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Accord comes as Mark Carney seeks shift in Ottawa’s relationship with New Delhi after long diplomatic spat

CanadaandIndiaplan to share intelligence in an effort to combat the rising threat of international crime and extremism, according to a new report from Bloomberg, days before a meeting between the two countries’ leaders.

Canadian officials declined to comment on the report, which, if confirmed, would represent a dramatic shift in relations between the two countries which for nearly two years have been locked in a bitter diplomatic spat after Canada’s federal police agency concluded that Indiaplanned and ordered the murder a prominent Sikh activist on Canadian soil.

Under the intelligence-sharing deal, which is expected to be announced during the G7 summit inCanadalater this week, police from both countries will increase cooperation on transnational crime, terrorism and extremist activities. Canada has reportedly pushed for more work on investigations into extrajudicial killings.

Earlier this month, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, was forced to defend his decision to invite the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to the G7 summit in Alberta after Canada’s federal police said the shooting death of Hardeep Singh Nijjar wasorchestrated by the “highest levels” of the Indian government.

Carney said there was a “legal process that is literally under way and quite advanced inCanada”, following questions over his decision to invite Modi. Four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged with Nijjar’s murder.

Carney also cited India’s status as the “fifth largest economy in the world, the most populous country in the world and central to supply chains”. But the decision did not sit well with lawmakers from British Columbia. A member of Carney’s Liberal caucus, Sukh Dhaliwal, met with the prime minister earlier this the week to express concern over the invitation.

“We as Canadians take pride to be a champion on human rights. We are the country of law and justice,” Dhaliwal, who represents the electoral district where Nijjar was killed, told the Canadian Press. “When it comes to protecting fundamental rights and serving justice for the victim, it is non-negotiable.”

Dhaliwal said that the prime minister was “alarmed about the issue” and would be “very strong in dealing” with the issue when speaking to his Indian counterpart.

Ever since former prime minister Justin Trudeau accused India of orchestrating the high-profile assassination of Nijjar, Ottawa and New Delhi have been locked in a worsening feud over the issue.

India temporarily stopped issuing in visas in Canada and, soon after, Canada expelled six senior diplomats, including the high commissioner, Sanjay Verma. India retaliated by ordering the expulsion of six high-ranking Canadian diplomats, including the acting high commissioner.

“The Indian government made a horrific mistake in thinking that they could interfere as aggressively as they did in the safety and sovereignty of Canada,” Trudeau told a public inquiry into foreign interference, adding that Canada had not wanted to “blow up” its valuable relationship with India. But he said afterNijjarwas killed, “we had clear and certainly now ever clearer indications that India had violated Canada’s sovereignty”.

The Bloomberg report, which underscores Carney’s attempts to mend relations with powerful nations, follows revelations that a suspected Indian government agent was surveilling former New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh as part of its network of coercion and intimidation.

According to Global News, the person, with suspected ties to both the Indian government andthe Lawrence Bishnoi gang implicated in Nijjar’s death, knew Singh’s daily routines, travel plans and family. When the RCMP realized there was a credible thread to this life, they placed the federal party leader under police protection.

“India targeted a Canadian politician on Canadian soil. That’s absolutely unprecedented. As far as we’re concerned, that’s an act of war,” Balpreet Singh, a spokesperson for the World Sikh Organization, said after of the Global News report. “If Jagmeet Singh isn’t safe … what does it mean for the rest of us?”

Setback for former student held since March as lawyers condemn government’s ‘cruel, transparent delay tactics’

A federal judge declined to order the release of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a setback for the former Columbia University student days after amajor rulingagainst the Trump administration’s efforts to keep him detained.

Khalil, a green-card holder who has not been charged with a crime, is one of the most high-profile people targeted by the US government’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism. Despite keyrulingsin his favor, Khalil has been detained since March,missing the birth of his son.

His advocates were hopeful earlier in the week that he was close to walking free. On Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarzruledthe Trump administration could no longer detain Khalil on the basis of claims that he posed a threat to US foreign policy. The federal judge in New Jersey said efforts to deport him based on those grounds were likely unconstitutional.

Farbiarz had given the US government until Friday morning to appeal against the order, which the Trump administration did not do. Khalil’s lawyers thenarguedhe must be released immediately, but the government said it would keep him detained in aremote detention facility in Louisiana. The administration argued it was authorized to continue detaining him based on alternative grounds – its allegations that he lied on his green-card application.

On Friday, Farbiarz said Khalil’s lawyers had failed to present enough evidence that detention based on the green-card claims was unlawful, suggesting attorneys for the 30-year-old activist could seek bail from a Louisiana immigration judge.

Khalil’s have strongly rejected the government’s assertions about problems with his green-card application, arguing the claims were a pretext to keep him detained.

“Mahmoud Khalil was detained in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights,” Amy Greer, one of his attorneys, said in a statement on Friday evening.

“The government is now using cruel, transparent delay tactics to keep him away from his wife and newborn son ahead of their first Father’s Day as a family. Instead of celebrating together, he is languishing in [immigration] detention as punishment for his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Palestinians. It is unjust, it is shocking, and it is disgraceful.”

Khalil has previously disputed the notion that he omitted information on his application.

In a filing last week, he maintained he was never employed by or served as an “officer” of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, as the administration claims, but completed an internship approved by the university as part of his graduate studies.

Khalil said he also stopped working for the British embassy in Beirut in December 2022, when he moved to the US, despite the administration’s claims that he had worked in the embassy’s Syria office longer.

The Friday ruling prolonging his detention came the same day agroup of celebrity fathersfilmed avideoreading Khalil’s letter to his newborn son. The Father’s Day campaign, published by the American Civil Liberties Union,called for Khalil’s freedomand included actorsMark Ruffalo,Mahershala Ali, Arian Moayed and Alex Winter.

Earlier in the week, when there was a ruling in Khalil’s favor, Dr Noor Abdalla, his wife, released a statement, saying: “True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has. I will not rest until Mahmoud is free.”

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has previously claimed Khalil must be expelled because his continued presence would harm American foreign policy, an effort that civil rights advocates said was a blatant crackdown on lawful free speech.

Wrongfully deported man expected to contest US prosecutors’ attempt to have him detained pending trial

Kilmar Ábrego García, the man returned to the US last week after being wrongfully deported to his nativeEl Salvador, pleaded not guilty on Friday to criminal charges of taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle migrants into the United States.

The Maryland man, 29, entered the plea at a hearing before US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes inNashville, Tennessee.

At the hearing, Ábrego García was also expected to contest an attempt by federal prosecutors to have him detained pending trial.

TheTrump administrationinitially removed him, alongside more than 200 Venezuelansheld as undocumentedin the US, without any due process. He was flown to anotorious prisonfor suspected gangsters and terroristsin El Salvador, where Salvadorian men can disappear indefinitely, now followed by peoplerounded upfrom the US by the Trump administration. Ábrego García was later moved to another prison there, as US campaignersbattledto get him back and have him afforded due process.

Despite admitting in court that it had wrongly removed him against a court’s order for protection against deportation to El Salvador, specifically, the Trump administration refused to facilitate his return to the US for a fair legal process. This comes in face ofjudicial objectionsall the way up to the US supreme court that precipitated a significant constitutional battle between the executive and judicial co-equal branches of government.

Before Ábrego García’s indictment was unsealed on 5 June,officials allegedhe was a member of the MS-13 gang and said they would not bring him back. The justice department’s decision to return him to the US to face criminal charges is a potential off-ramp for Trump’s administration from its escalating confrontation with the judiciary over the case.

The Republican president’s critics say his swift removal without a hearing showed the administration prioritized increased deportations over due process as part of its growinganti-immigration crackdown.

The criminal proceeding will provide Ábrego García with due process by giving him the right to contest the charges contained in a grand jury indictment returned in secret on 21 May.He was charged with working with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the United States illegally, then transport them from theUS-Mexico borderto destinations across the country.

He is also accused of transporting firearms and drugs.

Ye, as he is now known, was asked if he was at the courthouse to support Combs, to which he responded ‘yes’

Ye, the rapper formerly known asKanye West, briefly came to the New York sex-trafficking trial ofSean “Diddy” Combson Friday to support the hip-hop mogul, a longtime friend.

Ye, dressed in white, arrived at Manhattan federal court before noon while the trial was on a break.

Asked if he was at the courthouse to support Combs, he responded “yes” and nodded. He then hustled to an elevator and did not appear to respond when a reporter asked if he might testify on Combs’s behalf when the defense begins presenting its case as early as next week.

West did not stay long. He was reportedly directed to the overflow room, and about 40 minutes after he first entered, left the courthouse via the front entrance, perCNN. He was then seen getting into a car and driving away.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges alleging that he used his fame, fortune and violence to commit crimes over a 20-year period.

Ye’s appearance at the courthouse came a day after a woman identified in court only by the pseudonym “Jane”finished six days of testimony.

She testified that during a relationship with Combs that stretched from 2021 until his arrest last September at a Manhattan hotel, she felt coerced into having sex with male sex workers while Combs watched.

Defense attorneys have argued that Combs committed no crimes and that federal prosecutors were trying to police consensual sex that occurred between adults.

On Thursday, Jane testified that during a three-month break in her relationship with Combs, she flew to Las Vegas in January 2023 with a famous rapper who was close friends with Combs.

Before Jane’s testimony on the subject, lawyers and the judge conducted a lengthy hearing out of public view to discuss what could be divulged about the January trip.

Jane was asked if the rapper she accompanied along with the rapper’s girlfriend was “an individual at the top of the music industry as well … an icon in the music industry”.

Once in Las Vegas, Jane testified, she went with a group including the rapper to dinner, a strip club and a hotel room party, where a sex worker had sex with a woman while a half-dozen others watched.

She said there was dancing and the rapper said, “hey beautiful,” and told her he had always wanted to have sex with her in crude terms. Jane said she did not recall exactly when, but she flashed her breasts while dancing.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US,Rainnoffers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK,Rape Crisisoffers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at1800Respect(1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found atibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Ukraine says return in line with deal reached in Turkey while Russia hands over 1,200 bodies; Moscow claims capture of another Sumy village. What we know on day 1,207

Ukraine has repatriated more bodies of fallen soldiersin accordance with an agreement reached during peace talks in Istanbul, Ukrainian officials said Friday. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Russia had returned 1,200 bodies, and “according to the Russian side, the bodies belong to Ukrainian citizens, in particular military personnel”. The repatriation of the bodies was carried out with the help of Ukraine’s armed forces, the country’s security service, the interior ministry and other government agencies, its statement said. Forensic experts would now work to identify the remains. The repatriation marks one of the war’s largest returns of remains.

Russia says its forces have captured another village in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy regionamid its ramped-up offensive there. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Friday it had taken control of the village of Yablunivka, about 9km (five miles) from the Russian border. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukrainian forces are“gradually pushing back the occupiers”in the border region but prevailing assessments have shown Russian gains.

Russia’s defence ministry said Russian forces had also taken control of two other Ukrainian villages– Koptevo and Komar in the eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s Tass news agency reported. The ministry said Russian troops had captured six Ukrainian villages over the past week. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

A 73-year-old American jailed by Russia as a mercenary for Ukraine protested his innocence when his US-based legal team and family finally tracked him downin April, months after he vanished into the vast Russian prison system, they said. Stephen Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was sentenced last October to almost seven years in a penal colony and Russian state media reported that he had entered a guilty plea in the closed-door trial. His US-based lawyer, who made his first public comments on the case to the New York Times this week, said: “The first thing Hubbard wanted to talk about when he was able to make contact with the outside world was: ‘It’s not true.’” US officials have requested his immediate release.

Ukraine’s air force said on Friday that Russia fired 55 Shahed and decoy drones and four ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight. The air force said air defences had neutralised 43 drones. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Russia’s defence ministry, meanwhile, said its air defences had downed 125 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions and the annexed region of Crimea into early Friday.

Parade – ostensibly to mark US army’s 250th birthday – takes place as president turns 79 and comes amid large protests

Thousands of troops accompanied by dozens of tanks and aircraft will stream through the National Mall inWashington DCfor a military parade billed as celebrating the US army’s 250th birthday on Saturday – which also happens to be the day Donald Trump turns 79.

The president has long desired to hold a military parade in the capital, and is finally getting his wish months after returning to the White House for a second term, and days after ordering federalized California national guard and US marinesto the streets of Los Angelesin response to protests against deportations.

Washington DC will briefly become the second American city to see soldiers in its streets, albeit for markedly different reasons.

The all-day event held in the shadow of the Washington Monument will begin with a fitness competition and official ceremony to mark the army’s birthday with a cake. At 6.30pm ET, 6,700 soldiers accompanied by armored vehicles such as the M1A2 Abrams tanks are scheduled to march down Constitution Avenue Northwest past the White House, as Black Hawk, Chinook and Apache helicopters fly overhead. Trump will appear to preside over an enlistment and reenlistment ceremony and accept a flag from the Golden Knights Parachute Team, before fireworks will fill the sky.

“I think it’s time for us to celebrate a little bit. You know, we’ve had a lot of victories,” Trump said earlier this week. He has denied any connection between the parade and his birthday, instead noting that it coincides with the Flag Day holiday.

While Washington DC is used to playing host to an array of events in and around the National Mall and White House, the parade has proven to be particularly disruptive to day-to-day life in the overwhelmingly Democratic city of more than 700,000.

Coming at a cost the army estimates to be between $25m and $45m, the parade’s preparations have caused the closure of busy roads for up to four days, while flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport will halt for an unspecified time during the event.

City leaders have expressed concerns that the tanks and armored vehicles will damages roads not designed for their weight, and the army has said they will place metal plates on parts of the route, and outfit the equipment with rubber on their treads.

“President Trump’s longstanding wish to waste millions of taxpayer dollars for a performative military parade in the style of authoritarian leaders is finally coming true on his birthday,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the federal district’s Democratic non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. She condemned the event’s expected impact on the city’s roads, as well as the decision to hold it after Trump’s administration spent monthsfiring federal workers or coaxing them to resign.

“Although this parade will feed President Trump’s ego and perhaps his base, it will not serve any legitimate purpose,” Holmes Norton said.

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh must have acted fast to seize his unlikely chance to escape, say experts in crashes and safety

‘I saw people dying in front of my eyes’: British survivor describes Air India crash

Tony Cable, a former senior air crash investigator, has one piece of advice for Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the AirIndiaplane disaster: “Buy a lottery ticket straight away.”

The 40-year-old Briton walked away from the wreckage of flight AI171 after it crashed less than a minute after takeoff from Ahmedabad to London on Thursday, killing 241 other passengers and crew and dozens more on the ground.

Surviving with minor physical injuries seemed miraculous, but the focus on how Ramesh may have stayed alive turned to his seat on the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner – 11A, an emergency exit seat near the front of the plane and close to one of the strongest parts of the fuselage known as the “wing box”.

After the plane slammed into buildings about 30 seconds after takeoff, Ramesh thought he was dead, but when he realised he was alive he saw an opening in the fuselage. “I managed to unbuckle myself, used my leg to push through that opening, and crawled out,” he said. It was not clear whether this opening was the door or a rupture in the fuselage.

“The aircraft was pretty nose up when it hit the buildings,” said Cable, a former senior inspector of air accidents at the UK Air Accidents Investigations Branch. “It has presumably broken open in an area of the fuselage adjacent to this guy and fortuitously he has popped out without major injury.”

Ramesh’s seat had space, rather than seats, immediately in front of it, which may have given him more room for escape than many of his fellow passengers. It may also have meant that while the passengers in front of him may have been crushed together on impact, he avoided that fate, Prof John McDermid, Lloyd’s Register chair of safety at the University of York, said.

“My suspicion is that because of the nature of the impact, he was in a strong part of the airplane at the front edge of the wing,” he added. “There is not just the fuselage, but the extra structure of the wing to protect from the compression of the fuselage.”

“It’s possible that the impact loosened the door and he could kick it out and get out,” McDermid said. “The external door was only just in front of him so he didn’t have far to go.”

But before Ramesh could even consider an escape, he had to have the luck to survive the impact of the crash.

“If you’ve got an accident like this, where you’ve got an aircraft full of fuel and it’s making a crash landing off the airport into the built environment, that’s unlikely to be a survivable accident,” said Prof Ed Galea, an expert in fire safety and evacuation at the University of Greenwich. “The fact that anyone has survived is miraculous.

“He seems to have been lucky in that: a) he survived the trauma of the impact, b) he wasn’t severely injured in that crash, and c) he was sitting right by the No 2 exit. Whether he used that or exited via a rupture that was close by, is not clear. But he was very close to an exit point.”

Galea has previously carried out research on plane crashes which found that, in less devastating crashes, people sitting within five rows of a serviceable exit have a greater chance of surviving than dying while those more than five rows away were more likely to perish. He said he always tries to reserve a seat within five rows of an emergency exit.

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Galea said other passengers may have also survived the impact but were too injured to evacuate or were not close enough to an exit point. Passengers who did not adopt the brace position may have struck their heads on the seats in front of them knocking them unconscious, but there were no seats immediately in front of Ramesh.

While the structure of the plane may have given him a chance at survival, Ramesh still needed to move fast to take that chance, said McDermid. “If he hadn’t got out in a very few seconds, he would have been unlikely to make it out because of the fireball,” he added.

The plane had enough fuel on board to carry it to London Gatwick and this appeared to ignite upon impact.

Galea said Ramesh may have found himself exiting in front of the fireball if the aviation fuel had been pouring from the ruptured tanks in a rearward direction.

“He was a very, very unlucky man being on that airplane, but he was also a very, very lucky man being able to get out,” McDermid concluded.

The civilian who was detained identified himself as Marcos Leao, an army veteran, and said he was treated ‘very fairly’

US marines deployed to Los Angeles on Friday temporarily detained a civilian, the US military confirmed, in the first known detention by active-duty troops deployed there byDonald Trump.

Marines took charge of the Wilshire federal building earlier on Friday in a rare domestic use of US troops after days of protests over immigration raids.

Reuters images showed marines apprehending a civilian, restraining his hands with zip ties and then handing him over to civilians from the Department of Homeland Security.

Asked about the incident, the US military’s northern command spokesperson said active-duty forces “may temporarily detain an individual in specific circumstances”.

“Any temporary detention ends immediately when the individual(s) can be safely transferred to the custody of appropriate civilian law enforcement personnel,” a spokesperson said.

About 200 US marines arrived in LA on Friday morning. This followed Donald Trump’s extraordinary decision to deploy national guard troops to LA last weekend, over the objections of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom. The marines were to take over protecting a federal building, US Army Maj Gen Scott Sherman, who commands the taskforce of marines and national guardsmen, said.

The streets had been mostly calm overnight going into Friday morning, marking the seventh day of protests across various areas and the third day of an overnight curfew in a small part of the huge downtown area.

The civilian who was detained spoke to reporters after he was released, identifying himself as Marcos Leao, 27, an army veteran who was on his way to the Department of Veterans Affairs when he crossed a taped-off area and was asked to stop.

Leao, who gained his US citizenship through military service, said he was treated “very fairly”.

“They’re just doing their job,” said Leao, who is of Angolan and Portuguese descent.

Sporadic demonstrations have also taken place in cities including New York, Chicago, Seattle and Austin on several days in the last week against Trump’s pushing of his mass deportation agenda, undertaken by targeting undocumented communities in the US interior.

And millions more are expected to turn out to protest on Saturday at roughly 2,000 sites nationwide in ademonstration dubbed “No Kings”against what critics see as Trump taking actions on the brink of authoritarianism.

The mass protests are timed to coincide with the US president’s controversial military parade in Washington DC to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the US army, and coincidentally his 79th birthday.

The protests inLos Angelesand subsequent deployment of California’s national guard by Trump, over the furious objections of Newsom, is a move that had not happened in the US in at least half a century, sparking a legal battle between the president and Newsom.

Late on Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the federal deployment of troops by the president to aid in civilian US law enforcement in LA should be blocked. The administration swiftly appealed and a higher court paused the restraining order until Tuesday, when it will hear the case.

Judge Charles Breyer’s ruling in Newsom v Trump stated that Trump had unlawfully bypassed congressionally mandated procedures.

Newsom in an interview with the New York Times podcast on Thursdaycalled Trump a “stone cold liar”for claiming he had discussed a federal deployment with the governor by telephone.

Democrats and advocacy groups view Trump’s deployment as an abuse of power aimed at suppressing free speech and supporting aggressive anti-immigration policies.

Trump’s use of the troops follows earlier, unfulfilled threats during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in his first administration, when he considered, but ultimately declined, to deploy federal troops and has sinceexpressed regretabout not cracking down more forcefully.

The president has defended his decision to send troops to LA claiming without any evidence that the city would have been “obliterated” and “burned to the ground” had he not initiated the deployment.

In Washington, Saturday’s parade is billed as a patriotic celebration, while critics argue it is more about Trump’s personal brand and ego than promoting national unity. Organizers of No Kings protests have avoided planning a demonstration in the nation’s capital, in an attempt to draw attention away from tanks, armored vehicles, troops and aircraft on display.

“The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,” read a statement from the No Kings protest movement.

The parade will culminate on Saturday evening with a procession of 6,600 soldiers, dozens of tanks, and a live broadcast message from an astronaut in space. Inspired by a Bastille Day parade Trump witnessed in France in 2017, but with strong echoes of the kind of regular displays under authoritarian regimes such as Russia, North Korea and China, the event is expected to cost up to $45m, sources toldNBC News.

Meanwhile, some members of the national guard troops deployed to Los Angeles and some of their family members have expresseddiscomfort with their mission, feeling it drags them into a politically charged domestic power struggle.

“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates for military families. “Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”

Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network echoed those concerns: “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said, citing multiple national guard members who contacted his organization.

Amid the ongoing legal and political fallout, arrests have continued, although sporadic incidents of early looting have subsided. Jose Manuel Mojica, a 30-year-old father of four, wascharged with assaulting a federal officerduring a protest in Paramount, a community in southern Los Angeles County.

And on Thursday, Alex Padilla, a Democratic US senator for California and vocal critic of theTrump administration’s immigration polices, was forcibly removed and handcuffed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held byKristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, inLos Angeles.

Invideo takenof the incident that has since gone viral on social media, Padilla is seen being restrained and removed from the room by Secret Service and FBI agents. He warned that if this was how he was dealt with it spoke ill for ordinary civilians being summarily arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Most Republican national lawmakers criticized Padilla, although some Republican senators condemned his treatment, while Democrats overwhelmingly applauded his challenge to the administration and were appalled at his removal.

Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles contributed reporting

Israeli PM alleges Tehran has capacity to make nine bombs. If so, Israel knows more than the US or the UN watchdog did

Middle East crisis – live updates

In justifying Israel’s attack on Iran, Israel’s prime minister,Benjamin Netanyahu, said he had acted to pre-empt a secret Iranian programme to build a nuclear bomb, claiming Tehran already had the capacity to build nine nuclear bombs. Israeli officials also claimed to have presented information to the US that Iran had recently made the necessary technical breakthroughs.

Netanyahu’s critics are saying he acted to pre-empt something else: a diplomatic agreement between the US and Iran on its civil nuclear programme, or even the demise of his own government. They point out thatIsraelhas been saying for 20 years that Iran is on the brink of building a bomb.

Either way, his claim largely depends on Israel’s formidable intelligence community possessing a greater state of knowledge about Iran’s nuclear programme than either its US counterparts or the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As recently as 25 March, Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, told the Senate intelligence committee that the American intelligence community had assessed thatIranwas not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.

However, Gabbard added that in the past years, there would appear to have been “an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus”.

She added: “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”

A 22-page report declassified by the IAEA boardthis weekdid not say Iran was so close to a nuclear weapon. It said it had been unable to see aspects of Iran’s civil nuclear programme, and believed Tehran had repeatedly failed to cooperate, particularly over its past secret nuclear programme.

It concluded that it could not verify that Iran’s civil nuclear programme was exclusively civilian. But it did not say Iran was on the verge of a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA report looks at Iran’s progress towards building a bomb, its level of cooperation with UN inspectors and its stockpiles of enriched uranium.

On the first point, the IAEA has since 2019 been examining Iranian human-made uranium particles at three undeclared locations in Iran: Varamin, Marivan and Turquz Abad. This was part of an Iranian nuclear programme codenamed Amad, which has been known about for years and is believed to have ended in 2003.

The report concluded that “these three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material”.

The IAEA director, Rafael Grossi, told the board: “Unfortunately, Iran has repeatedly either not answered, or not provided technically credible answers to, the agency’s questions. It has also sought to sanitise the locations, which has impeded agency verification activities.”

The IAEA concluded that aftersuccessful implosion tests, Iran had intended to proceed with cold tests – conducted with a fully assembled bomb with a core of natural or depleted uranium rather than one of weapons-grade uranium – and had been conducting blast shielding tests in preparation.

Together these conclusions appear to confirm the breadth of Iran’s previously disclosed nuclear programme, suggesting also that this knowledge will not have been lost in the Iranian scientific community.

On the second issue – access to sites – the IAEA report states it is not being given the access it requires, and has not been shown plans for new nuclear facilities. Since February 2021, Iran has denied IAEA access to recorded data from centrifuge production plants. Although a few cameras were reinstalled at centrifuge production plants in May 2023, the agency still cannot access the recordings.

From the Iranian perspective, all these steps were permissible countermeasures to Trump’s2018 withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

On the third point, the report found that Iran had been accumulating a stockpile of highly enriched uranium way beyond the levels set out in the 2015 nuclear agreement. Iran’s stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium had grown from 274.8kg in early February to 408.6kg, an increase of about 50%. This is enough fuel for nine warheads, depending on how much highly enriched uranium is in the finished core of each nuclear weapon.

The IAEA report concluded that it had “no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear programme” and noted that senior Iranian officials had said that the use of nuclear weapons was incompatible with Islamic law.

But it also pointed to statements from former Iranian officials who suggested that Tehran now had all the capabilities to manufacture nuclear weapons.

“While safeguarded enrichment activities are not forbidden in and of themselves, the fact that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon state in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60% remains a matter of serious concern,” it said.

Asked in April when Iran might be capable of weaponising its missile warheads, Grossi said: “Dates are always arbitrary. But they are not far. It would be, you know, a matter of months, not years.”

Everyday people taken by surprise by overnight strikes and left wondering how to prepare for what may come next

As dawn broke over Tehran, firefighters and other rescue workers saw for the first time the full extent of the damage done by overnight Israeli strikes.

Among the first locations reached by responders in the capital was a 12-storey block of flats looming above a road junction and a shopping mall in the northern suburbs. A huge blast at around 4am had gutted two upper levels, showering debris into the street below.

It soon became clear why this particular floor on this particular block had been selected by Israeli military planners. It was the home ofAli Shamkhani, one of the country’s most senior security officials and a close aide of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Initial reports said Shamkhani, who is also a key negotiator in ongoing indirect talks with the US over Iran’s nuclear programme, was injured. But by mid-morning it was announced that the 69 year old had been killed.

By then, it was clear thatIsrael’s attack was on a much greater scalethan anyone had previously envisaged. Dozens of other targets in and around Tehran had been hit by warplanes. Across the capital, buildings were burning, with gaping blackened holes where flats had existed hours before.

Othertop officialshad been killed in this first wave of strikes, including Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, and Maj Gen Hossein Salami, the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who died in an attack on the IRGC’s headquarters.

Other casualties included officials in charge of Iran’s nuclear programme and its ballistic missile arsenal, including two well-known scientists. There were reports of further deaths and injuries, possibly among members of the dead men’s families, though no confirmed numbers.

Golnar, a resident of Saadat Abad, northern Tehran, was asleep when blasts woke her just after 3am.

“I woke up to the first explosion and rushed to the windows to check. Then minutes later I heard four explosions back to back … The windows were shaking and people in the building started screaming,” Golnar told the Guardian.

“We knew from social media that tensions were heightened between Israel and the regime, but we were not told by the authorities that we must prepare. Everything happened so quickly. We were scrambling for information on whether this was an attack or a natural disaster,” she said.

A human rights activist living near Shahr Ara Street in Tehran described “total chaos in the residential areas”.

“Traffic jams and clueless crowds are still trying to make sense of what’s happening,” they said. “Smoke is still billowing from residential streets and there’s debris around homes. The sky is red and we fear there will be more attacks,” they said.

Elsewhere in Iran, people were also waking up to destruction.

Drivers could see plumes of oily black smoke pouring from the major nuclear facility ofNatanz,200 miles (320km) south of Tehran. Residents of the north-western city of Tabriz ran for shelter as several targets were hit. Others cowered as missiles slammed into a suspected nuclear site in the central city of Arak and amid blasts at air defence missile bases in Kermanshah, close to the border with Iraq.

There were strikes in Hamadan province, where a long-range radar facility appeared to have been badly damaged; and at Piranshahr, in West Azerbaijan Province, a launch site for ballistic missiles was hit.

For many Iranians, often unaware they are living next to critical military or nuclear infrastructure, the attacks prompted great fear.

Among those opposed to the regime, the attacks prompted excitement, even jubilation.

An emergency unit doctor in Tehran said mid-morning that no civilian casualties had been brought into his hospital so far.

“Some of us in the emergency units have to cancel any planned leaves, and hospitals have been put on high alert. My elderly father woke up to loud explosions in western Tehran. He called me with a trembling voice, and for the past six months we have lived in fear that tensions will escalate,” the doctor said.

Israel has said the attacks were just the opening salvo of a much broader offensive, which could continues for days, or even weeks.

“We are already dealing with a dire economic crisis,” the human rights activist said. “We are stocking up on food and supplies which are already expensive. Where do we even flee to if attacked again today? We don’t have bomb shelters like the Israelis do and we can’t flee to Iraq or Afghanistan. We are stuck.”

Azadeh, a resident of Vanak, said everyday Iranians had not asked for this war.

“Around 3.40am, the explosion sounds started getting louder and louder. It got very frightening. There were loud screams across the streets. The explosion was near the main square which is scary.

“However, [after] the news that IRGC commanders were killed and not civilians, some of us are happy about it. The mullahs are responsible for any civilian deaths that may occur this time,” Azadeh said.

Though images of the aftermath of strikes suggested there were at least some casualties among the families and neighbours of targeted individuals, the overall death toll was unclear. Iranian state media were reported to have given an unofficial total of at least 78 people killed and more than 300 injured in Tehran.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said most of the damage from strikes targeting its Natanz facility was at ground level and there had been “no casualties” there.

Some analysts say the attacks will prompt people to rally behind the regime, but others argue that Iran’s inability to either protect its own senior officials and infrastructure or, so far, strike back effectively will damage its credibility among the wider population.

None of the 100 armed drones reportedly launched by Iran at Israel on Friday reached their targets, Israeli officials said. Iran’s state news agency denied any such attempted attack.

Journalists in Iran told the Guardian they had been instructed not to share any news, images and videos on social media by the authorities, and editors had been warned off reposting phone footage from witnesses to the strikes.

“The only videos shared should be [emphasising] how devastating Israel’s attacks were on the innocent people,” said a reporter in Karaj, west of Tehran. “The problem with this is, there are no ground reports for now that civilians were killed or seriously injured. The [authorities] don’t want to look weak in front of radical supporters. Only the state media’s assigned reporters are allowed on the explosion sites.”

Israel has said its attack was essentialbecause Iran was on the brink of acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Iran has repeatedly denied such intentions, saying it wants nuclear energy only for civilian purposes, and has publicly rejected Washington’s demand to scrap enrichment, describing it as an attack on its national sovereignty.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said he hoped the attacks would trigger the downfall of Iran’s theocracy, and that his message to the Iranian people was that Israel’s fight was not with them, but with the “brutal dictatorship that has oppressed you for 46 years”.

Khamenei said in a statement after the first strikes that Israel had “unleashed its wicked and bloody” hand in a crime against Iran and thatit would face “a bitter fate”.

The human rights activist in Tehran said ordinary people would “bear the consequences of anything that happens in the next hours and days”.