jesus and a collection of guns, magazines and ammunition laid out on a bed. Various messages and racial and religious slurs were written on the weapons, including “psycho killer” and “suck on this!” Antisemitic messages were also scrawled on the guns, with one reading “6 million wasn’t enough.” Another magazine had the message, “kill Donald Trump.”

In a voiceover of one video, the person filming also claimed to have met and to support Brandon Herrera, a pro-gun YouTuber who lost a Republican primary for a Texas congressional seat last year. Herrera condemned the attack in a social media message posted Wednesday afternoon, saying the shooter would “burn in hell.”

Another of the gun magazines shown in the videos lists the names of six notorious mass shooters, including Adam Lanza, whom the suspect wrote they had a “deep fascination” for. Lanza gunned down 26 people – including 20 children – at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012. The name of Robert Bowers, who was convicted of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018, is also legible on the side of one of the weapons.

The rambling notebook – which was written partially in English and partially using English words in Cyrillic script with some Russian words – expresses feelings of self-hatred and wishes to die. Other entries described the author becoming “morbidly obsessed” at a young age with Lanza and other past school shooters.

“I’m so sorry” is written in large letters on one page. The person filming whispered “I love my family” while recording that page, and said “I don’t know what else to say” at another point in the video.

The notebook also included a diagram of the inside of a church that seems to match the layout of Annunciation Church. The person recording showed themselves stabbing a knife into the drawing while saying, “ha, nice.”

The writings in the notebook, along with images on the weapons, express a wide embrace of racism and antisemitic views – although the author claims those extremist ideas aren’t expressly the reason behind Wednesday’s attack.

“In regards to my motivation behind the attack I can’t really put my finger on a specific purpose. It definitely wouldn’t be for racism or white supremacy,” the notebook reads. “I don’t want to do it to spread a message. I do it to please myself. I do it because I am sick.”

Cody Zoschak, a senior manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group that tracks extremism online, told CNN that the videos seemed similar to writings published by Solomon Henderson, who fatally shot a fellow student and injured one other person before killing himself at a Nashville high school earlier this year.

“He was associated with similar online subcultures and nihilistic violence, he had a very confusing mix of materials in his manifesto, and generally we saw a lot of efforts to misdirect and or troll,” Zoschak said.

The suspect’s last known address was at Westman’s father’s home about a 20-minute walk from Annunciation, on a quiet block of craftsman bungalows.

The elder Westman and a woman were seen by several neighbors sitting on the curb on Wednesday, looking stricken as law enforcement officers from various agencies went through their house.

Jim White, 57, who lives across the street, described them as a friendly couple who, when they learned White was working on a landscaping project, gave him hundreds of cement blocks to create a planter that now adorns his front lawn.

“They are very nice neighbors, very good people,” he said.

Neighbor Terry Cole said he didn’t remember seeing the suspected shooter often in the neighborhood. Cole briefly choked up while speaking with a CNN reporter.

“They are a wonderful couple — a good part of this neighborhood,” he said. “People take care of each other here. It’s just such an absolute shock.”

The suspected shooter’s mother worked at Annunciation from 2016 through 2021, according to social media posts.