TODAY

United Nations refugee agency says forced displacement likely to increase as US and Israel continue deadly strikes across Iran.

More than three million people have been displaced in Iran since the United States and Israel launched a war against the country late last month, the United Nations says, as concerns mount over a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday that as many as 3.2 million people – representing between 600,000 and one million Iranian households – have been forcibly displaced since the war began on February 28.

“Most of them are reportedly fleeing from Tehran and other major urban areas towards the north of the country and rural areas to seek safety,” UNHCR official Ayaki Ito said in a statement.

“This figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist, marking a worrying escalation in humanitarian needs.”

The US and Israeli militaries have continued to bombard Iran despite mounting international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks across the country to date, according to the latest figures from Iranian officials.

While the US and Israel have said they are targeting Iranian leaders as well as military and nuclear infrastructure, Iran says thousands of civilian sites, such as schools and hospitals, have been attacked.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian told Al Jazeera on Thursday that medical teams have been responding to a growing number of casualties as strikes on urban areas have intensified in recent days.

“Most of these people are civilians,” Jafarian said, adding that more than 30 hospitals and health facilities have been damaged due to the attacks.

On Thursday, explosions were heard in several parts of the capital, Tehran, and other Iranian cities as the strikes continued.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said rescuers were digging through mounds of rubble as several multistorey apartment buildings were heavily damaged in recent attacks on a hard-hit eastern neighbourhood of Tehran.

“We saw bodies taken out [of the rubble] … and the situation was far beyond what I can call disastrous,” Asadi said.

Iran has responded to the US-Israeli assault by launching a barrage of missiles and drones at US bases and other sites in countries across the wider Middle East region.

It has also shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Gulf waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil transits, raising serious concerns of disruptions to global energy supplies.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi shows the aftermath of US-Israeli airstrikes on a residential neighbourhood in Iran, where rescue teams have been searching for survivors among the rubble.

Authorities have said most of those who died were found buried in mud.

The death toll from landslides and flooding in the Gamo Zone of southern Ethiopia has risen to at least 64, with dozens more people missing, police have said.

“The number of people missing due to the recent flood in Gamo zone has reached 128, and according to the latest information, 64 bodies have been found,” said the South Ethiopia Regional State Police Commission in a statement on Facebook on Thursday.

The Gacho Baba district communication chief, Abebe Agena, said most of those who died were found buried in mud. It is not yet clear how many households were affected.

Gamo Zone director of disaster response Mesfin Manuqa said that one person was pulled out of mud alive during rescue operations.

Tilahun Kebede, president of the South Ethiopia Regional State, expressed his sorrow over the disaster and urged residents to move to higher ground as rains continue.

“Given that it is the rainy season and these types of disasters could happen again, I am calling on communities living in the highlands and flood-prone areas to take the necessary precautions,” he said.

Flooding caused by heavy rains has led to the deaths, with most of East Africa seeing heavy flooding in recent days.

Dozens were killed in neighbouring Kenya after torrential rain hit the capital, Nairobi, and other areas on Friday.

Mudslides and floods caused by heavy rainfall are common in Ethiopia, especially during the rainy season.

In July 2024, a deadly mudslide caused by heavy rain killed more than 250 people in southern Ethiopia.

Multiple studies have tracked the increasing frequency of extreme wet and dry periods in East Africa in the last 20 years.

Scientists have long warned that human-driven climate change is increasing the likelihood, length and severity of severe weather events such as torrential downpours.

The surge in oil prices triggered by the war in Iran is increasingly becoming a major concern for global central banks, which are closely monitoring the potential economic and financial consequences of the shock.

More than a week of conflict in the Middle East has disrupted energy supply routes and pushed crude prices sharply higher, raising fresh fears about inflation. For policymakers already grappling with fragile economic conditions, the oil spike presents a complex policy dilemma.

Historically, oil shocks have posed a difficult challenge for central banks. Rising energy prices can drive inflation higher while simultaneously weakening consumer spending and business activity by raising costs. In such circumstances, policymakers face an uncomfortable choice: tighten policy to control inflation or ease financial conditions to support economic growth and employment.

The current situation could potentially produce both outcomes at once, creating a scenario where inflation rises even as economic demand weakens a combination that complicates monetary policy decisions.

Inflation Versus Economic Growth

Central banks traditionally respond to inflationary pressures by raising interest rates or maintaining tighter monetary policy. Some policymakers argue that responding quickly to inflation triggered by an oil shock can prevent inflation expectations from becoming entrenched and reduce longer-term economic damage.

Others, however, advocate “looking through” temporary energy-driven price spikes, arguing that aggressive tightening could unnecessarily damage economic growth. This approach gained prominence after the pandemic, when many central banks initially viewed inflation as temporary a judgment widely criticised in hindsight.

The decision facing policymakers now depends on several uncertainties, including how long the conflict lasts, how severely energy supplies are disrupted, and whether governments intervene with subsidies or price caps to protect consumers.

Given these unknowns, many central banks may prefer to adopt a cautious approach, waiting to see how markets and economic conditions evolve before making significant policy adjustments.

Financial Stability Risks Enter the Picture

Beyond inflation and growth concerns, central banks must also consider a third responsibility that has gained prominence since the global financial crisis: financial stability.

Senior policymakers worry that the oil shock could expose vulnerabilities that have been building in global financial markets for years. A large macroeconomic disturbance involving energy prices, inflation, interest rates and currency volatility could trigger a broader financial stress event.

Much of the concern centres on the growing role of “shadow banking” institutions, financial intermediaries operating outside traditional banking regulation. These entities have become increasingly important providers of credit to companies and governments.

One major area of focus is the rapid expansion of private credit funds, which now manage more than $3 trillion globally. These funds allow asset managers to lend directly to businesses, often outside the scrutiny of public markets or traditional banking standards.

Regulators worry that during a major shock, investors could rapidly withdraw funds from these vehicles, potentially creating liquidity problems for borrowers and spillover risks for banks that help finance or manage the funds.

Pressure in Bond and Repo Markets

Another major source of concern lies in government bond markets, where highly leveraged hedge funds have become increasingly active. Many of these funds use repurchase agreements, or “repo” markets, to borrow money and finance large trades involving government bonds.

These strategies often rely on exploiting small price differences between cash bonds and futures contracts, but they involve substantial leverage. While such activity can help smooth government financing, it can also create systemic vulnerabilities during periods of market stress.

The Financial Stability Board, which monitors risks to the global financial system for the G20, warned earlier this year that sudden deleveraging in repo markets could disrupt sovereign bond markets.

More than $16 trillion in repo transactions backed by government bonds were outstanding last year, with about 60% concentrated in the United States. A sudden withdrawal of leveraged investors could therefore have significant ripple effects across global financial markets.

New Fragilities: Stablecoins and Technology Stocks

Regulators are also monitoring emerging risks linked to digital finance. Stablecoins cryptocurrencies pegged to traditional currencies such as the U.S. dollar have grown rapidly and are increasingly investing reserves in government bonds.

With the stablecoin market now worth roughly $300 billion and expanding, any loss of confidence in these assets could trigger large-scale sales of the bonds that back them. Such an event could add stress to already volatile financial markets.

At the same time, some investors remain concerned about high valuations and heavy market concentration in the rapidly growing artificial intelligence sector, which could amplify market volatility during periods of economic uncertainty.

Analysis: Oil Shock Could Trigger Wider Financial Stress

The Iran war oil shock illustrates how geopolitical crises can interact with financial vulnerabilities to create broader economic risks.

Higher energy prices directly increase inflation and strain household finances. At the same time, they can force central banks to reconsider interest-rate policies, potentially leading to higher borrowing costs and greater volatility in financial markets.

Such conditions could expose weaknesses in highly leveraged sectors of the financial system, particularly in shadow banking, hedge funds and digital financial markets.

Although previous shocks including the economic turmoil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine did not ultimately trigger a major financial crisis, policymakers remain cautious. The brief turmoil in the U.S. regional banking sector in 2023 demonstrated how quickly financial stress can emerge when economic conditions shift.

If oil prices remain elevated and central banks are forced to respond aggressively, the resulting tightening of financial conditions could amplify existing vulnerabilities across markets.

For now, the disturbances appear manageable. But the combination of geopolitical conflict, energy market disruption and financial fragility ensures that central banks will continue to watch the situation with increasing concern.

With information from Reuters.

British Armed Forces assets continue to flow into Cyprus, as the United Kingdom bolsters its military presence in the eastern Mediterranean in response to the war in the Middle East. While the British government has not taken part in direct military action against targets within Iran, the expanding conflict has also put Cyprus under direct threat. Meanwhile, the rush to bolster the U.K.’s military capabilities in the region has highlighted some glaring deficits in the British Armed Forces.

The British military response to the conflict in the Middle East has centered on the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, which has long been home to a U.K. Armed Forces presence. As well as providing a ‘landing pad’ for British forces operating in the region, for example, during the counter-ISIS mission, Cyprus has long been used by the British for training and exercises. The so-called Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus comprise the airbase of RAF Akrotiri and Dhekelia Station (a former airfield), which have been in British hands since the Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960.

Fighter assets

Before the Iran war began, eight Royal Air Force Typhoon multirole fighters were already deployed to Akrotiri, where they were still operating on the U.K. counter-ISIS mission, Operation Shader. Other U.K. Armed Forces personnel were also in Iraq under Shader.

In the wider region, there was also an existing RAF Typhoon footprint in Qatar, where a squadron of the jets is operated jointly with the Qatar Emir Air Force. This unit was strengthened in January, when another four Typhoons deployed there from the United Kingdom, specifically for air defense.

In February, six RAF F-35B Lightnings were sent to Akrotiri in Cyprus, joining the Typhoons already deployed there.

As Iran and its proxies have launched drones and missiles at countries across the region, the U.K. Armed Forces have been active in intercepting drones (and potentially also cruise missiles).

The real wakeup call came overnight on March 1, when a drone launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon hit Akrotiri. There were no reported casualties and only “minimal damage,” although this was, significantly, an impact that tore a hole in the hangar used by the U.S. Air Force U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes that are also regularly detached to Cyprus. Two more drones heading toward Cyprus were reportedly intercepted the same day.

Another two drones heading for Cyprus were intercepted on March 4, according to a Cypriot government spokesperson.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense has confirmed that the four Typhoons in Qatar, as well as the Cyprus-based F-35Bs, have since been active in bringing down hostile drones. The F-35B achieved its first air-to-air victories in British hands when one of the fighters shot down a pair of Iranian drones, announced on March 3.

The pilot involved in that historic engagement was a Royal Navy aviator embedded within the RAF’s joint-force No. 617 Squadron, the “Dambusters.”

The pilot fired two infrared-guided Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (ASRAAM) in the space of 20 minutes, each from a range of less than a mile, to destroy the Shahed-type drones over Jordan. They subsequently told The Telegraph:

“Your adrenaline is pumping pretty hard, you’re working down low at night above the desert in unfamiliar terrain. Emotionally, those things get pushed aside in the moment. It’s not until after landing that it begins to settle in.”

Lt. Col. Mike Carty, commanding officer of No. 617 Squadron, added: “The tempo of flying here is greater than anything the Lightning Force has embarked upon before. The sheer amount of sorties and flying hours is quite high. People are being stretched and working incredibly hard, but nobody is under any particular strain. We are set up here to be able to sustain this.”

The continued threat posed by Iranian drones and cruise missiles has also seen the decision made to send another four Typhoons to Qatar. RAF Typhoons have also successfully shot down drones targeting Bahrain, Jordan, and Qatar.

Destroyer deployment

The United Kingdom has also elected to beef up its defensive capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean with the deployment of a Type 45 destroyer. This was the subject of considerable debate before it was finally announced that HMS Dragon would sail for the region. The warship departed yesterday for a voyage that will take around 10 days.

However, the Type 45 is the United Kingdom’s most balanced and capable air defense platform, at least against drones and cruise missiles.

HMS Dragon has begun her journey to the eastern Mediterranean to join the UK’s defensive operations in the region.

Hundreds of well-wishers, including loved ones of the ship’s crew, lined the seawall as the ship sailed from Portsmouth.

🔗https://t.co/xQqazM6Mcd pic.twitter.com/ScskyAu0CF

— Royal Navy (@RoyalNavy) March 10, 2026

The basic Type 45’s weapons fit includes Aster 30 missiles fired from the Sea Viper system, which represents the Royal Navy’s outer air defense layer. According to the Royal Navy, the Sea Viper is able to track “hundreds” of potential threats to an individual ship or task group at ranges up to 250 miles, using Aster 30 missiles to eliminate them when they close to “around 70 miles.” Other sources suggest the Mach-3 missile has a range of more than 75 miles.

There is also the Aster 15 with a range of around 18 miles, optimizing it for close-in and local-area and point defense. For aerial threats even closer to the warship, the Type 45 can call upon a pair of Phalanx close-in weapon systems (CIWS) armed with 20mm ‘Gatling’ cannons, 30mm guns, and various machine guns.

When it comes to ballistic missile defense, the Type 45 is much more limited, however.

While HMS Diamond did shoot down one of the Houthis’ anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) in 2024, this is an easier threat to deal with than the medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) that Iran is currently launching toward Israel.

“Smoke” (infrared) decoy employment aftermath seen from HMS Diamond’s bridge during the ballistic missile engagement. One of the decoy launchers can be seen beneath the 30mm gun sponson, loaded with the by now familiar mix including Chemring Large Payload Carriers. pic.twitter.com/1TgWrgrDzP

— Gabriele Molinelli (@Gabriel64869839) April 26, 2024

Also in 2024, the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced that it would invest around $515 million to upgrade Sea Viper, making it “even more lethal against new and growing threats from hostile drones and missiles.”

Under the upgrade, the Aster 30 missile will be modernized to improve its capabilities against ASBMs, with an enhanced warhead plus new guidance and seeker software. The upgrade will also address the Sampson multi-function radar as well as the command-and-control system and combat management system.

A second phase will see the evaluation of a new missile, the Aster 30 Block 1NT, currently under development by France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. This missile features a new seeker, which would further improve the ballistic missile defense capabilities of the Type 45. In particular, Block 1NT will be better equipped to intercept MRBMs carrying maneuverable reentry vehicles (MaRVs), which you can read more about here.

However, these upgrades are yet to be fielded.

More generally, there have long been questions about the availability of the Type 45s, despite their undoubted capabilities. These six vessels are still very modern, but they have spent a notably long time in maintenance. Typically, only two are actually available to deploy at any given time. With one of the warships normally earmarked for the North Atlantic and Russia, and another needed to escort one of the U.K. aircraft carriers when that is at sea, there is very little capacity left to play with.

This also brings us to the question of the two British aircraft carriers of the Queen Elizabeth class. With the war entering its second week, HMS Prince of Wales appeared poised to deploy, with the crew at five days’ notice to sail. Earlier this week, however, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman gave the following statement: “HMS Prince of Wales has always been on very high readiness. The MoD is increasing the preparedness of the carrier — reducing the time it would take to set sail for any deployment — but there is no decision taken to deploy her.”

Critics of the hugely costly aircraft carrier program might ask why these warships, which are designed to respond to just this kind of crisis, are being held back.

U.S. President Donald Trump also used the lack of carrier deployment as a stick with which to beat the U.K. government. On his Truth Social platform, Trump said that the United States did not need Britain’s carriers in the conflict and suggested they would have been useful had they deployed before the war began.

Short-range air defense

To help cover short-range air defense over Cyprus, the United Kingdom has deployed two Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters armed with Martlet missiles. On the plus side, each helicopter can carry up to 20 of these missiles, which are ideal for bringing down drones. On the other hand, the missiles have a range of only around five miles, and with just two ‘cabs’ available, the Wildcat deployment is really only capable of providing limited point defense.

With that in mind, it’s somewhat surprising that the British Army hasn’t deployed any of its Sky Sabre short-range air defense systems to Cyprus, or anywhere else in the region. The Sky Sabre is intended to bring down aircraft, as well as drones and cruise missiles. However, it’s unclear how many batteries are currently deployable. One is stationed in the Falkland Islands, and another has been deployed on NATO’s eastern flank, in Poland, and the 12 batteries on order are still being delivered.

The Sky Sabre fires the Common Anti-Air Modular Missile, or CAMM, also known as the Land Ceptor. The same CAMM missile is also used in naval applications — including aboard Royal Navy warships — as the Sea Ceptor. Fitted with an active-radar seeker, the CAMM is derived from the aforementioned ASRAAM. The CAAM has a reported range of more than 15 miles and is said to be able to tackle a wide range of threats, including low-observable targets, high-speed missiles, drones, and precision-guided air-to-ground weapons.

Meanwhile, the ability to surveil the airspace around Cyprus received an upgrade yesterday with the arrival of a Royal Navy Merlin HM2 Crowsnest helicopter, with airborne surveillance and control (ASaC) capabilities.

The Merlin brings a look-down sensor capability, making it something of a ‘pocket’ version of the E-7 Wedgetail. From altitude, the radar has an excellent field of view to spot low and slow-flying targets, even if they are relatively small. This makes it especially useful for tracking drones and cruise missiles.

Other British counter-drone units have also been active in the wider region.

Few details have been provided, but these are likely to consist of non-kinetic systems (like the ORCUS) and man-portable air defense systems (like the Starstreak missile) used by troops who have a limited presence in Jordan and Iraq, where they have been since before the Iran war began.

Overall, though, the conflict has highlighted the somewhat limited nature of U.K. ground-based air defense capabilities.

More generally, the deployments so far, in a purely defensive capacity, have raised concerns about the breadth, depth, and readiness of U.K. military power and its relevance in international affairs.

The question of “going kinetic”

The United Kingdom initially denied permission for the U.S. military to use its airbases — including Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — for strikes against Iran, as we discussed at the time. This was soon revised, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying his government had agreed to a U.S. request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes.

Were the British stance to change, it is questionable whether RAF jets, as currently deployed, would be able to make a significant contribution, based on their small numbers, their other taskings, and the long distance to targets in Iran.

According to an assessment by the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think-tank, realistically, the fighter force at Akrotiri would only have been able to fly 28 strike sorties against Iran, had they been committed to Operation Epic Fury. This is very much a best-case scenario, and would also have required significant tanker support.

A British offensive campaign against Iran would otherwise rely primarily upon the Royal Navy, which operates nuclear-powered attack submarines that can launch Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM). However, this is a capability that has suffered from poor availability in recent years. Currently, only one of five in-service Astute class submarines, HMS Anson, is at sea, and it was in the Indo-Pacific region as of January.

So far, however, the U.K. government has held back from committing to any kind of direct offensive action against Iran, although there have been voices raised across the political spectrum urging that the United Kingdom should back the United States more actively, including taking part in strikes. Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, berated Starmer this week for not doing more to “stop the people who are attacking us” and said the U.K. Armed Forces should “do more than catch the arrows” and should “catch the archer” — a reference to striking missile and drone facilities directly.

For the time being, the U.K. Armed Forces, ravaged by decades of post-Cold War cuts, are bringing some useful but fairly limited in capacity air defense capabilities to the region. Should the U.K. government’s policy regarding Iran become aligned with that of the United States, then much more serious questions will be answered about the relevance and resilience of British military power in an operation of this kind.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

As the Operation Epic Fury joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran moves into its 12th day, Tehran is intensifying its campaign against shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz. At least three commercial ships were struck today, according to a British monitoring organization.

Each were hit in separate incidents by an “unknown projectile,” according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a monitoring agency that is part of the U.K. Royal Navy. One was a cargo ship traveling north of Oman. Another was a bulk carrier hit north of Dubai. The third was a container vessel struck near Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, The Washington Post noted.

Since Epic Fury was launched on Feb. 28, UKMTO “has received 17 reports of incidents affecting vessels operating in and around the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz (SOH) and Gulf of Oman,” the organization stated. That figure includes 13 attacks and four suspicious incident reports.

Iran said it is increasing these attacks to serve as an economic weapon against the U.S., Israel and allies.

The U.S. “will not be able to control oil prices,” the spokesperson for Tehran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters vowed on Wednesday.

“We won’t allow even one liter of oil to reach the U.S., Zionists and their partners,”  Ebrahim Zolfaqari proclaimed. “Any vessel or tanker bound to them will be a legitimate target.”

“Get ready for the oil barrel to be at $200 because the oil price depends on the regional security which you have destabilized,” Zolfaqari added.

As one example of market volatility, Brent Crude was trading at just over $90 a barrel as of Wednesday morning Eastern Day Light time, according to OilPrice.com. The prices have fluctuated wildly, surging to a recent high of more than $116 a barrel on March 8 and dropping to a little more than $84 a barrel yesterday.

🚨Iran is threatening to not allow ships through the Strait of Hormuz, also saying they will force oil to $200 per barrel.

“Not a single liter of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz for the benefit of the U.S., Israel, or their partners.”

pic.twitter.com/AdabOT8t3Q

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 11, 2026

Even as it cuts off the Strait for others, Iran is “exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war, showing it is in control of a strategic waterway that it has closed off to the rest of the region’s oil producers,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Iran is exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war, showing it is in control of a strategic waterway that it has closed off to the rest of the region’s oil producers https://t.co/CeZTClmHBa

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 11, 2026

The world’s biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Qatar hasn’t exported a shipment for five days, Bloomberg News reported. It marks the longest streak in data going back to 2008.

“A loaded tanker hasn’t left the Ras Laffan facility in five days,” according to a Bloomberg analysis of Kpler ship-tracking data. “No LNG ship traversed the Strait of Hormuz after Feb. 28, when the US and Israel began strikes on Iran.”

The unprecedented closure of the liquefaction plant, which supplies nearly 20% of the world’s LNG, came after an Iranian drone attack early last week — resulting in a jump in gas prices in Europe and Asia, the news organization noted. Ras Laffan did load a handful of shipments after stopping output, likely using fuel from storage tanks, the last of which was on Friday.

The world’s biggest LNG export plant in Qatar hasn’t exported a shipment for five days — the longest streak in data going back to 2008 — threatening to further boost prices for the fuel https://t.co/BKFTpIV0dH

— Bloomberg (@business) March 11, 2026

Two pipelines were built – one in Saudi Arabia, the other in UAE – just to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. This conflict, The Wall Street Journal posited, has highlighted their importance since they are the only ways to get a significant amount of oil out of the Persian Gulf and into world markets.

The blockage in the Strait of Hormuz has suddenly made Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure in the world https://t.co/6bwxev9vKc

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 11, 2026

Iran’s closure of the Strait to most foreign shipping has thrown the world energy market into chaos, causing oil and gas prices to fluctuate dramatically.

“Japan, Germany and Austria will release oil from their strategic reserves in response to disruptions in the supply from the Middle East, officials in those countries said on Wednesday,” according to the Post. “They made the announcements hours before a meeting of leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized nations, including the United States, to discuss jointly releasing oil in consultation with the International Energy Agency.”

Japan will begin releasing oil from its reserves as early as Monday to offset disruptions in Middle Eastern supply, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Wednesday in Tokyo.

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 11, 2026

The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Wednesday agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil to address the supply disruption triggered by the Iran war, the largest such action in the organization’s history, CNBC reported.

“The IEA did not set out a timeline for when the stocks would hit the market,” the news outlet noted. “It said that the reserves would be released over a timeframe that is appropriate to the circumstances of each of its 32 member countries.”

The U.S., meanwhile, has yet to tap into its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a network of salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana that can hold up to 714 million barrels of crude.

PARIS/LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) – The International Energy Agency is to recommend the release of 400 million barrels of oil, the largest such move in IEA history, to try to restrain soaring crude prices amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) March 11, 2026

Iran is not preventing all ships from passing through the Strait. Tehran has agreed to provide Bangladeshi oil vessels with safe passage. The move comes as the Bangladesh government has intensified efforts to maintain a stable fuel supply through multiple strategic measures amid escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Bangladesh has sought assurances from Iran for the safe passage of its oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG)-carrying vessels through the Strait of Hormuz as escalating conflict in the Middle East threatens one of the world’s most critical energy shipping routes.

Iran has officially agreed to grant safe passage to Bangladeshi oil and LNG vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. Under the new agreement, Bangladeshi ships must notify Iranian authorities before entering the strategic waterway to ensure secure transit.

The move comes… pic.twitter.com/24spSuaLKl

— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) March 11, 2026

Some vessels are also using their AIS system to identify as Chinese owned, shipping expert Sal Mercogliano noted. Iran’s closure of the Strait does not pertain to Chinese-owned ships.

The Marshal Islands-bulker KSL Laiyang is running the Strait.

She is broadcasting on AIS “China Owners & Crew”.

This is EXACTLY what we saw happen in the Red Sea against the Houthis. Expect to see more of this. pic.twitter.com/LSCESnEDKI

— Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) 🚢⚓🐪🚒🏴‍☠️ (@mercoglianos) March 10, 2026

The New York Times claimed that Iran’s ongoing attacks on shipping, as well as its continuing missile and drone barrages are an example of how the Trump administration miscalculated Iran’s response to Epic Fury.

The Trump administration has said it will send U.S. Navy warships to escort commercial vessels through the Strait, but that plan has yet to be implemented. Such a deployment would put American warships at far greater risk than they are facing now at standoff distances from Iran. It remains unclear how much longer Epic Fury will continue. The longer it does, however, the more Iran can bring economic pain around the globe with even just threats against Strait shipping. The Iranian attacks have led to Trump proposing that the U.S. provide political risk insurance for seaborne trade in the Gulf. “However, Lloyd’s of London, the heart of maritime insurance globally, emphasizes it has not stopped providing contracts to those who ask – although at the right tariff,” The Guardian reported.

Though no escorts have been set up, the U.S. is continuing to strike Iran’s Navy, including the sinking of the last of Iran’s Soleimani class catamaran warships, the head of U.S. Central Command said in a video statement on Wednesday morning.

“To date, we have struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran, including more than 60 ships using a variety of precision weapon systems,” Adm. Brad Cooper said in a video. “Just yesterday, we had strike waves nearly every hour from different locations and directions going into Iran. We also took out the last of four Soleimani class warships. That’s an entire class of Iranian ships now out of the fight.”

Cooper did not name which of the catamarans was hit, but the video shows one from the Soleimani class and one from a smaller class. The hull number on the smaller ship – PC313-01 – indicates it was the IRIS Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. The ship was unveiled in a ceremony at Bandar Abbas in January 2024, the Iranian Press TV news outlet reported at the time.

U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Cory Hicks told ABC News about the Iranian drone attack on a command center in Kuwait that killed six soldiers on March 1.

Sgt. First Class Cory Hicks described the horrific moment a drone struck a U.S. command center in Kuwait and killed six service members: “I turned to my right, and that’s when it blew up and just blew the whole building apart.”

What You Need to Know is streaming on @DisneyPlus.… pic.twitter.com/7Zf0WQLYIp

— ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2026

The deadly attack was more severe than previously known, with dozens of troops suffering injuries that included brain trauma, burns and severe injuries from shrapnel, according to CBS News.

NEWS via @CBSNews: An Iranian drone attack in Kuwait that killed U.S. service members in the early hours of the war with Iran was more severe than previously known, with dozens suffering injuries that included brain trauma, shrapnel trauma and burns, per sources. More than 30…

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 11, 2026

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “safe and sound” despite war injuries, Yousef Pezeshkian, a government adviser and the son of Iran’s president, claimed on Wednesday.

“I heard news that Mr Mojtaba Khamenei had been injured. I have asked some friends who had connections,” Pezeshkian stated on Telegram. “They told me that, thank God, he is safe and sound.”

State television had called Khamenei, 56, a “wounded veteran of the Ramadan war” but never specified his injury.

BREAKING Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “safe and sound” despite reports of an injury during the war with Israel and the United States, the son of the Iranian president said on Wednesday pic.twitter.com/97ofF4dS1G

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) March 11, 2026

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has threatened to attack “economic centers and banks” related to United States and Israeli entities in the region after what it called an attack on an Iranian bank, Al Jazeera reported.

A spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters, a group described as IRGC-owned by the United Nations, said on Wednesday that “the enemy left our hands open to targeting economic centres and banks belonging to the United States and the Zionist regime in the region.”

To the people of Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait: Do not remain within one kilometer of banks

Khatam al‑Anbiya Headquarters spokesperson: After the U.S. and Israeli attack on an Iranian bank, we are now free to target U.S. and Israeli economic centers and banks across the region.

— IRAN MILITARY ☫ (@IranMilitaryEN) March 11, 2026

The warning came after a reported attack on a Bank Sepah branch north of Iran, which is said to have killed many putting in extra hours ahead of the Persian New Year.

The Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense HQs warns people in the entire region to stay away for 1km from banks after American-Zionists attacked a Bank Sepah branch in north of Tehran, killing a lot of personnel working extra hours ahead of Persian New Year. pic.twitter.com/JYcAaCQlLI

— Fereshteh Sadeghi فرشته صادقی 🟩 ☫ 🟥 (@fresh_sadegh) March 11, 2026

Iranian officials claimed to have hit several other U.S. targets in the region on Wednesday.

(Reuters) – The Iranian military said on Tuesday it had launched missiles at a U.S. base in northern Iraq, the U.S. naval headquarters for the Middle East in Bahrain, and at Be’er Ya’akov city in central Israel.

Explosions rang out in Bahrain, while in Dubai four people were…

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) March 11, 2026

IDF Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir claimed that “many thousands” of Iranian soldiers and commanders have been killed so far in this war.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir says “many thousands” of Iranian soldiers and commanders have been killed in Israeli strikes in Iran, warning that “no one is immune.”

“We are in a campaign that is deepening the damage to the Iranian regime and its foundations and pushing… pic.twitter.com/0C5XvjBFTy

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 11, 2026

The IDF released new video showing airstrikes on what it claims were Iranian troops preparing to launch drones.

The IDF releases footage showing airstrikes on Iranian soldiers who were preparing to launch drones at Israel from western Iran this week.

According to the military, the Iranian soldiers were identified on Monday at a drone launching site. A short while later, an Israeli Air… pic.twitter.com/XRWXO7YVaq

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 11, 2026

The IDF completed another wave of strikes in Dahiyeh in Beirut against what it claims were Hezbollah command centers and weapons storage sites. IDF said it issued a warning to residents before the attacks and also struck a Hezbollah command post in the coastal area of Tyre.

צה”ל השלים גל תקיפות נוסף בביירות

הבוקר , צה”ל השלים גל תקיפות נוסף בדאחייה שבביירות נגד מפקדות טרור ואתרים בהם אוכסנו אמצעי לחימה של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה.

בנוסף, צה”ל תקף אתמול , מפקדה של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב צור שבלבנון.

טרם התקיפות ננקטו צעדים כדי לצמצם את הסיכוי… pic.twitter.com/9nx1X4ZCJ2

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) March 11, 2026

The IDF justified the strike by claiming the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy is hiding missiles, drones and other weapons in the heart of the Dahieh neighborhood in Beirut.

INTELLIGENCE REVEALS: Hezbollah is hiding its strategic weapons in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut, beneath the residential buildings of Lebanese residents. These are missiles, drones and additional weapons funded by the Iranian terror regime and designed to harm Israeli…

— LTC Nadav Shoshani (@LTC_Shoshani) March 10, 2026

The owner of this white pickup may be the luckiest person in the Middle East. Video emerged on social media showing Lebanese Army troops removing an unexploded bomb from the vehicle’s cargo bed.

Faced with growing threats from Hezbollah, Zamir ordered the Golani Brigade to be transferred from the Southern Command to operations in the Northern Command sector.

Zamir added that a decision will be made regarding additional reinforcements.

🚨NEW: The IDF says Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has ordered significant reinforcements to Israel’s northern front, shifting the Golani Brigade combat team from the south to Northern Command following a new operational assessment.

The move comes amid developments in…

— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) March 11, 2026

In a post on X, the UAE Defense Ministry (MoD) said its air defenses “are currently dealing with missile attacks and incoming drones originating from Iran, and the Ministry of Defense confirms that the sounds heard in scattered areas of the country are the result of the air defense systems intercepting ballistic missiles, as well as fighter jets intercepting drones and loitering munitions.”

تتعامل حالياً الدفاعات الجوية الإماراتية مع اعتداءات صاروخية وطائرات مسيرة قادمة من إيران وتؤكد وزارة الدفاع أن الأصوات المسموعة في مناطق متفرقة من الدولة هي نتيجة اعتراض كل من منظومات الدفاع الجوي للصواريخ البالستية، والمقاتلات للطائرات المسيرة والجوالة.

UAE air defences are… pic.twitter.com/aa5b1gw7vh

— وزارة الدفاع |MOD UAE (@modgovae) March 11, 2026

Reuters posted a photograph on X of a building in Manama, Bahrain, reportedly damaged by an Iranian drone strike.

A building damaged in a reported Iranian drone strike, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Seef, Manama, Bahrain, March 10, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer pic.twitter.com/luPTavYyJT

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) March 11, 2026

With Bahrain also being battered by Iranian attacks, Gulf Air has relocated its fleet of aircraft from there to Saudi Arabia, according to Al Jazeera.

Iranian Armed Forces spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi “called on regional Muslims and countries to reveal the locations of U.S. and Israeli military assets to enable Tehran to conduct more accurate attacks,” the Jerusalem Post reported, citing official Iranian media.

Shekarchi also framed the request as a way to ensure the safety of the people in the region.

“I call on the Muslim people of the region and the countries of the region to show us the hideouts of US and Zionist forces so that they themselves will not be harmed, and so that we can strike them more precisely,” Shekarchi proclaimed.

Iranian Armed Forces spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi called on regional Muslims and countries to reveal the locations of US and Israeli military assets to enable Tehran to conduct more accurate attacks.https://t.co/YSSDWmIZ8s

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) March 11, 2026

In the wake of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack, The New York Times “has identified at least 17 damaged U.S. sites and other installations, several of which have been struck more than once since the war began,” the publication reported. “Our analysis is based on high-resolution, commercial satellite imagery, verified social media videos and statements by U.S. officials and Iranian state media.”

U.S. Air Force maintainers can be seen in the X post below loading weapons onto B-1B Lancer bombers, which have arrived at Fairford Air Base in the U.K.

US Airforce ground crew work under hatches of a B1 Lancer at RAF Fairford today. What appear to be cruise missiles sit by the warplane. Three B1 bombers returned this morning, on what is believed to be the first attack on Iran from a British base during this conflict. @AJENews pic.twitter.com/80YkxHL5rT

— Richard Gaisford (@richardgaisford) March 11, 2026

Romanian President Nicusor Dan said that U.S. refueling planes, monitoring equipment and satellite communications systems can use his country’s military bases.

BUCHAREST, March 11 (Reuters) – American refueling planes, monitoring equipment and satellite communications could use Romanian military bases during the U.S.’ offensive in Iran, Romanian President Nicusor Dan said on Wednesday.

— Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) March 11, 2026

Turkey has reportedly deployed an ASELSAN’s ŞAHİN 40mm anti-drone system to Northern Cyprus, where it is now operational to defend against low-flying mini and micro UAVs using airburst smart grenades.

Türkiye deployed ASELSAN’s ŞAHİN 40mm anti-drone system to Northern Cyprus, where it is now operational to defend against low-flying mini and micro UAVs using airburst smart grenades. pic.twitter.com/HT641qe6w7

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 11, 2026

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claims that Russia may send troops to Iran. That would be in addition to the support Moscow is already providing in the form of drones and air defenses, Zelensky said. He added that Russia will likely send missiles in the not-far-off future.

Ukraine, which has long sought interceptors to help fend off waves of Russian missile and drone attacks, took to social media to note the discrepancy in how much it has been supplied over the course of four years versus how much the U.S. and allies have used during 11 days of Epic Fury.

800 Patriot missiles were used for air defense in just 3 days in the Middle East. Ukraine received 600 in 4 years of full-scale war.

Russia, Iran and North Korea form a new Axis of Evil. Ukraine was the first to confront this Axis. We continue to fight, but we need support.

The… pic.twitter.com/wUQVn9gSVK

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 10, 2026

Add Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to the list of world leaders proclaiming that an Ayatollah-led regime in Iran should never obtain nuclear weapons.

Italy’s Meloni on Iran:

We cannot afford an Ayatollah regime in possession of a nuclear weapon, combined, moreover, with a missile capability that could soon be able to directly strike Italy and Europe. pic.twitter.com/gdQE6HlckA

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 11, 2026

UPDATES:

We have concluded our rolling coverage in this piece.

UPDATE: 5:11 PM EST –

Video has emerged showing a reported attack on an oil tanker near Iraq. Information at this point is scarce. The Ambrey martime security firm said it is investigating the matter.

The U.S. used as much as $4 billion worth of munitions in the first 72 hours of its attacks against Iran, including about 400 cruise missiles and 800 air defense interceptors, Bloomberg News reported, citing estimates from German defense giant Rheinmetall AG.

“The numbers, released in the company’s earnings presentation on Wednesday, were drawn from ‘publicly available sources and in-house assumptions,’ the slides said,” according to the news outlet. “Other reports have put the munitions cost for the first two days of the conflict higher, at as much as $5.6 billion.”

The US used as much as $4 billion worth of munitions in the first 72 hours of its attacks against Iran, including about 400 cruise missiles and 800 air defense interceptors, according to estimates from German defense giant Rheinmetall https://t.co/7xiR8WNbtM

— Bloomberg (@business) March 11, 2026

Trump said that he picked the name Epic Fury from a list of about 20 and that the U.S. has already won.

“You know, you can only do it if you win — and we’ve won,” the American leader proclaimed. “Let me say: we’ve won. You never like to say it too early, but we won the bet in the first hour. It was over.”

Trump on Iran:

Operation Epic Fury — is that a great name? Well, it’s only good if you win.

You know, you can only do it if you win — and we’ve won. Let me say: we’ve won. You never like to say it too early, but we won the bet in the first hour. It was over.

They gave me a… pic.twitter.com/AJOEGY08Eq

— Clash Report (@clashreport) March 11, 2026

Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system “could not stop about half the 100 rockets Hezbollah launched at Israel just a few hours ago,” New York Post reporter Caitlin Doornbos posted on X.

Exclusive: The Iron Dome could not stop about half the 100 rockets Hezbollah launched at Israel just a few hours ago.

— Caitlin Doornbos (@CaitlinDoornbos) March 11, 2026

The leaders of the G7 group of nations – the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Britain, Germany and France – “agreed to examine the option of providing escort for ships so they can navigate freely in the Gulf,” according to a statement from the G7 Presidency on Wednesday.

(Reuters) – The leaders of the G7 group of nations – the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Britain, Germany and France – agreed to examine the option of providing escort for ships so they can navigate freely in the Gulf, said a statement from the G7 Presidency on Wednesday.…

— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) March 11, 2026

Despite threats from the regime to stay home, anti-government protestors are reportedly continuing to take to the streets in Iran demanding change.

For 12 consecutive night, without missing a single day, Iranian people have hit the streets to express their anger over Israel/US attacks on Iran & its leader.

They express support for armed forces & demand harsh revenge.

Video from Urumia, 11 PM. https://t.co/GfIhLwFnzZ pic.twitter.com/w0RAIdrxXm

— Arya Yadeghaar (@AryJeay) March 11, 2026

The U.K. Defense Ministry (MoD) provided its latest update on Middle East operations.

The UAE MoD said its air defenses “dealt with 6 ballistic missiles, 7 cruise missiles, and 39 drones coming from Iran” today. “Since the start of the brazen Iranian aggression, UAE air defenses have dealt with 268 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles, and 1,514 drones.”

الدفاعات الجوية الإماراتية تتعامل مع 6 صواريخ باليستية و7 صواريخ جوالة و 39 طائرة مسيرة.

تعاملت الدفاعات الجوية الإماراتية (11 مارس 2026) مع 6 صواريخ باليستية، و7 صواريخ جوالة، و 39 طائرة مسيرة قادمة من إيران.

ومنذ بدء الاعتداء الإيراني السافر تعاملت الدفاعات الجوية… pic.twitter.com/8BV5VPkwaE

— وزارة الدفاع |MOD UAE (@modgovae) March 11, 2026

UPDATE: 4:48 PM EST –

The IRGC posted video it claims shows missile launches toward U.S., Israeli and allied military bases housing American forces in the region.

Iran’s IRGC published footage of its missile launches towards “Israel” and US bases.

The missiles include Qadr, Emad, Kheybar Shekan, and Fattah missiles against targets in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and US bases in the region such as the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan & Prince Sultan… pic.twitter.com/Jkb8JRO04q

— Arya Yadeghaar (@AryJeay) March 11, 2026

Kuwaiti air defenses are currently confronting hostile missile and drone attacks, the nation’s army announced on X. 

“The General Staff of the Army notes that if explosion sounds are heard, they are the result of air defense systems intercepting the hostile attacks,” the announcement added.

تتصدى حالياً الدفاعات الجوية الكويتية لهجمات صاروخية وطائرات مسيرة معادية.

تنوه رئاسة الأركان العامة للجيش أن أصوات الانفجارات إن سمعت فهي نتيجة اعتراض منظومات الدفاع الجوي للهجمات المعادية.

يرجى من الجميع التقيد بتعليمات الأمن والسلامة الصادرة عن الجهات المختصة.… pic.twitter.com/vFiXjuXdXP

— KUWAIT ARMY – الجيش الكويتي (@KuwaitArmyGHQ) March 11, 2026

UPDATE: 4:18 PM EST –

Three Ukrainian teams of military personnel and engineers have gone to the Middle East to help the U.S. and allies in the fight against Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on X.

After four years of fending off daily bombardment by Russian missiles and drones, Ukraine has a lot of hardearned expertise to share.

Three Ukrainian teams have gone to the Middle East. Strong teams – with experts, military personnel, and engineers. The military are already communicating and working today. The NSDC Secretary, Rustem Umerov, has arrived in the UAE today to discuss areas of cooperation. He will…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 11, 2026

Al Jazeera said a senior Iranian military official claimed that if “Washington commits a strategic mistake, another strait will be in a situation similar to the Strait of Hormuz,” the publication posted on X. “The region may enter a regional war soon, and we still have many cards to play. Any American mistake will complicate the situation in the region, and Iran has phased and graduated military plans.”

#عاجل| مسؤول عسكري إيراني رفيع للجزيرة: إذا ارتكبت واشنطن خطأ استراتيجيا فإن مضيقا آخر سيكون في وضع مماثل لمضيق هرمز
– المنطقة قد تدخل حربا إقليمية قريبا ولا تزال لدينا أوراق عديدة لاستعمالها
– أي خطأ أمريكي سيعقد الوضع في المنطقة ولدى #إيران خطط عسكرية مرحلية ومتدرجة pic.twitter.com/gLm38EUy4D

— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) March 11, 2026

Video is emerging on social media claiming to show Tehran under a large drone attack.

Holy sh*t

Drones are flying all over Tehran tonight hitting basij/IRGC stations

Israel is neutralizing the regime’s crackdown machine…it’s finally happening pic.twitter.com/Yz7Nj3sdNW

— Throwback Iran (@Tarikh_Eran) March 11, 2026

Despite what appears to be a coordinated Israel attack on Basij checkpoints in Tehran, the regime is reportedly keeping a tight lid on any potential anti-government protests, journalist Nilo Tabrizy said a source told her.

“The government constantly sends threatening [text] messages to everyone. It says that if you come to the streets to protest, you will be considered an Israeli soldier and will be killed.”

A source in Iran told me about the continued repression by state security forces despite waves of heavy air strikes over their city:

“The government constantly sends threatening [text] messages to everyone. It says that if you come to the streets to protest, you will be…

— Nilo Tabrizy (@ntabrizy) March 11, 2026

Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament is urging pro-government crowds to remain on the streets.

“Dear Iranian nation, to whom I would sacrifice my life a thousand times!” MB Ghalibaf stated on X. “Your presence in the streets has bewildered and enraged the enemy. This humble soldier of yours has three requests from you: the streets, the streets, the streets. Your children in the armed forces have taken their lives in hand to defend #Iran; strengthen their backs by holding the streets firm.”

ملت عزیز ایران که جانم هزاران بار فدای شما!

حضور شما در خیابان‌ها دشمن را گیج و عصبانی کرده است.

این سرباز کوچکتان سه درخواست از شما دارد: خیابان، خیابان، خیابان.

فرزندان شما درنیروهای مسلح جان خود را برای دفاع از #ایران در دست گرفته‌اند، پشت آنها را با حفظ خیابان محکم کنید.

— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) March 11, 2026

Alarms have again sounded in Bahrain, as the nation braces for another wave of Iranian attacks, officials there claim.

تم إطلاق صافرة الإنذار ،نرجو من المواطنين والمقيمين الهدوء والتوجه لأقرب مكان آمن ومتابعة الأخبار عبر القنوات الرسمية

— Ministry of Interior (@moi_bahrain) March 11, 2026

Kuwait National Guard bomb squad engineers have destroyed a drone warhead that fell inside a fuel tank, spokesman Jadaan Al-Fadhel said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that no injuries were reported during the operation.

Kuwait National Guard bomb squad engineers have destroyed a drone warhead that fell inside a fuel tank, Spokesman Jadaan Al-Fadhel said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that no injuries were reported during the operation.

The bomb squads worked for seven days to unload the… pic.twitter.com/dj03OwacvK

— KUWAIT TIMES (@kuwaittimesnews) March 11, 2026

UPDATE: 3:45 EST –

During a visit to Thermo Fisher Scientific in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Trump said that for Iran, it’s a “war.” But for America, it’s “easier than we thought.”

During a site visit to Thermo Fisher Scientific in Cincinnati on Wednesday, President Trump told reporters the U.S. military operation in Iran is “both” a “little excursion” and a “war.”

“For them it’s a war,” Trump said. “For us it’s turned out to be easier than we thought.”… pic.twitter.com/RkRZxWuRfN

— ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2026

The U.S. president also claimed that more than two dozen Iranian mine boats have been destroyed during Epic Fury.

“They started talking about mines. So we hit 28 mine ships as of this moment,” Trump proclaimed. “Twenty-eight. Like, using the same weapon — the exact same weapon that we use against the drug dealers in the water. We have — as an example, we had tremendous drugs pouring in through the water — through the sea. And now we have almost none. It’s down 97%.”

U.S. President Donald J. Trump tells reporters that 28 mine-laying vessels operated by the Iranian Navy and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) have now been targeted and destroyed:

“They started talking about mines. So we hit 28 mine ships as of this moment.… pic.twitter.com/znwGK9sydD

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 11, 2026

Iran deployed about a dozen mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The move is likely to complicate reopening the waterway — an important route for shipping oil and liquefied natural gas.

🚨 Western sources in a conversation with N12: “The Iranians have already laid more than 10 mines in the Strait of Hormuz and intend to lay more. Both the entry and exit routes are blocked – to put pressure on us. They have created a bypass route and allow only those they want to…

— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) March 11, 2026

Trump is preparing to invoke Cold War-era powers to pave the way for renewed oil production off the southern California coast, Bloomberg News is reporting. The move is seen as “a long-shot bid to help ease the global crude supply crunch spurred by his war with Iran,” according to the outlet.

“Trump is set to soon summon authorities under the Defense Production Act to preempt state laws and ease permitting for Sable Offshore Corp., a Houston-based company looking to restart significant production from a cluster of offshore platforms in California,” Bloomberg added. “The plan was described by a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because it’s not yet public.”

Trump is preparing to invoke Cold War-era powers to pave the way for renewed oil production off the southern California coast, a long-shot bid to help ease the global crude supply crunch spurred by his war with Iran. https://t.co/uopErGQnUh

— Bloomberg (@business) March 11, 2026

The fire at Oman’s Salahah Port seems to be intensifying. The port was attacked by Iran earlier on Wednesday.

Several security forces and members of Iran’s paramilitary Basij force were killed by Israeli drones in Tehran today, according to the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency.

Iran’s IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency has reported that several security forces and members of the paramilitary Basij force were killed in Tehran today, accusing Israel of targeting them with drones.

— Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه (@GhonchehAzad) March 11, 2026

UPDATE: 2:53 PM EST –

Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon and Iran fired several ballistic missiles at the area, according to Israeli media.

The Israeli military later confirmed that it didn’t intercept some of the projectiles, adding that rescue services and emergency teams are “currently operating at the impact sites.”

Video has emerged showing an Iranian Shahed-type long-range strike drone approaching, then hitting the fuel tanks in the Omani port of Salalah earlier on Wednesday. The attack caused a powerful explosion and fireball.

In a post on X, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he told leaders from Russia and Pakistan that his nation reaffirms its “commitment to peace in the region.”

“The only way to end this war—ignited by the Zionist regime & US—is recognizing Iran’s legitimate rights, payment of reparations, and firm int’l guarantees against future aggression,” he exclaimed.

Talking to leaders of Russia and Pakistan, I reaffirmed Iran’s commitment to peace in the region. The only way to end this war—ignited by the Zionist regime & US—is recognizing Iran’s legitimate rights, payment of reparations, and firm int’l guarantees against future aggression.

— Masoud Pezeshkian (@drpezeshkian) March 11, 2026

The Coordination Committee of the Iraqi Resistance issued a warning to Syrian leader, Ahmed Sharaa, threatening that any hostile move toward Lebanon, particularly if coordinated with the U.S. or Israel, would be treated as a declaration of war against the entire Axis of Resistance.

Notable: The Coordination Committee of the Iraqi Resistance – a loosely coordinated body made up of Iran-backed Shiite militias in Iraq that align messaging, threats, and occasionally operations – issued a warning to Syrian leader, Ahmed Sharaa, threatening that any hostile move… pic.twitter.com/ze40sgZcPC

— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) March 11, 2026

The threat in Iraq remains real as you can see by the following video, which reportedly shows an interceptor hitting an Iranian drone over Erbil.

There is pushback to claims that the U.S. is sending Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems from Korea for deployment to the Middle East.

According to the latest reports, the six launchers present in Korea left their base, delivered (presumably 48) interceptor missiles to Osan Air Base to be transported out, then returned. (And an anti-THAAD group is demanding the radar be removed, as it is still there) https://t.co/T4igHmcCDq

— Joel Atkinson (@Joel_P_Atkinson) March 11, 2026

UAE reportedly sees an opportunity to reclaim the Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunb islands that Iran seized in 1971.

The Bellingcat investigative team geolocated eight videos showing U.S. Tomahawk launches.

Bellingcat has geolocated eight videos showing US Tomahawks cruise missiles in Iraq heading towards Iran. The missiles appear to be flying low across valleys and were most likely fired from the Mediterranean sea, an expert told us. pic.twitter.com/9bTO2BODa1

— Trevor Ball (@Easybakeovensz) March 11, 2026

UPDATE: 2:40 PM EST –

Saying most of Iran’s Navy has been destroyed, Trump urged oil companies to start using the Strait of Hormuz again.

TRUMP: I think oil companies should use the Strait of Hormuz.

“We took out just about all of their mine ships in one night… just about all of their navy is gone.”

pic.twitter.com/vJ53Xr1AiN

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) March 11, 2026

Meanwhile, India condemned the Iranian attack on the Thai ship bound for Kandla.

“Iran and the terrorist militias allied with it may be planning to target U.S.-owned oil and energy infrastructure in Iraq,” the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad warned. “Additionally, Iran-aligned terrorist militias have targeted hotels frequented by Americans in various parts of Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. “

تنبيه أمني – سفارة الولايات المتحدة في بغداد، العراق – 11 آذار 2026 – تحديث رقم 1

الموقع: العراق

التحديث:
قد تكون إيران والميليشيات الإرهابية المتحالفة معها بصدد التخطيط لاستهداف البنية التحتية للنفط والطاقة التي تملكها للولايات المتحدة في العراق. كما وقامت ميليشيات إرهابية…

— U.S. Embassy Baghdad (@USEmbBaghdad) March 11, 2026

The IDF released a video containing what it says was audio of a radio exchange between an Israeli and U.S. pilot.

UPDATE: 2:06 EST –

An ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Feb. 28 Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, The New York Times reported, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings.

The Feb. 28 strike on the elementary school was the result of a targeting mistake by the U.S., preliminary inquiry says: “U.S. Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency.” https://t.co/sgMwh2wRz1 pic.twitter.com/2cTHHdGg3q

— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) March 11, 2026

Iran’s Armed Forces spokesman General Shekarchi warned the U.S. and allies against striking Iranian ports.

“If any threat is made against our ports, all docks and economic ports in the entire region will be our legitimate targets, and we will carry out operations heavier than those we have done so far,” he vowed.

#BREAKING
Spokesperson of Iran’s Armed Forces General Shekarchi:
If any threat is made against our ports, all docks and economic ports in the entire region will be our legitimate targets, and we will carry out operations heavier than those we have done so far. pic.twitter.com/vrtKP4bOkQ

— Tehran Times (@TehranTimes79) March 11, 2026

Iran may be using a Chinese satellite navigation system to target Israel and United States military assets in the Middle East, intelligence experts say, according to Al Jazeera.

“Former French foreign intelligence director Alain Juillet told France’s independent Tocsin podcast this week that it is likely that Iran has been provided access to China’s BeiDou satellite navigation system because its targeting has become much more accurate since the 12-Day War with Israel in June,” the outlet reported.

1:55PM EST—

The NYT reports that Pentagon officials told U.S. lawmakers that Iran has as much as 50% of its missiles and launchers remaining.

“Two military officials said there was concern that the Pentagon did not have full clarity on all of Iran’s launch sites. The officials also said that Iran had kept many missiles in reserve to strike at important battlefield targets like the American radars…. Pentagon officials…

— ProfTalmadge (@ProfTalmadge) March 11, 2026

A Merlin early warning and control helicopter has arrived in Cyprus to provide a critical ‘look down’ capability for spotting incoming drones. You can read about how critical this capability is and how new assets are being sent to the Middle East to help provide it in our story from yesterday linked here.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com

Israeli journalist and writer, Gideon Levy, says that regime change in Iran is unlikely and the decision to end the war ultimately rests with US President Trump, not Israel.

Iranian explosive-laden boats appear to have attacked two fuel tankers in Iraqi waters, setting them ablaze and killing one crew member, after projectiles struck three vessels in Gulf waters, according to reports.

The ships targeted in late-night ⁠attacks on Wednesday in the Gulf near Iraq were the Marshall Islands-flagged Safesea Vishnu and the Zefyros, which had loaded fuel cargoes in Iraq, two Iraqi port officials told the Reuters news agency.

“We recovered the body of a foreign crew member from the water,” one port security official said, as Iraqi rescue teams continued searching for other missing seafarers. It was not immediately clear which ship that person was linked to.

One Iraqi port security source said Zefyros is flagged ‌in Malta and provided Reuters with a list of crew names.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, Iraq, Mahmoud Abdelwahed, said the tankers were loaded with crude oil from the Umm Qasr port in southern Iraq in the Basra province, and were attacked soon after their voyage got under way.

“Iraqi officials say this is a flagrant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty given the fact this act, they say, of sabotage has happened in Iraq’s territorial waters,” Abdelwahed said.

Reuters said that reports of the use of explosive-laden unmanned surface vessels, which Ukraine has used with great effect in its war with Russia, come as Iran has blocked oil shipments from transiting the key Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of ⁠the world’s oil transits but has been blocked amid the United States-Israeli war on Iran.

Reuters, citing two unnamed sources, also reported on Wednesday that Iran ‌has deployed about a dozen mines in the strait, while US President Donald Trump said US forces had struck 28 Iranian mine-laying vessels, amid warnings by Trump of severe repercussions should Iran lay mines in the key waterway for global shipping.

Strait of Hormuz sealed

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have warned that any ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz will be targeted.

The Thai-flagged Mayuree Naree dry bulk vessel was struck by “two projectiles of unknown origin” while sailing through the strait earlier on Wednesday, causing a fire and damaging the engine room, the ship’s Thai-listed operator Precious Shipping said in a statement.

“Three crew members are ⁠reported missing and believed to be trapped in the engine room,” Precious Shipping said.

“The company is working with the relevant authorities to rescue these three ⁠missing crew members,” it said, adding that the remaining 20 crew members had been safely evacuated and were ashore in Oman.

Images shared by Thai news outlet Khaosod English showed what were reported to be crew members of the ship after their rescue by Oman’s navy.

The IRGC said in a statement carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency that the ship was “fired upon by Iranian fighters”, suggesting the first direct engagement by the IRGC, who have previously fired missiles or drones.

The Japan-flagged container ship ONE Majesty also sustained minor damage on Wednesday from an unknown projectile 25 nautical miles (about 46 kilometres) northwest ⁠of Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, two maritime security firms said. Its Japanese owner Mitsui OSK Lines and a spokesperson for Ocean Network Express, its charterer, said the vessel was struck while at anchor in the Gulf, and an inspection of the hull revealed minor damage above the waterline.

All crew are safe, they said, adding that the vessel remains fully operational and seaworthy. The owner said the cause of the incident remained unclear and was under investigation.

A third vessel, a bulk ‌carrier, was also hit by an unknown projectile approximately 50 nautical miles (about 93km) northwest of Dubai, maritime security firms said.

The projectile had damaged the hull of the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Gwyneth, maritime risk management company Vanguard said, adding that the vessel’s crew were safe. Owner Star Bulk Carriers said the ship was hit in the hold area while it was anchored. There were no crew injuries and no listing.

The US Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry ⁠for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Some supporters of the US-Israeli war on Iran are using the treatment of women in the country as a justification for bombing it. Al Jazeera’s Ava Warriner explains.

Satellite imagery from Vantor shows that a site long linked to Iran’s nuclear program has been struck. A trio of very large impact points also raises the possibility that the hardened facility was hit by 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs. MOPs were first used operationally in U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer. The Taleghan 2 site was newly encased in a concrete shell and then covered with soil in the months leading up to the current conflict, which may have created a need to use munitions more capable of burrowing down into it to have a better chance of ensuring its destruction.

Vantor’s post-strike images of Taleghan 2, seen at the top of this story and below, were taken earlier today. As noted, three very large and precise impact points are visible on top of the facility.

Vantor also shared previous images of Taleghan 2 taken on March 6, 2026, and November 14, 2025. Other parts of Parchin were notably struck on March 6, but Taleghan 2 was left untouched at that time.

Taleghan 2 had already been covered in a new layer of concrete by mid-January of this year. Soil had also been added on top weeks before joint U.S.-Israeli operations began on February 28. Iran was also observed taking steps to further harden and/or seal up a host of other key facilities across the country in the lead-up to the current conflict, but not to this degree. TWZ highlighted similar activity at Iranian nuclear sites ahead of the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes last year.

We do not know what munitions were used to strike Taleghan 2, but the impact points are at least broadly consistent with what was seen at Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites after Operation Midnight Hammer. During that operation, B-2 bombers dropped 12 GBU-57/Bs on Fordow and another two MOPs on Natanz.

When reached by TWZ, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) declined to comment on whether GBU-57/Bs had been dropped on Taleghan 2 or any other site in Iran in the course of the current campaign. The only aircraft currently certified to carry MOPs operationally is the B-2 bomber, with each one being able to carry two of the massive bombs at a time. B-2s have been striking Iran since the first night of the conflict.

From what can be seen via satellite imagery, Taleghan 2 does appear to be as deeply buried as either Fordow or the underground facility at Natanz. At the same time, it was very thoroughly and deliberately hardened against attack just in the past few months, which could have driven a decision to target it with GBU-57/Bs. That work was also done relatively quickly with a clear eye toward shielding the site from strikes.

Other aspects of the target may have factored in, as well. In the strikes on Fordow last year, B-2s dropped six MOPs each down two air shafts to achieve the desired penetration. Those air vents offered a weak channel through which the bombs could penetrate far deeper to get to the targeted chamber deep within the mountain. Though it may be shallower, there do not appear to be any similar inlets readily visible at Taleghan 2. Using 30,000-pound bombs would also have helped guarantee more total destruction of this high-priority facility. The determination that MOPs were required might also explain why it was not struck previously.

The video below is a montage of imagery from past GBU-57/B tests that the U.S. military released last year after Operation Midnight Hammer.

GBU-57 MOP test

It is possible that other munitions may have been used to strike Taleghan 2. Smaller bunker busters could be dropped in succession on the same aim point in order to create openings and then create significant effects inside. CENTCOM has previously confirmed B-2 strikes on deeply buried targets in Iran using salvos of 2,000-pound-class bunker buster bombs.

Striking Taleghan 2 otherwise fits with the U.S. military’s stated core objective of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program. The site is tied to long-standing allegations of nuclear weapons-related work at Parchin, which Iranian officials have consistently denied. Taleghan 2 is specifically believed to have been a production facility for specialized conventional explosives required for nuclear weapons.

The Israelis previously struck Taleghan 2 in 2024 and then targeted Parchin again during the 12 Day War last year. In both cases, Iran subsequently rebuilt key facilities at the complex.

Whether the latest strike on Taleghan 2, whatever munitions may have been used, has taken it out for good remains to be seen.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

During a cabinet meeting, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani called for strengthening the country’s ability to withstand “hardship” as the US-Israel war on Iran rages.

Two foreign tankers were seen ablaze in Iraqi territorial waters after a strike near the al-Faw port. Authorities say they evacuated 25 crew members but have confirmed at least one death and are battling to control the flames.

Caracas, March 11, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Energy conglomerates Chevron and Shell are reportedly securing major oil deals in Venezuela following the recent pro-business reform of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law.

According to Reuters, joint venture Petropiar, where Chevron holds a minority stake, will expand its operations into the Ayacucho 8 bloc of Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt. 

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA completed exploration and appraisal of the 510 square-kilometer area located south of Petropiar’s current operations, but its development has been limited. Under the agreement, Chevron looks to significantly expand its extra-heavy crude output from the Orinoco Oil Belt, which holds three-quarters of Venezuela’s oil reserves.

Chevron is reportedly looking to secure reduced royalties and taxes under the recently reformed Hydrocarbon Law in order to launch operations in the new area. Petropiar currently produces 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of upgraded Hamaca crude. PDVSA’s joint ventures with Chevron have a total present output of around 250,000 bpd.

In January, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a legislative overhaul that significantly improved conditions and benefits for private corporations in the oil and natural gas sector. Royalty and income tax levies, previously set at 30 and 50 percent, respectively, can now be slashed at the Venezuelan executive’s discretion.

In addition, joint venture minority partners can directly manage crude operations and sales, while legal disputes can be taken to international arbitration instances. Furthermore, PDVSA can also lease out projects to private operators in exchange for a percentage of the oil output.

Under the latter model, Shell is reportedly set to take over operations in PDVSA’s Punta de Mata division in eastern Monagas state, one of the most historically productive and profitable regions for Venezuela’s oil industry. The division produced over 400,000 bpd of light and medium crude grades in the 2000s but recent production was around 90,000 bpd.

The London-based multinational, which had a strong presence in the Venezuelan energy sector throughout the twentieth century, is likewise interested in capturing and processing natural gas that is currently flared in oil extraction processes. 

Shell is additionally set to lead the Dragon offshore natural gas project alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Corporation (NGC) in Venezuelan waters. The Nicolás Maduro government had suspended all joint initiatives with Trinidad due to its administration’s support for Washington’s Caribbean military buildup and threats against Venezuela last year.

Since the January 3 US military strikes and kidnapping of President Maduro, the acting Venezuelan authorities led by Delcy Rodríguez have fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement with the Trump administration while also vowing to “adapt” legislation to attract foreign investment. Following the hydrocarbon reform, a new mining law has also been preliminarily approved by the Venezuelan parliament.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have visited Venezuela in recent weeks and hailed the investment opportunities in oil and minerals for US conglomerates.

Since January, the Trump administration has taken control of Venezuelan oil exports, with crude shipments handled by commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura and proceeds deposited in accounts run by the US Treasury. US authorities so far have only returned US $500 million, out of a reported $2 billion agreement, to the Caribbean nation.

The White House has also issued a number of licenses in an effort to boost US involvement in the Venezuelan energy sector, including limited waivers to export inputs and technology. In addition, Washington has allowed several corporations to negotiate agreements with Caracas while mandating that contracts be subject to US jurisdiction and that all royalty, tax and dividend payments be made to US Treasury-run accounts.

Alongside Chevron and Shell, the other companies with early access to the Venezuelan energy sector are BP, Eni, Maurel & Prom, and Repsol. The latter two held meetings with Rodríguez in February to discuss investment opportunities, while ExxonMobil has announced plans to send a delegation to the country in the coming weeks.

Venezuela’s oil production rebounded in February, with OPEC secondary sources registering an output of 903,000 bpd, up from 823,000 bpd in January. A US naval blockade since December had forced PDVSA to cut back production before exports began to flow again under Washington’s control. The oil sector remains under US financial sanctions.

For its part, PDVSA reported a February output of 1.02 million bpd, up from 924,000 bpd the prior month. The direct and secondary measurements have differed over time due to disagreements over the inclusion of natural gas liquids and condensates.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Fusagasugá, Colombia.

Global currency and commodity markets stabilised slightly on Tuesday after a volatile start to the week triggered by the war involving Iran, United States and Israel. The U.S. dollar steadied against major currencies after earlier declines, following remarks from U.S. President Donald Trump that the conflict could end “very soon.”

Financial markets had been thrown into turmoil a day earlier amid fears that a prolonged war could trigger a major global energy shock. The conflict has disrupted oil and gas exports through the critical Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for global energy supplies.

Although markets calmed somewhat after Trump’s comments, the broader environment remains highly uncertain as investors continue to assess the potential economic fallout from the conflict.

Dollar Holds Ground as Oil Prices Ease

In Asian trading, the U.S. dollar was largely steady against other major currencies after retreating from the highs reached during Monday’s market turbulence.

The currency traded at around 157.73 yen against the Japanese yen and about $1.1632 against the euro, reflecting a stabilisation following the sharp movements seen earlier.

Meanwhile, oil prices remained elevated but declined from the dramatic peaks reached at the start of the week. Brent crude traded at roughly $93 per barrel, still significantly higher than levels before the outbreak of the war but well below Monday’s surge toward $120.

The pullback in oil prices helped ease immediate concerns about a severe energy shock, although analysts caution that volatility could continue if the conflict escalates again.

Investors Remain Cautious

Despite the relative calm in currency markets, analysts say investors are far from convinced that the crisis is nearing resolution.

Rodrigo Catril, a currency strategist at National Australia Bank, warned that markets could continue to experience sudden shifts in sentiment as geopolitical developments unfold.

According to Catril, it remains unclear whether the Iranian leadership would be willing to pursue de-escalation, suggesting that the risk of renewed market volatility remains high.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran dismissed Trump’s suggestion that the conflict could end quickly, describing the remarks as “nonsense.”

Risk-Sensitive Currencies Under Pressure

Currencies closely linked to global economic sentiment weakened as investors remained cautious.

The Australian dollar slipped to around $0.7063, while the New Zealand dollar fell to roughly $0.5912. These currencies often decline during periods of geopolitical uncertainty or when investors shift toward safer assets.

The dollar, by contrast, has benefited from its traditional role as a safe-haven currency during times of crisis. The escalation of the conflict and disruption to energy markets prompted investors to move funds into U.S. assets, supporting the currency.

The British pound recovered from losses earlier in the week to trade around $1.3434.

Energy Prices and Global Growth Concerns

Investors remain concerned that sustained high energy prices could slow global economic growth. Rising oil costs increase expenses for businesses and households, effectively acting as a tax on economic activity.

At the same time, higher energy prices could complicate monetary policy by pushing inflation upward and making it harder for central banks to lower interest rates.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank noted that a broader market sell-off in risk assets would likely require several conditions to occur simultaneously: persistently high oil prices, a shift in central bank policy expectations and clear evidence of a slowing global economy.

Strategist Henry Allen said markets are now significantly closer to those thresholds than they were just a week ago, though the full conditions for a major downturn have not yet materialised.

Analysis: Markets Brace for Prolonged Volatility

The market reaction to the Iran war underscores how closely global financial conditions are tied to geopolitical developments in the Middle East.

While Trump’s comments about a possible quick end to the conflict helped stabilise markets temporarily, the underlying risks remain substantial. The disruption of energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz continues to threaten global oil flows and could trigger renewed price spikes if the conflict intensifies.

For investors, the situation presents a delicate balance. On one hand, hopes for de-escalation could stabilise energy prices and reduce pressure on financial markets. On the other, continued fighting or further disruptions to oil shipments could quickly reignite volatility across currencies, commodities and equities.

Until there is clearer evidence of either de-escalation or escalation, markets are likely to remain highly sensitive to political developments, with the dollar continuing to benefit from its role as a global safe haven.

With information from Reuters.

‘Supercell’ thunderstorms hit Illinois and Indiana, after eight people killed by tornadoes in US Midwest last week.

Two people have been killed in tornadoes in the Midwest region of the United States amid a spate of extreme weather, according to authorities.

At least four tornadoes touched down as intense “supercell” thunderstorms swept across northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

“Supercells” are the rarest form of thunderstorms. They are known to be particularly devastating for their prolonged durations and their “high propensity to produce severe weather, including damaging winds, very large hail, and sometimes weak to violent tornadoes”, according to the NWS.

In Indiana, local officials said an elderly couple had been killed when a tornado hit their home in the town of Lake Village.

Several residents in the wider Newton County were rescued by emergency responders, as the storm knocked down at least 70 utility poles and left some roads impassable.

In a video posted to social media late Tuesday, Sheriff Shannon Cothran warned people about trying to access the damaged areas.

“Please do not come here. Do not try to help right now,” Cothran said, standing in front of the couple’s destroyed home.

Parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio remained on tornado watch into the afternoon.

About 40km (25 miles) east of Lake Village, another tornado touched down in Kankakee County, Illinois, late Tuesday.

Officials said the tornado caused extensive damage as it travelled across the suburb of Aroma Park. At least nine people were injured, but no deaths were reported, according to local officials.

Cassidy Sinwelski, 23, told The Associated Press that the storm hit Kankakee harder than expected.

She and her husband took shelter in their home’s bathroom.

“We went into the bathroom, got a piece of plywood, and within minutes, I closed my eyes, the lights flickered, and we just — there was nothing,” Sinwelski said.

Then came loud rumbles and the sound of shattering glass.

“I just kept crying out for God, because I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.

The latest round of extreme weather comes after eight people were killed by tornadoes in the US states of Michigan and Oklahoma last week.

Audu Danbaba is in his fifties but trudges like someone in his eighties. He walks carefully, sometimes raising his hands as if they were scales calibrating his body’s equilibrium. 

As he emerged from his house on Feb. 25, he moved with visible effort –  his feet swollen –  counting each step as if needles were being pressed into the soles of his feet. With a laboured exhale, he eased himself down onto a mat that faced his home. The house, made of mud bricks, is located in Nassarawa village, Gwarzo Local Government Area (LGA), in Kano State, northwestern Nigeria.

Audu cannot remember the exact date when the armed kidnappers pulled him from his house, but he does know that it happened roughly two months ago, maybe a little longer. “I spent about 40 days with them, and now I’m in my fourth week since I was released,” he told HumAngle.

Audu’s ordeal is a window into a calculated and expanding kidnapping economy that has quietly taken root in the Gwarzo LGA. Kidnapping in Kano is fuelled by informant networks, strengthened by a porous border with Katsina State, and maintained by a ransom cycle that is systematically draining the little resources left in the poorest communities of the northwestern region.

Late at night, he was lying down when he heard screaming. The attackers had already entered his home and were beating both of his wives and children. He rushed outside and asked what was happening. They told him directly that they had come for him. To protect his family, he surrendered.

“Here is where they tied my hands and started beating me with the butt of a gun on my legs,” Audu recalled, gesturing toward the spots he said still ache. “Then they pushed me forward, beating me and shoving me until we had walked a long distance through farmland and crossed a road.”

Audu could not recall how long they had trekked with him because he was barely conscious as they dragged him. His sense of measurement also appears faulty, as he confuses miles and kilometres several times while narrating his story.

And so they kept pushing him. 

“It was on the road that I noticed security operatives on patrol, as though they had received a tip and were following us. I tried to lift my head, and they struck me with the rifle butt and pinned me down. I couldn’t speak. We stayed like that until the patrol passed, then they pulled me up and kept beating me as we walked,” he added. 

What Audu described, the systematic beating of victims after abduction, has emerged as one of the most disturbing features of the kidnapping crisis in northern Nigeria. After reaching the forest, he said he was tied alongside another man who had also been abducted. The torture continued with such ferocity that the other man died a week after he was abducted. 

“After his death, his corpse lay there with me for two days before they took him away,” he said. 

Different clips showing how abducted victims are tortured by their abductors have recently been circulated online. One footage featured a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) being tortured repeatedly by his abductors while pleading for help. In another widely shared video, three women were shown being struck as the abductors pressured them to urge their families to pay a ransom.

Another harrowing case is the testimony of a man published by a local media outlet in Zamfara, Maibiredi TV. The man narrated that his abductors burned one of his hands using molten rubber during ransom negotiations to force his family to speed up payment. Only two of his fingers remain. 

What is happening in Gwarzo?

At least five Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Kano share borders with neighbouring Katsina State, namely Rogo, Tsanyawa, Shanono, Gwarzo, and Ghari (formerly Kunchi). While Tsanyawa and Shanono have suffered the most attacks, Gwarzo is particularly vulnerable. The town’s western and northern borders are adjacent to Katsina’s Malumfashi and Musawa LGAs, which have been heavily impacted by terrorist activities for a long time. 

The dense and ungoverned forests in these regions provide terrorists with continuous cover for their operations. From there, locals say, they flow into Gwarzo.

Locals say that the first recorded case of kidnapping occurred on Dec. 14, 2025, when terrorists on motorcycles attacked the Kururawa community in the Lakwaya district of Gwarzo. They invaded the home of an elderly man known locally as Yakubu Na Tsohuwa and abducted him. His eldest son, Badamasi, was injured while attempting to stop the assailants from taking his father. Within the same week, a second kidnapping incident was reported.

Gwarzo’s security crisis did not start in December 2025. In January 2024, police operatives arrested Isah Lawal, a 33-year-old man from Giwa LGA in Kaduna, during a clearance operation in Karaye LGA along the Kaduna-Kano border. He confessed to fleeing a terrorist camp in Birnin Gwari due to internal gang violence and expressed his intention to establish a new camp in the Gwarzo-Karaye forest. This arrest, which was largely unreported at the time, served as a warning that the authorities did not adequately heed.

The Gwarzo-Karaye forest corridor, straddling Kano’s border LGAs and stretching toward Katsina’s ungoverned zones, had already been identified by displaced armed factions as a viable new territory. 

The December 2025 attacks followed a pattern that exposed how openly these groups now operate. Around 20 armed men were spotted in Danjanku village in Malumfashi LGA, heading toward the Kano axis, according to sources. The attack on Zurum Mahauta in the Gidan Malam Sallau community came at midnight on the same day.

To address the growing threat, the Kano State Government deployed forest guards to monitor the woodland areas around Gwarzo. These guards serve a dual purpose: overseeing the reforestation efforts critical to the state’s climate change response, and functioning as an early-warning layer for security threats emerging from the forest.

Dahir Hashim, the Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, told HumAngle that the guards were recruited to tackle both challenges simultaneously: “Managing the forests because of their critical role in halting desertification, and providing rapid alerts whenever security threats are detected.”

HumAngle spoke to Abdullahi Hamza, who leads the team managing one of the forests in Mainika, Gwarzo. He is cautiously optimistic about the project, saying: “This initiative by the government has delivered results; at least for now, we have gone many days without a security incident inside Gwarzo, though there may be areas we are not yet aware of.”

There are two forests in Gwarzo. One is known as Dajin Katata, where the forest guard Musa Muhammad previously worked. 

“There were constant criminal incidents in that forest; the fear eventually led the previous government to fell the trees to deny criminals cover,” he told HumAngle. 

Musa was later reassigned closer to home in Mainika. He does not hide his discomfort with that decision. The felling of Dajin Katata, he said, was ecologically damaging — those trees were a bulwark against the advance of the desert. But he has made his peace with the logic behind it. 

“Security comes first,” he said. “You must be alive to breathe the shade of a tree.”

Kidnapping the poor for ransom

Why was Audu a target for abduction in the first place? By every visible measure, even within his own village, Audu is not a wealthy man. His mud-brick house sits among the more neglected on the street, unrepaired and unremarkable. 

He told HumAngle himself that shortly before his abduction, he had tried to sell his farmland out of financial desperation, but the offer he received felt so insulting that he walked away from the deal.

“The land was worth between three and a half and four million naira, but they offered me two and a half million naira. I felt disrespected, so I refused,” he said.

Then came a coincidence that, in hindsight, feels like anything but.

Around the same period, the Kano State government began disbursing outstanding allowances owed to former ward councillors across the state. Audu’s son, Anas, had served as a councillor between 2020 and 2023, which placed him among the beneficiaries. The payment, amounting to roughly ₦6 million, was not made quietly; the state government publicised it widely. Photographs were taken at the government house. Screenshots of bank alerts began circulating on social media, shared by recipients whose names and faces were now attached to a specific, traceable sum.

The publicity became something else entirely.

“Many people had their eyes on that money,” said Mallam Saidu, Audu’s neighbour. “There is a strong suspicion that it was this payment that drew the kidnappers to Danbaba’s house that night.”

Audu suspects the same. He says his captors told him, as they held him, that someone had directed them to him. They did not tell him who.

“They showed me about five people from a distance,” he said. “I could barely lift my head to look, and when I did, I didn’t recognise any of them.”

Later, during ransom negotiations, Audu says he kept hearing one side of a phone conversation — someone telling the kidnappers that they should push his family harder to bring more, insisting they had the money and should produce it.

Across northern Nigeria, kidnapping has evolved from opportunistic crime into a sophisticated industry, and at its operational core lies a network of human intelligence that security agencies have struggled, and often failed, to penetrate or counter.

Kano has witnessed a surge in kidnapping and criminal operations aided by local informants and snitches within the state’s localities. This development seems to have inflated security threats in local communities. Musbahu Shanono, for instance, is originally from Faruruwa in Kano but works in Lagos, in Nigeria’s South West. 

When HumAngle spoke with Musbahu in 2025, he described the creeping anxiety that now accompanies what should be an ordinary homecoming – the fear of informants making him a stranger in his own community.

“Now I only come at night,” he said. “No one should know I’m around. Not even my friends. Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”

According to security authorities across northern Nigeria, kidnappers conduct detailed advance planning before armed teams execute raids at vulnerable hours, overwhelming lightly protected targets and transporting captives deep into remote forest hideouts.

In 2021, the Zamfara State government announced the arrest of more than 2,000 suspected informants. The following year, the state went further to enact legislation prescribing life imprisonment for anyone found to have aided kidnapping operations or other criminal activity in the state.

Yet the problem has not abated. Security authorities across Nigeria acknowledge that informant networks remain one of the most intractable elements of the crisis, embedded in communities, operating in plain sight, and extraordinarily difficult to root out. 

Even Nigeria’s Minister of Defence, then-Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, admitted publicly in 2024 that informants were being used not only to identify and track targets, but to actively misdirect security forces pursuing terrorists.

“They make the troops go elsewhere, and when they get there, they meet nothing,” Musa said.

The price of coming home

Now Audu is back. But his return has cost his family everything.

“They only released me after we paid ₦8 million and three motorcycles,” he recalled.

The family sold whatever they could find. The farm that he had refused to part with for two and a half million naira, the offer he had walked away from as an insult to his dignity, went for only ₦1.8 million in the end due to desperation. 

“Then we went around asking for help – some people gave us gifts, others gave us loans,” said Anas, his eldest son. Today, after his father’s release, the family is saddled with a debt of approximately ₦4.5 million and has no clear idea where to begin repaying it.

Audu carries the weight in his body as much as in his finances. “Even after I returned, everyone who saw me broke into tears at the state I was in,” he said. “Doctors have examined me and given me medication, but the pain in my body has not stopped.”

His deeper anguish is the problem he cannot solve: how does a man who had nothing rebuild from less than nothing? “We sought help from every direction and found very little,” Anas added. “We are still appealing to the government, even if it is just to help settle the debt, because everything we had was consumed by this ordeal.”

For the remaining residents of Nassarawa and the villages clustered along Gwarzo’s edges, the haunting question is not about debt. It is about prevention and how to protect themselves from the fate that swallowed Audu before the kidnappers come again.

The war involving Iran, United States and Israel is increasingly affecting energy supplies far beyond the Middle East, with Bangladesh now scrambling to secure fuel imports after disruptions to regional shipping routes.

Bangladeshi officials say the country has begun receiving diesel shipments from suppliers including China and India, allowing authorities to secure enough fuel to meet roughly one month of national demand. Arrangements are also being made to secure supplies for an additional month.

The South Asian nation of about 175 million people depends heavily on imported energy, with roughly 95% of its fuel requirements sourced from abroad. The disruption of Middle Eastern oil flows following the war has therefore exposed Bangladesh to severe supply risks.

Fuel Rationing and Economic Disruptions

To manage the supply shortage, authorities have introduced emergency measures including fuel rationing for vehicles, restrictions on diesel sales and the temporary closure of universities.

Energy shortages are also affecting Bangladesh’s critical export industries. The country is the world’s second-largest clothing exporter after China, and many garment factories rely on diesel-powered generators during power outages.

Industry leaders say the situation has worsened since the conflict began in late February. Power cuts have doubled to as much as five hours per day, forcing factories to rely more heavily on backup generators.

Mahmud Hasan Khan, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said many companies are struggling to obtain sufficient diesel to keep their operations running during electricity outages.

The shortages threaten to disrupt production in one of Bangladesh’s most important economic sectors, which accounts for the majority of the country’s export earnings.

Emergency Diesel Shipments Arrive

To stabilise supplies, the state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) has arranged diesel shipments from international traders.

Energy officials say around 60,000 metric tons of diesel are currently being delivered by three trading companies, with another 90,000 metric tons expected to arrive later this month.

A cargo of approximately 27,000 metric tons from PetroChina has already arrived at Chittagong Port, while another shipment of roughly 28,000 metric tons from Vitol is waiting at the port’s outer anchorage.

Additional supplies are also arriving through a cross-border pipeline from India’s Numaligarh Refinery, which is currently providing about 5,000 metric tons of diesel. Officials said negotiations are underway to secure a further 30,000 metric tons from Indian Oil Corporation.

Bangladesh typically consumes about 380,000 metric tons of diesel each month. However, officials estimate that rationing measures have reduced current demand to around 270,000 metric tons per month.

Oil Imports Threatened by Hormuz Disruptions

While refined diesel cargoes have continued to arrive, Bangladesh faces greater risks in securing crude oil shipments for its domestic refineries.

The country imports about 1.4 million metric tons of crude oil annually under long-term supply agreements with Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

However, shipments from these suppliers must travel through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which has been heavily disrupted by the war. Officials say at least one cargo of around 100,000 tons from Saudi Aramco has already been delayed in the Gulf due to the ongoing crisis.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy transit routes, and any prolonged disruption could have far-reaching consequences for countries heavily dependent on imported fuel.

Gas Shortages Add to Energy Crisis

Bangladesh’s energy difficulties extend beyond diesel shortages. Severe natural gas shortages have already forced the closure of four of the country’s five state-run fertiliser factories.

Authorities have redirected the available gas supply toward electricity generation in an effort to stabilise power production during the crisis.

The combination of diesel shortages, disrupted oil imports and limited gas supplies is placing growing pressure on Bangladesh’s energy system at a time when global fuel markets are already experiencing heightened volatility.

Analysis: Energy Dependence Exposes Economic Vulnerability

Bangladesh’s struggle to secure diesel supplies illustrates how the war involving Iran is affecting energy-importing economies far beyond the immediate conflict zone.

Countries that rely heavily on imported fuel are particularly vulnerable to disruptions in global energy shipping routes, especially those linked to the Strait of Hormuz. Even temporary interruptions can lead to fuel shortages, higher prices and broader economic disruption.

For Bangladesh, the situation highlights the structural risks created by its dependence on imported energy. Industries such as garments, which rely on stable electricity supplies and backup diesel generators, are especially exposed to supply shocks.

Although emergency shipments from China and India have temporarily stabilised supplies, the situation remains fragile. If the conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt oil shipments or drive up prices, Bangladesh could face prolonged energy shortages with significant implications for its economy and export industries.

With information from Reuters.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened Iran with unprecedented military consequences if it had placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz and failed to remove them, Anadolu reports.

“If for any reason mines were placed, and they are not removed forthwith, the military consequences to Iran will be at a level never seen before,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

He added that removing the mines would be “a giant step in the right direction.”

Trump, however, also noted that US has “no reports of” Tehran putting out mines in the waterway.

The warning came after a CNN report that Iran has begun laying mines in the strait. Sources told the news outlet that only a few dozen had been placed so far, but Iran still had up to 90% of its small boats and mine-laying vessels intact, leaving it capable of deploying hundreds more.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints, with around 20 million barrels of oil passing through it daily. Iran’s IRGC had previously announced the closure of the strait to transit following the start of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, pushing oil prices above and raising fears of a prolonged global energy disruption.

The escalation in the Middle East flared since Israel and the US launched a joint attack on Iran on Feb. 28, and to date killing more than 1,200 people, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was the supreme leader. At least eight US service members have been killed since the beginning of the campaign.

Israel believes it is progressing faster than expected in achieving its objectives in the war against Iran, according to Israel’s ambassador to France.

Ambassador Joshua Zarka said the military campaign, which Israel initially predicted would last several weeks, is moving ahead of schedule in meeting its strategic goals.

Speaking to BFM TV, Zarka said Israel’s objectives extend beyond dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme. He said the broader aim is to weaken Iran’s leadership so that it can no longer project power beyond its borders and so that the Iranian population can determine its own political future.

Israel’s Broader Strategic Objectives

According to Zarka, Israel’s campaign is designed not only to limit Iran’s military capabilities but also to significantly weaken the country’s ruling authorities.

The ambassador said that reducing the government’s ability to operate abroad would help prevent attacks against Israel and its allies, while also creating conditions in which Iranians could “take their fate into their own hands.”

His comments reflect a broader strategic message from Israel that the war is intended to reshape Iran’s regional role, rather than simply eliminate specific military programmes.

Zarka, who previously served as Israel’s lead diplomat dealing with Iran, suggested that Israel’s military progress is exceeding initial expectations.

Warning Over New Iranian Leadership

Zarka also commented on the recent appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader following the death of his father, Ali Khamenei.

He said that if Mojtaba Khamenei follows the same policies as his predecessor, he could become a potential target for Israel.

The remark underscores the increasingly confrontational rhetoric surrounding the conflict and signals that Israel sees Iran’s leadership itself as central to the confrontation.

Conflict Expands to Lebanon

At the same time, Israel has intensified military operations against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group based in Lebanon, after cross-border attacks on Israeli territory.

The Lebanese government has said it would like to hold direct talks with Israel to stop the fighting. However, Zarka dismissed the possibility of negotiations at this stage.

Instead, he argued that the war would end only if Hezbollah is disarmed a step he said depends on decisions taken by the Lebanese government.

Analysis: Israel Signals No Immediate Path to Negotiations

Zarka’s comments suggest Israel believes the current military campaign is producing results and therefore sees little incentive to pursue negotiations in the near term.

By framing the war’s goals around weakening Iran’s leadership and limiting its regional influence, Israeli officials are signalling that the conflict is about more than just nuclear or missile capabilities.

The remarks also highlight Israel’s strategy of confronting Iran’s regional network of allied groups, including Hezbollah, which it views as a key extension of Tehran’s power.

Taken together, the statements indicate that Israel intends to continue military pressure until it believes Iran’s ability to project influence across the region has been significantly reduced.

With information from Reuters.

At the start of every school day, Martha Ayuba marks the attendance register of her class of about 50 pupils in Nassarawo Primary School, Jimeta-Yola, in Adamawa, northeastern Nigeria. The 38-year-old is the class teacher of Primary 3B. With a pencil in hand, she calls out names from the register. Each pupil answers, “Present, Ma”, before she ticks the box next to those who are “present” and crosses those who are “absent”.

Her worn attendance book is stuffed with handwritten names, erased marks, and faded ink. A leaking roof threatens to soak its pages, and a scurry of termites could erase weeks of work. Marking attendance is not just a routine; it’s a promise of accountability, and it appears on the report card at the end of each term and in the school’s database. 

However, across Nigeria, this ritual of paper and pencil is increasingly out of step with the country’s emerging Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), a national effort to build interoperable digital identity, payments, and data systems that serve citizens at scale.

Nigeria’s education system faces a tragic paradox: millions of children remain out of school, yet even those who attend often lack basic record-keeping and support. According to UNICEF, one in four primary-school–age children in Nigeria (about 10.5 million children) are not enrolled in school. In rural areas of Adamawa State, for instance, years of conflict and poverty have made schooling precarious.

At Nassarawo Primary School, Martha juggles teaching and attendance record-keeping duties. 

“There was a time when rain fell, and the register got wet,” she recounts. “I lost almost an entire term’s record, and no one could tell how many students were in class during those periods. I had to get another register and start afresh. Imagine if I didn’t have a backup?”

Several schools in Nigeria, including some public tertiary institutions, still rely heavily on manual recordkeeping, as Olubayo Adekanmbi, the CEO of Data Science Nigeria, notes. 

For Martha, that means precious minutes of class are spent on paperwork. This drudgery breeds frustration. “I know these kids by heart,” she says, “but we have to write it down. Otherwise, next year the next teacher won’t know what happened to them.” She keeps one copy at school and one at home, fearing theft or damage. Yet neither copy can travel with her if the children move to a different school or state. Even a single register lost in a fire or flood can erase months or years of history.

Why paper recordkeeping fails

Manual registers not only burden teachers; they distort national planning.

In Nigeria’s basic education subsector, school funding, teacher allowances and student support programmes all hinge on accurate attendance and enrolment data. Each child “counts” not just for classroom pride but for allocation of resources. For example, the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) earmarks School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) funds (for feeding programmes, sanitation, and learning materials) based on pupil numbers. In 2024, UBEC disbursed SBMC – School Improvement Programme support funds to 1,171 schools in all 36 states. 

If Martha’s register fails to reflect every student, such support might not reach deserving children. A missing name in the data could mean missed school meals, missing textbooks, or even being excluded from government scholarship programmes. Hence, school officials cannot adjust to “changing patterns in attendance” or identify which children need support.

Beyond individual schools, the absence of reliable data hampers policy and planning. At best, education officials compile annual school census figures, but these are months old and riddled with errors. Many rural schools report at a snail’s pace, if at all, because principals must physically carry piles of handwritten forms to local government offices. 

Recognising this gap, Nigeria has begun transitioning toward a national Education Management Information System (EMIS) built on District Health Information System Version 2 (DHIS2). An overview of the UNICEF-supported says Nigeria is “moving from fragmented, manual processes to a unified, digital platform”, aiming for “real-time, accurate data for evidence-based planning and decision-making”. 

In plain terms, that means that if Martha could click an app on her smartphone to log her attendance, higher-ups could see up-to-the-minute figures: student dropouts, teacher absences, resource gaps, and everything else. Real-time school data would highlight, for instance, which classes are short on books or which districts have the most teacher vacancies.

What Nigeria is doing

The Nigerian government has taken tentative steps toward digitisation. 

In 2024, UBEC launched a digital quality assurance platform to evaluate schools electronically. This system is designed to stream data on school infrastructure, teacher qualifications, and learning resources into a centralised dashboard, replacing laborious paper inspections. Although the platform is operational within UBEC’s inspection and monitoring system, nationwide adoption is still scaling up as infrastructure, connectivity and digital capacity in schools improve.

Similarly, the Federal Ministry of Education unveiled the Nigeria Education Data Initiative (NEDI) to build a “single, secure platform” of educational data across basic and tertiary levels. 

NEDI aims to “leverage the National Identity Management Commission’s (NIMC’s) unique identification number” – the national ID, “for accurate student tracking”. In other words, each child’s attendance and progress would be linked to a lifelong digital ID, so that Martha’s tallies could follow her students even if they moved schools or states.

At the state level, pilots are underway, but slow. 

A consortium led by HISP Nigeria and UNICEF is rolling out a District Health Information System Electronic Management Information System (DHIS2 EMIS) module in twelve states, including Adamawa, to “improve education planning and outcomes for millions of children”.

Local education authorities have been trained to use tablets and smartphones to enter enrolment, attendance, and infrastructure data directly into the system. In Bauchi State, for example, ministry officials held workshops for local supervisors to practice uploading school census data via mobile devices. 

Complementing government action, non-governmental organisations and agencies have jumped in. For instance, Data Science Nigeria helped launch the Gates Foundation-funded EdoCert, a digital certificate registry piloted in Edo State. EdoCert uses Sunbird, an open-source, “digital public good” to archive students’ exam results and transfer credentials online. EdoCert has since secured 1.9 million paper certificates since its launch. Its developers emphasise that the same approach could be used for attendance records. Experts point out that collecting comprehensive data could help “better track and adapt to changing patterns in school attendance” and guide the allocation of resources such as the national school lunch programme.

Meanwhile, other partners focus on connectivity. 

UNICEF’s GenU9ja initiative, local telecos, and the Federal Ministry of Education are racing to wire schools to the internet. By early 2025, more than 1,000 public schools had been connected via routers and provided with devices for digital learning, according to UNICEF. Training modules have been rolled out to thousands of teachers on basic computer skills and e-learning platforms. These efforts aim to lay the foundation for any future digital register: after all, you cannot click an app without power or Wi-Fi.

Even so, Martha and her peers remain on the front lines of a slow handover from paper to digital. 

Lessons from elsewhere

Nigeria is not alone in this challenge. Across Africa and the global south, educators have confronted broken attendance systems with creative digital fixes. In Rwanda, for example, the Ministry of Education introduced a mobile attendance app for teachers in 2025. Teachers simply log in and tap each day’s present students. The app immediately flags prolonged absences so that counsellors can intervene before a child drops out. At the end of 2025, more than 2,300 schools were enrolled in the system, and the government hopes that rapid data collection will reduce dropout rates. Rwanda’s example shows that with modest smartphones and training, even large rural systems can leapfrog paper. 

In India and Uganda, UNICEF piloted a simple SMS/voice system called EduTrac. Community monitors phone schools daily to collect attendance via interactive voice-response or text. Since school records can be altered later, EduTrac’s immutability ensures honesty: once a teacher reports numbers, they cannot be changed. In India, EduTrac covered over 15,000 schools across four states by 2015. Cluster coordinators, each overseeing about 20 schools, used it to verify reports and spot chronic absenteeism. 

The system required only basic phones and connectivity, making it ideal for remote villages. UNICEF noted that EduTrac has cultivated a culture of accountability: teachers and school heads know their numbers are being checked in real time.

What needs to change

Nigeria needs a pragmatic overhaul of its attendance system. Obaloluwa Ajiboye, an innovation governance specialist who has worked at the African Union, UNDP, and UNICEF, said one practical way to address gaps in student tracking is to assign every child a unique digital identity built on Nigeria’s existing framework, managed by the National Identity Management Commission. 

“By linking school attendance records to a single, nationally recognised ID number, each child would retain one continuous education record, even when transferring between schools or moving across local government areas,” Obaloluwa noted. He explains that this kind of consistency is central to what DPI is designed to achieve. If properly implemented, it would allow attendance data to follow the child rather than remain tied to a specific school. 

However, Obaloluwa added that such digital solutions will fail without power and connectivity. 

Although internet penetration has increased across Nigeria, about 41 per cent of the country’s population remains offline, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission. According to Obaloluwa, the government should prioritise solar panels, school internet, and devices (tablets or laptops) for teachers.

Nigeria’s GenU9ja programme shows what is possible: it connected over 1,000 schools and trained 63,000 educators in one year. Scaling such programmes nationwide, with specific funding for data systems, is critical, Obaloluwa noted. 

Additionally, Olubayo Adekanmbi, CEO of Data Science Nigeria, noted that schools like Nassarawo Primary School should be equipped with affordable digital registers that work even without constant internet access. “Many of the needed solutions already exist: for example, Sunbird (used by EdoCert) can run on laptops or tablets offline and sync later,” he added. 

Olubayo said that the attendance register should not live in isolation. “It must feed into larger platforms (UBEC reports, state EMIS). Systems should be interconnected to include open APIs so that daily attendance synchronises with the annual school census”. In practice, that means digital systems built on standards (the way EdoCert operates).

Martha believes that “if only we had a quick way to mark attendance, I could spend that time helping the kids”. Nigeria has various frameworks and local and international support to make the shift, but how long will it take to achieve?

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.