TODAY

After launching a military attack against Caracas and kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, US President Donald Trump made his goal clear: seize the oil.

Historian Steve Ellner and journalist Ricardo Vaz explained how this outcome is not an aberration, but rather the latest chapter in a long-standing struggle over PDVSA, oil sovereignty, and U.S. hemispheric dominance—where economic warfare supplants diplomacy and state power is deployed for private gain.

Source: theAnalysis.News

Victor Osimhen scores one and sets up another to send Nigeria into the last four of the Africa Cup of Nations.

Nigeria powered to a deserved 2-0 victory over Algeria in their Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal with second-half strikes from Victor Osimhen and ‍Akor Adams to set up a semifinal with hosts Morocco.

Osimhen steered home a long cross from the left by Bruno Onyemaechi ⁠two minutes into the second half on Saturday as Algeria goalkeeper Luca Zidane made a bizarre jump to try ​and stop the effort, but ended up getting his angles wrong and conceding an ‍easy goal.

Adams increased Nigeria’s lead 10 minutes later as Osimhen unselfishly fed him the ball, and he took it around Zidane before placing it into an empty net.

It was an impressive performance by Nigeria, who two months ago missed out ‍on World Cup ⁠qualification, as they overwhelmed their opponents from the start at the Grand Stade de Marrakesh, looking more determined, quicker around the field and stronger in the challenges, and denying their opponents a single scoring chance.

Algeria were already hanging on grimly in the first half, with Nigeria having good chances to be ahead at the break.

Algeria centre back Ramy Bensebaini cleared off the line in the 29th minute from Calvin Bassey after the depth of Ademola Lookman’s free kick ​was misjudged by Zidane and the Nigeria fullback was able to steer an ‌effort goalward from a tight angle.

Bensebaini hooked it clear, although television replays looked to show the whole circumference of the ball had crossed the line. A VAR check in the absence of goal line technology, however, ‌did not award a goal.

In the 37th minute, a poor clearance from Zidane to full-back Aissa Mandi was intercepted by Alex Iwobi, who quickly ‌fed the ball to Adams, but the Sevilla striker‘s left-footed effort ⁠missed the target with only the goalkeeper to beat.

Adams also headed against the upright in the 82nd minute as Osimhen’s enterprise and persistence again set him up with a clear chance.

Algeria had been forced to play extra-time before winning their last-16 clash ‌against the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday and the exertion could have been the reason many of their key players turned in listless performances. In contrast, Nigeria had a comfortable 4-0 win over Mozambique ‍on Monday.

Nigeria, who have reached the last four 17 times in the last 20 tournaments they have qualified for, will take on Morocco in Rabat in the semifinals on Wednesday.

The Super Eagles, who had a far from ideal preparation with reports of bonuses not being paid, will face host Morocco in the second semifinal in Rabat on Wednesday.

Defending champions Ivory Coast play seven-time champions Egypt in Agadir later on Saturday for a place against Senegal in the first semifinal.

Southern Transitional Council faces uncertain future amid internal divisions over plans to disband with its leader in exile.

Thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets in Aden to show support for the Southern Transitional Council (STC) amid conflicting reports about the separatist group’s purported plans to disband following deadly confrontations with Saudi Arabia-backed forces.

STC supporters chanted slogans against Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally backed government in demonstrations on Saturday in Aden’s Khor Maksar district, one of the group’s strongholds.

The crowd waved the flag of the former South Yemen, which was an independent state between 1967 and 1990.

“Today, the people of the south gathered from all provinces in the capital, Aden, to reiterate what they have been saying consistently for years and throughout the last month: we want an independent state,” protester Yacoub al-Safyani told the AFP news agency.

The public show of solidarity came after a successful Saudi-backed offensive to drive the STC out of parts of southern and eastern Yemen that it had seized towards the end of last year.

The confrontations exposed heightened tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a top ally that the Saudi authorities have accused of backing the STC.

The group had taken over the provinces of Hadramout, on the border with Saudi Arabia, and al-Mahra, a land mass representing about half the country.

After weeks of Saudi-led efforts to de-escalate, Yemeni government forces, backed by the Gulf country, launched an attack on the STC, forcing the separatists out of Hadramout, the presidential palace in Aden and military camps in al-Mahra.

On Friday, an STC delegation that travelled to Riyadh for talks had announced the dissolution of the group in an apparent admission of defeat.

Secretary-General Abdulrahman Jalal al-Sebaihi said the group would shut down all of its bodies and offices inside and outside of Yemen, citing internal disagreements and mounting regional pressure.

However, Anwar al-Tamimi, an STC spokesman, contested the decision, writing on X that only the full council could take such steps under its president – highlighting internal divisions within the separatist movement.

During Saturday’s protest in Aden, STC supporters held up posters of the group’s leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who was smuggled from Aden to the UAE this week after failing to turn up to the talks in the Saudi capital.

Saudi-backed forces have accused the UAE of helping him escape on a flight that was tracked to a military airport in Abu Dhabi.

Authorities in Aden that are aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government on Friday had ordered a ban on demonstrations in the southern city, citing security concerns, according to an official directive seen by Reuters.

Cloudlflare CEO threatens withdrawal of Milano-Cortina Olympics funding following fine by Italian communications watchdog.

United States internet company Cloudflare has threatened to pull its services in Italy, including for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, after being fined 14 million euros ($16m) for failing to tackle online piracy.

Italy’s independent communications watchdog, Agcom, announced the fine on Thursday for “ongoing violation of the anti-piracy law”, notably failing to disable content flagged under its “Piracy Shield” system.

The system allows rightsholders of livestreamed events to report pirated content through an automated platform, with providers required to block the content within 30 minutes.

In a lengthy post on X late Friday, Cloudflare chief executive Matthew Prince condemned what he said was a “scheme to censor the internet”.

He said the system had “no judicial oversight”, no appeal process and no transparency, and required services to block content not just in Italy, but globally.

Cloudflare had already launched legal challenges against the scheme and would now fight the fine, which he called “unjust”.

He also said his company was considering “discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber-security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics”.

Prince said he would be discussing the issue with US officials in Washington, DC, next week and would then head to Lausanne for talks with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is organising the February 6-22 Winter Games in northern Italy.

He also warned his company could discontinue its free cybersecurity services for Italy-based users, remove all servers from Italian cities and scrap plans to invest in the country.

Cloudflare is a platform that provides services including security, traffic management and optimisation for websites and applications.

It claims to manage about 20 percent of global internet traffic.

Agcom says that since its adoption in February 2024, Piracy Shield has led to the disabling of at least 65,000 fully-qualified domain names (FQDN) and approximately 14,000 IP addresses.

Caracas, January 9, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump hosted executives from major Western energy corporations at the White House on Friday after touting a US $100 billion investment plan in Venezuela’s oil industry.

The Trump administration has moved to claim control over the Caribbean nation’s most important economic sector in the wake of the January 3 bombings and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.

“We’re going to discuss how these great American companies can help rapidly rebuild Venezuela’s dilapidated oil industry and bring millions of barrels of oil production to benefit the United States, the people of Venezuela and the entire world,” the US president told reporters.

The meeting featured representatives from Chevron (USA), Shell (UK), Eni (Italy), Repsol (Spain) and 13 other energy and trading firms. Chevron has been the only major US company to maintain operations in Venezuela amidst US sanctions.

Trump added that the corporations would be “dealing” with the US directly and not with Venezuelan authorities. Multiple US officials in recent days have claimed that proceeds from crude sales will be deposited in accounts run by administration before being rerouted to Venezuela. Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA has confirmed “negotiations” to resume oil shipments to the US but has not commented on the rumored terms.

In his press conference, Trump said the White House would “devise a formula” to ensure that Caracas receives funds and corporations recover their investments while the US government would get any “leftover funds.” He added that Washington would offer the corporations “security guarantees” to operate in Venezuela.

Despite the Trump administration’s incentives, oil conglomerates have expressed reservations on committing to major investments in Venezuela.

Friday’s meeting at the White House also included executives from ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, two companies that refused to accept the new conditions from the former Chávez government’s oil reforms in the 2000s.

Both companies pursued international arbitration. ExxonMobil was compensated to the tune of $1.6 billion, significantly below its demands, while ConocoPhillips is looking to enforce awards totaling $12 billion. The Houston-headquartered enterprise will collect part of the debt via the forced auction of Venezuela’s US-based refiner CITGO.

ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods stated that the company would need “significant changes” to Venezuela’s legal infrastructure before considering a return to the country.

In parallel to the White House gathering, India’s Reliance Industries, the country’s largest conglomerate, is reportedly seeking a US greenlight to resume purchases of Venezuelan crude. Reliance was a significant PDVSA customer before being driven away by US sanctions threats.

Venezuela’s oil sector, the country’s most important revenue source, remains heavily targeted by US unilateral coercive measures, including financial sanctions, an export embargo, and secondary sanctions.

Washington has maintained pressure on Caracas to impose oil conditions by enforcing a naval blockade and seizing tankers attempting to sail away with Venezuelan crude. On Friday, the US Navy seized the fifth tanker since early December, the Timor Leste-flagged Olina which had sailed from Venezuelan shores days ago as part of a flotilla attempting to break the US blockade.

Trump claimed that Venezuelan authorities assisted in the capture of the Olina tanker. According to the New York Times, US naval forces are chasing multiple tankers into the Atlantic, while others that left are reportedly heading back toward Venezuela.

Washington’s interest in controlling the Venezuelan oil industry has already seen the US Treasury Department issue sanctions waivers to global traders Vitol and Trafigura. The two companies were represented in the January 9 White House meeting.

Asked about Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, Trump said that the Venezuelan leader “seems to be an ally.” A US State Department delegation landed in Caracas on Friday to evaluate conditions for the reopening of the US embassy in the Venezuelan capital.

Amidst US official statements and diplomatic pressure, Venezuelan authorities have likewise sought meetings with some of its main allies, including Russia and China.

Rodríguez met with Chinese Ambassador Lan Hu Thursday, thanking Beijing for its condemnation of the US attacks and Maduro abduction. While US officials have pledged to reduce Chinese economic ties with Venezuela, Rodríguez stated in a recent broadcast that Caracas would maintain “diversity” in its economic and geopolitical relations.

Also on Thursday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil hosted Russian Ambassador Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov. Gil acknowledged Moscow’s support in the wake of the US January 3 attacks and expressed the two nations’ joint commitment to dialogue and sovereignty.

After months of Washington – with the help of much of the US mainstream media – manufacturing consent for a military intervention in Venezuela, last week American forces abducted the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and flew him to a prison in New York City. Now, the Trump administration is shifting the narrative away from the stated objective of striking a “narco-state” to the US taking control of Venezuela’s massive oil reserves.

Contributors:
Alejandro Velasco – Associate Professor, NYU
Alexander Main – Director of International Policy, CEPR
JM MonteBlack – Venezuelan-American journalist
Luis Valdez Jimenez – Lawyer and Venezuelan- American activist

On our radar

Once again, Iran is in the grip of nationwide protests, triggered in large part by the country’s struggling economy. What makes this moment volatile is the geopolitical context: both Israel and the US bombed Iran last year and now authorities in Tehran are accusing them of stoking the unrest. On the ground, the response from Iran’s security forces has turned violent but the details remain difficult to verify. Meenakshi Ravi reports.

An interview with Jose Luis Granados Ceja

A conversation with Jose Luis Granados Ceja, the Latin American contributor of Drop Site News on how to decipher the news coming out of Venezuela.

Featuring:

Jose Luis Granados Ceja – Latin America contributor, Drop Site News

Since taking the White House in January last year, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he wants to annex Greenland “very badly,” with a range of options on the table, including a military attack.

Amid opposition from Greenlandic lawmakers, Trump doubled down on Friday, threatening that the United States is “going to do something [there] whether they like it or not”.

“If we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbour,” Trump said at a meeting with oil and gas executives at the White House.

“I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” he added.

Since the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro last week from Caracas in a military operation, Trump and his officials have upped the ante against the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk.

So, what are the ways that US President Trump could take control of Greenland, a territory of Denmark?

Is Trump considering paying out Greenlanders?

Paying out to Greenland’s nearly 56,000-strong population is an option that White House officials have been reportedly discussing.

Located mostly within the Arctic Circle, Greenland is the world’s largest island, with 80 percent of its land covered by glaciers. Nuuk, the capital, is the most populated area, home to about one-third of the population.

Trump’s officials have discussed sending payments to Greenlanders – ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person – according to a Reuters report, in a bid to convince them to secede from Denmark and potentially join Washington.

Greenland is formally a part of Denmark, with its own elected government and rules over most of its internal affairs, including control over natural resources and governance. Copenhagen still handles foreign policy, defence and Greenland’s finances.

But since 2009, Greenland has the right to secede if its population votes for independence in a referendum. In theory, payouts to Greenland residents could be an attempt to influence their vote.

Trump shared his ambitions of annexing Greenland during his first term as well, terming it “essentially a large real estate deal.”

If the US government were to pay $100,000 to each Greenland resident, the total bill for this effort would amount to about $5.6bn.

Can the US ‘buy’ Greenland?

Earlier this week, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that Trump’s officials are “actively” discussing a potential offer to buy the Danish territory.

During a briefing on Monday with lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told them that Trump would prefer to buy Greenland rather than invade it. Rubio is scheduled to hold talks with Danish leaders next week.

Both Nuuk and Copenhagen have repeatedly insisted that the island “is not for sale”.

There are few modern historical precedents to compare Trump’s threats with Greenland, much like the abduction of Maduro on his orders.

The US purchased Louisiana from France in 1803 for $15m and Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2m. However, both France and Russia were willing sellers — unlike Denmark and Greenland today.

Washington has also purchased territory from Denmark in the past. In 1917, the US, under President Woodrow Wilson, bought the Danish West Indies for $25m during World War I, later renaming them the United States Virgin Islands.

Can Trump really just pay off his way?

While Greenlanders have been open to departing from Denmark, the population has repeatedly refused to be a part of the US. Nearly 85 percent of the population rejects the idea, according to a 2025 poll commissioned by the Danish paper Berlingske.

Meanwhile, another poll, by YouGov, shows that only 7 percent of Americans support the idea of a US military invasion of the territory.

Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist and a professor at Columbia University, told Al Jazeera, “The White House wants to buy out Greenlanders, not to pay for what Greenland is worth, which is way beyond what the US would ever pay.”

“Trump thinks he can buy Greenland on the cheap, not for what it’s worth to Denmark or Europe,” he said. “This attempt to negotiate directly with the Greenlanders is an affront and threat to Danish and European sovereignty.”

Denmark and the European Union “should make clear that Trump should stop this abuse of European sovereignty,” said Sachs. “Greenland should not be for sale or capture by the US.”

Sachs added that the EU needs to assess “[Greenland’s] enormous value as a geostrategic region in the Arctic, filled with resources, vital for Europe’s military security.” And, he added, “certainly not a plaything of the United States and its new emperor”.

Denmark and the US were among the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949 to provide collective security against Soviet expansion.

“Europe should tell the US imperialists to go away,” Sachs said. “[Today] Europe is far more likely to be invaded from the West (US) than from the East,” the economist told Al Jazeera.

Has the US tried to buy Greenland earlier?

Yes, on more than one occasion.

The first such proposal surfaced in 1867 under Secretary of State William Seward, during discussions to successfully purchase Alaska. By 1868, he was reportedly prepared to offer $5.5m in gold to acquire both Greenland and Iceland.

In 1910, a three-way land swap was discussed that would involve the US acquiring Greenland in exchange for giving Denmark parts of the US-held Philippines, and the return of Northern Schleswig from Germany back to Denmark was proposed.

A more formal attempt was made in 1946, immediately following World War II. Recognising Greenland’s critical role in monitoring Soviet movements, President Harry Truman’s administration offered Denmark $100m in gold for the island.

But Denmark flatly rejected the idea.

Can the US attack Greenland?

While political analysts say that a US attack to annex Greenland would be a direct violation of the NATO treaty, the White House has said that using military force to acquire Greenland is among the options.

Denmark, a NATO ally, has also said that any such attack would end the military alliance.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark isn’t going to be able to do it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday. “It’s so strategic.”

Greenland is one of the world’s most sparsely populated, geographically vast regions.

But through a 1951 agreement with Denmark, the US military already has a significant presence on the island.

The US military is stationed at the Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, in the northwestern corner of Greenland, and the 1951 pact allows Washington to set up additional “defence areas” on the island.

The Thule base supports missile warning, missile defence, space surveillance missions, and satellite command and control.

Nearly 650 personnel are stationed at the base, including US Air Force and Space Force members, with Canadian, Danish and Greenlandic civilian contractors. Under the 1951 deal, Danish laws and taxation don’t apply to American personnel on the base.

Denmark also has a military presence in Greenland, headquartered in Nuuk, where its main tasks are surveillance and search and rescue operations, and the “assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands”, according to Danish Defence.

But the US forces at Thule are comfortably stronger than the Danish military presence on the island. Many analysts believe that if the US were to use these troops to try to occupy Greenland, they could do so without much military resistance or bloodshed.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place”. Both global powers have a presence in the Arctic Circle; however, there is no evidence of their ships anywhere near Greenland.

Is there another option for the US?

As Trump’s officials mull plans to annex Greenland, there have reportedly been discussions in the White House on entering into a type of agreement that defines a unique structure of sovereignty-sharing.

Reuters reported that officials have discussed putting together a Compact of Free Association, an international agreement between the US and three independent, sovereign Pacific island nations: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau.

The political arrangement grants the US responsibility for defence and security in exchange for economic assistance. The precise details of COFA agreements vary depending on the signatory.

For a COFA agreement, in theory, Greenland would need to separate from Denmark.

Asked why the Trump administration had previously said it was not ruling out using military force to acquire Greenland, Leavitt replied that all options were always on the table, but Trump’s “first option always has been diplomacy”.

Why does Trump want Greenland badly?

Trump has cited national security as his motivation for wanting to take Greenland.

For the US, Greenland offers the shortest route from North America to Europe. The US has expressed interest in expanding its military presence in Greenland by placing radars in the waters connecting Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom. These waters are a gateway for Russian and Chinese vessels, which Washington aims to track.

But Greenland is also home to mineral riches, including rare earths. According to a 2023 survey, 25 of 34 minerals deemed “critical raw materials” by the European Commission were found in Greenland. Scientists believe the island could also have significant oil and gas reserves.

However, Greenland does not carry out the extraction of oil and gas, and its mining sector is opposed by its Indigenous population. The island’s economy is largely reliant on its fishing industry at the moment.

After years of public criticism directed at Europe, US President Donald Trump put together a National Security Strategy (NSS) that reflected his twisted perceptions. Still, it is one thing to hear his stage rhetoric and another to see his worldview codified in official doctrine. Its core claim: Europe will be “unrecognisable in 20 years” due to “civilisational erasure” unless the United States, “sentimentally attached” to the continent, steps in to restore its “former greatness”.

Trump is right, Europe has problems. But they are not what he claims.

Decades of underinvestment in people, persistent political incentives to ignore excluded communities and a reluctance to confront how demographic and economic decline interact, go unaddressed. Political leaders largely avoid this conversation. Some deny these problems, others concede them privately while publicly debating symptoms but not addressing the root causes.

A clearer perspective can be found among those who live with these failures. Across Europe, millions in the working class struggle to survive amid shuttered factories, underfunded schools, unaffordable housing and broken public services. Among them, the Roma sharpen the picture. As Europe’s largest and most dispossessed minority, their experience exposes the continent’s choice to treat entire populations as collateral damage. When Trump presses on Europe’s wounds, these communities confirm where it hurts.

What Trump gets right about Europe

The NSS argues that Europe’s “lack of self-confidence” is most visible in its relationship with Russia. Yes, Europe’s paralysis towards Moscow contrasts with its aggression towards weaker groups at home. This reflects the lack of confidence in European values.

Trump is right. We’re weak. If we were strong, we would stand up for European values of democracy and pluralism. We would not demonise our minorities.

But we do. Across the continent, Roma communities face racist policies. In Slovenia, following a bar fight that spiralled into public hysteria, the national legislature passed a law in November to securitise Roma neighbourhoods.

In Portugal, Andre Ventura of the far-right Chega party put up posters saying “G****es have to obey the law” as part of his presidential campaign. In Italy, far-right politician Matteo Salvini built an entire political brand on anti-Roma paranoia. In Greece, the police shoot at Roma youth for minor crimes.

Leaders over-securitise the Roma while overcompensating for their caution towards Russia.

The NSS also highlights Europe’s declining share of global gross domestic product, from 25 percent in 1990 to 14 percent today. Regulations play a part, so does demographic decline, but the deeper problem is Europe’s failure to invest in all its people.

Twelve million Roma, the youngest population in Europe, remain locked out of education, employment and entrepreneurship through structural barriers and discrimination, even though surveys show their overwhelming willingness to contribute to the societies they live in and their high success rates when they run businesses that receive support.

If Roma employment in Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria – where their unemployment rates are currently 25 percentage points above those of the majority population – matched national averages, the combined GDP gain could be as much as 10 billion euros ($11.6bn). In a continent losing two million workers a year, letting this labour potential go unused is self-sabotage.

Trump is right about Europe’s declining share of GDP. If Europe were serious, it would not believe it can leave Roma people on the scrap heap.

The NSS further warns of “subversion of democratic processes”, and while he is not talking about minorities, it is true that Europe does fall short.  Proportionally, according to our estimates at the Roma Foundation, they should hold over 400 seats.

The European Parliament includes seats for Malta and Luxembourg, states with populations of 570,000 and 680,000, respectively; yet, it does not include any seats for the Roma community.

Trump is right that we have a democratic deficit. But it’s not because of laws against hate speech and constitutional barriers to the far right. The most pressing deficit is that 12 million Roma are not represented.

A continent that wastes its population cannot be competitive, and one that suppresses parts of its electorate cannot claim to be representative. Political exclusion reduces voter turnout and registration rates, leading to systematically underrepresentative institutions, while economic exclusion makes communities easier targets for vote-buying, coercion and political capture.

What Europe really needs

Trump’s proposed solution for Europe’s crisis would not resolve anything. He seems to assume that far-right pseudo-sovereigntists, opposed to immigration and minorities alike, can reverse Europe’s decline.

The evidence suggests otherwise. Countries where xenophobia influences policy have not performed well. In the United Kingdom, where the far right drove a campaign to leave the European Union over fears of migration, experts have calculated that GDP is 6-8 percent lower than it would have been without Brexit. In Hungary, where the government of Viktor Orban has enacted various anti-migrant and discriminatory policies, there is stagnant economic growth, a high budget deficit and frozen EU funds. Exclusion weakens economies and makes democracies vulnerable.

Empowering the ideological heirs of forces that the United States once helped Europe defeat would not aid the continent’s recovery. In fact, this “restoration” to power of extremist right-wing ideology would deepen Europe’s dependence on Washington, then Moscow.

It is also true that Europe cannot survive global realpolitik, leaning on liberal nostalgia, multilateral summits or rhetorical commitments, either.

What Europe needs is inclusive realism: the recognition that investing in all people is not charity but a strategic necessity. China’s rise illustrates this. Decades of investment in health, education and employment have expanded human capital, increased productivity and reshaped global power balances.

Europe cannot afford to waste its own population potential while expecting to remain a relevant player. The real choice is not between liberals and the far right, but between deepening its wounds by sidelining millions or beginning to heal by investing in the people it has long treated as expendable.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

The Iranian army says it would safeguard strategic infrastructure and public property as it urged the Iranians to thwart “the enemy’s plots”, after United States President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders over the escalating antigovernment protests.

In a statement published by semi-official news sites, the military on Saturday accused Israel and “hostile terrorist groups” of seeking to “undermine the country’s public security”, as Tehran stepped up efforts to ‍quell the country’s biggest protests in years over the cost of living, which have left dozens dead.

“The Army, under the command of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, together with other armed forces, in addition to monitoring enemy movements in the region, will resolutely protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property,” the military said.

Iran’s ‍elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – which operates separately from the army – also warned ⁠on Saturday that ​safeguarding ‍the 1979 revolution’s ‍achievements and the ⁠country’s security was a “red line”, ​state ‌TV reported.

Earlier on Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio once again expressed Washington’s support for the people of Iran after Iranian authorities blacked out the internet, as they sought to curb deadly protests.

“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” Rubio posted on X.

The post came hours after Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders, saying, “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”

Trump said it looked like Iran’s leaders were “in big trouble” and repeated an earlier threat of military attacks if peaceful protesters were killed. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” he said.

Protests have taken place across Iran since January 3, in a movement prompted by anger over the rising cost of living, with growing calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which removed the pro-Western shah ruler.

The unrest continued overnight on Saturday, with state media blaming “rioters” for setting a municipal building on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, the Reuters news agency reported.

Press TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan, Reuters said. Videos published by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed large numbers of people taking part in new protests in the eastern city of Mashhad and Tabriz in the north.

In his first comments on the escalating protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”.

In a speech broadcast on Press TV, Khamenei said Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s attacks on Iran in June, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

Khamenei predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

“Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people; it will not back down in the face of saboteurs,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on a visit to Lebanon on Friday, accused the US and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional”.

‘Different approaches’

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the protests have been growing in the capital, Tehran, and other cities.

“[The protests] started sporadically, but over the past two-three days, we have been witnessing more and more protests, specifically in the capital,” he said, adding that the demonstrations “flared up into violence in many streets” in Tehran on Thursday.

He said the state is trying to control the situation “with different approaches” such as tightening security measures and introducing a new subsidy scheme for citizens.

The protests are the biggest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement prompted by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress rules for women.

A “nationwide internet blackout” implemented by the Iranian authorities as protesters took to the streets has now been in place for 36 hours, monitor NetBlocks said on Saturday.

“After another night of protests met with repression, metrics show the nationwide internet blackout remains in place at 36 hours,” it said in a post on X.

Rights group Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.

Also on Saturday, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests, with the aim of taking and then holding city centres.

“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Reza Pahlavi said in a video message on social media, urging more protests on Saturday and Sunday and adding he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” in a day he believed was “very near”.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, raising a previous toll of 45 issued the day before, said at least 51 protesters, including nine children, have been killed by security forces, and hundreds more injured.

In a joint statement on Friday, the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada and the European Union issued a strong condemnation and called on Iran to “immediately end the use of excessive and lethal force by its security forces”.

“Too many lives – over 40 to date – have already been lost,” it said.

A new video has emerged showing the final moments of a Minnesota woman’s encounter with an immigration officer before she was killed, as public uproar grows in the United States over the shooting and exclusion of local agencies from the investigation.

A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on the public to share with investigators any recordings and evidence connected to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

A new, 47-second video published online by a Minnesota-based conservative news site, Alpha News, on Friday, and later reposted on social media by the Department of Homeland Security, shows the shooting from the perspective of ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who fired the shots on Wednesday.

With sirens blaring in the background, Ross, 43, approaches and circles Good’s vehicle in the middle of the road while apparently filming on his cellphone. At the same time, Good’s wife was also recording the encounter and can be seen walking around the vehicle and approaching the officer.

A series of exchanges occurred.

“That’s fine, I’m not mad at you,” Good says as the officer passes by her door. She has one hand on the steering wheel and the other outside the open driver’s side window.

“US citizen, former f—ing veteran,” says her wife, standing outside the passenger side of the SUV holding up her phone. “You wanna come at us, you wanna come at us, I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.”

Other officers approach the driver’s side of the car at about the same time, and one says, “Get out of the car, get out of the f—ing car.”

Ross is now at the front driver’s side of the vehicle. Good reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel towards the passenger side as she drives ahead, and Ross opens fire. The camera becomes unsteady and points towards the sky, then returns to the street view showing Good’s SUV careening away.

“F—ing b—-,” someone at the scene says.

A crashing sound is heard as Good’s vehicle smashes into others parked on the street.

Minnesota officials slam federal agencies

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the ICE agent who shot Good in her car, painting her as a “domestic terrorist” and claiming Ross – an Iraq War veteran – was protecting himself and the fellow agents. The White House insisted the video gave weight to the officer’s claim of self-defence – even though the clip does not show the moment the car moved away, or him opening fire.

Local officials in Minnesota have condemned federal agencies for excluding them from the probe, and a local prosecutor said on Friday that federal investigators had taken Good’s car and shell casings from the scene.

“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law… The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a news briefing on Friday.

“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, within its department of public safety, has consistently run such investigations.

“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.

Good was the fourth person to be killed by ICE agencts since Trump launched his immigration crackdown last year.

Good’s wife, Becca Good, told local media that they had gone to the scene of immigration enforcement activity to “support our neighbours”. “We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.

The Minneapolis killing and a separate shooting in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday by the Border Patrol have set off protests in multiple US cities and denunciations of immigration enforcement tactics by the US government.

Protests in Minneapolis continued on Friday, with hundreds gathered at a federal facility that has become a focal point of anti-ICE demonstrations. Hundreds of weekend protests have been planned across the US over the killing, according to organisers.

In the evening, moments before the United States’ aerial operation in northwestern Nigeria, a helicopter hovered above the perimeters of Gwangwano District, in Sokoto’s Tangaza Local Government Area (LGA). It was Dec. 25, 2025. Residents said helicopters had hovered around in the past, but this one stayed far too long, unsettling the civilians and alerting the terrorists. 

For at least two years, communities in Tangaza have cohabited with foreign-linked Lakurawa terrorists, who first appeared like their saviours. Villagers agreed to a peace deal with the group in exchange for protection from homegrown terrorists who were ravaging their homes and taxing them to death. Initially, Lakurawa seemed more persuasive, residents said, but they eventually introduced their own radical ideologies—far worse than the criminal enterprise they had condemned.

A few hours after the helicopter was sighted, Ardo Kyaure, a terrorist leader in Tangaza, was seen moving house to house near Bauni forests, urging residents to flee. He warned them of an impending attack. Villagers who saw Ardo said he was also making phone calls to accomplices, panting as he ran through the communities. 

Ardo was once a local terrorist leader before defecting to join Lakurawa. He became a middleman between the foreign terrorists and the villagers after he was subdued, losing so many of his fighters to the new sect.

News quickly reached the communities that the Lakurawa terrorists were evacuating their camps. Residents said the terrorists fled the area on over a dozen motorcycles. The villagers within the Bauni Mountains and the Kandam community also ran for their lives.

“We sighted 15 motorcycles carrying luggage and the Lakurawa terrorists with their women and children,” Alhaji Rabiu, a resident of Zurmuku, a village neighbouring the Bauni forest, told HumAngle. “Ten additional motorcycles were moving to Muntsaika, a community in the nearby Niger Republic, in the evening before the strikes happened.”

HumAngle spoke to scores of locals who witnessed the air raid, especially villagers living near the Bauni Mountains. We also interviewed village chiefs and a local monarch in Tangaza, who corroborated Rabiu’s account, stating that the strike failed to reach its target, despite public claims by US and Nigerian officials. 

“No terrorist was found dead throughout our communities,” said Alhaji Bunu, the traditional ruler of the Gwangwano District in Tangaza LGA. “We saw nothing like dead bodies, even at the Bauni Mountains where the bomb fell. The same Lakurawas we knew are still here, loitering around our communities. We are still mingling with them.”

Fireballs, flaming narratives 

A few days after the strike, the Nigerian government claimed “a total of 16 GPS-guided precision munitions were deployed using MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial platforms, successfully neutralising the targeted ISIS elements attempting to penetrate Nigeria from the Sahel corridor”. Donald Trump, the US President, had said that the strike eliminated Islamic State terrorists who had been “viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries”.

That narrative had lingered for years and intensified in the final months of 2025, when the US designated Nigeria a country of particular concern and also threatened military action against terrorists operating within the country. Nigerian officials and security experts, however, dispelled the narrative, saying that Muslims, Christians, and other adherents of other faiths are victims of violent attacks and terrorism in the country. The rhetoric was inflamed again when the US announced that its Christmas Day airstrikes targeted elements of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Nigeria. 

US forces have occasionally targeted ISIS terrorists in parts of Africa, especially in Somalia, often working with local intelligence to combat the violent groups. In Nigeria, however, the strike has sparked fierce debate over whether ISIS terrorists were present at the location hit.

Most security experts agree that Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West African Provinces (ISWAP), which are primarily based in northeastern Nigeria, have established links to ISIS. However, the targeted Tangaza forest, which officials described as the transit hub for ISIS-affiliated terrorists, is known to be dominated by the Lakurawa group, which infiltrated Sokoto through porous borders with the Niger Republic. 

Nigerian government officials have publicly claimed that the strike was conducted jointly with US forces, based on intelligence shared to fight terrorism. The country’s Minister of Information, Muhammad Idris, described it as “successful precision strikes on two major ISIS terrorist enclaves located within the Bauni forest axis of Tangaza Local Government Area, Sokoto State”.

“Intelligence confirmed that these locations were being used as assembly and staging grounds by foreign ISIS elements infiltrating Nigeria from the Sahel region, in collaboration with local affiliates, to plan and execute large-scale terrorist attacks within Nigerian territory,” he said.

Yet the circumstances surrounding the strike have raised concerns amongst villagers in Sokoto State and conflict researchers in the northern region.

Was the precision strike successful?

HumAngle began gathering witness accounts moments after the air raid, tracing events before, during, and after the missiles were launched. Residents of Bauni village, where the strike happened, said they have seen no sign that any terrorist was hit. 

We interviewed a number of  Bauni locals, who had travelled from the village to a safer place in Tangaza to share their accounts. In separate interviews, they all echoed one thing: the terrorists had long left the site of the attack before the missile was launched.

The strike raised curiosity in the communities, as villagers insisted they would know if any terrorist was killed or if any of them were injured. 

Kasimu Hassan, a Bauni villager, told HumAngle that the Lakurawa terrorists had absolute control over them, and the airstrike hadn’t ended their reign. In Bauni, he said, no villager was allowed to welcome visitors or accept strangers without notifying the Lakurawa terrorists. He stated that anyone caught doing that could be traced, tried, and executed.

“This has been the situation we are in. Not even a single Lakurawa was killed or injured by the US explosion in Tangaza LGA. Some of them come to our mosques to pray, visit our markets to buy commodities, and stop over at our houses to exchange pleasantries in forceful smiles,” Kasimu said, adding that “the Lakurawa terrorists are still in our villages hanging around the bush even after the explosion.”

At least four other Bauni villagers confirmed Hassan’s claims. One said fires burned in the surrounding bush for days after the strike. Despite official claims that a Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) was underway, locals said they had not seen security operatives surveilling the area for such an assessment. 

During our on-the-ground reporting, HumAngle spotted a police anti-bomb squad along the road to Tangaza, but locals insisted that officers have refused to come near the site for any post-strike surveillance. Sanusi Abubakar, the spokesperson for Sokoto State Police Command, has not responded to HumAngle’s inquiry into why the anti-bomb squad has refused to visit the communities for the assessment.

“It was Ardo Kyaure, a terrorist leader, who came to tell us that there is a lot of debris on the Bauni Mountains and another undetonated bomb deposited there,” Kasimu added.

Terrorists taking cover in civilian villages 

After the strikes, villagers said the Lakurawa terrorists increasingly sought refuge inside civilian settlements, avoiding the Bauni Mountains, where they usually live. Magaji Abdullahi, the village head of Bauni, confirmed this to HumAngle, noting that the airstrike only resulted in moving terrorists into civilian settlements. 

“The mountains used to be our hunting point in the last 15 to 20 years,” said Magaji. “It is not accessible even to our local hunters anymore, except recently, when the Lakurawa terrorists mixed up with us. The Nigerian government abandoned us for years; the only military base available to us was in the far-off town of Gwangwano. They tried a lot in securing only the centre of Gwangwano effectively, but there is no peace in other areas.”

He also stressed that villagers are left with no choice but to cohabit with the terrorists due to the absence of government in the area. The Lakurawa terror group now controls much of Gwangwano District, which encompasses villages such as Bauni, Garin Mano, Mugunho, Kaidaji, and Kandam.

Muazu Magaji, another witness of the strike, had left the Kaidaji village to settle down in the Tangaza town, waiting for the coast to clear. He was there when the missile lightning illuminated the community. Despite the reverberating sounds that came with the airstrike, Magaji said, terrorists were watching from afar, with Ardo Kyaure calling others who might still be around the Bauni forest “to leave”.

“I was walking from Kaidaji to Bauni when the bomb exploded that night,” he recalled. “We already figured out something was about to happen because of the way we saw how the Lawkurawas were moving out of the forest zone to our settlements on the day of the attack.”

After the airstrike, on Saturday, Dec. 26, witness accounts revealed that terrorists came to sniff around to know what might come next. Sanusi Dubudari, one of the fleeing residents from Kaidaji, said: “We saw 11 Lakurawa terrorists in Kaidaji village asking residents whether they found their ₦7 million cash while they were running on Friday.”

Based on several local accounts, the Lakurawa terrorists have blended in really well with the villagers in Tangaza, making it difficult for security to hunt them down over fear of collateral damage. Although the terrorists moved into Sokoto from countries like Mali, the Niger Republic, and Burkina Faso, they have formed a strong alliance with locally-rooted terrorists, who made it easy for them to navigate the terrain seamlessly, sometimes hiding under the shield of locals during military raids. They used the same tactics during the US airstrike targeting ISIS elements in the state.

Apart from Ardo Kyaure, Charambe Damba is another indigenous terrorist working in cahoots with the Lakurawa group. He resided in Illela, a town bordering the Niger Republic, but recently relocated to Bauni to set up a terrorist camp on the mountain and in the forest of the locality. One of the known foreign-linked Lakurawa terrorists is called Asasanta, who is from the Republic of Mali. Other local accomplices were identified as Jammare from the Alela village and Buba Holo from the Gwangwano community in the Tangaza LGA.

Near-surface aerial bombing 

HumAngle matched witness accounts with satellite intelligence and geospatial analysis to assess the effectiveness of the so-called precision airstrike. For weeks, we reconstructed the events leading up to the airstrike and what happened later, merging open-source intelligence with on-the-ground reporting. At the time of this investigation, no government or military official (including bomb disposal units) and no journalists had accessed the actual blast site. There were also no photos or after-action reports, which are typically shared on the Nigerian military’s social media channels after air raids.

We first used Google Earth imagery as a base map to scan for fire activity that matched the date and timeframe of the strike. With no confirmed coordinates from official or ground sources, we overlaid NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), a US National Aeronautics and Space Administration-run detection tool providing real-time satellite data on active fire hotspots globally. Multiple fire detections appeared about three kilometres south of Nukuru, in the rocky mountainous terrain of the Bauni area. These terrain features matched the location described by our sources and are more than 11 km west of the Bauni Forest Reserve. There were no fire detections deep inside the forest during the relevant period. 

From satellite images, the Gwangwano district, including the Bauni village, looks empty. Here, villages don’t spread out; they sit in small clusters, and there’s a lot of space before the next one. Farmland, open savannah, hills, and stretches of land also seem unused. But once you zoom in and start following the details, it becomes clear that the place is just not organised the way a typical rural town would be.

Through extensive geospatial analyses, HumAngle identified recent motorcycle tracks within the Bauni locality – thin lines, sometimes barely visible, cutting through farmland, climbing hills, disappearing into forested areas, and reappearing elsewhere. The tracks were nearly everywhere at the time of this satellite intelligence analysis. One route splits into three, then those split again. Some lead straight into villages, others run around the edges, into the hills, or toward areas where there are no visible settlements at all. This matches what witnesses told us about the Lakurawa terrorists moving on motorcycles in large numbers, and leaving the hill.

Up in the hills and mountain areas, especially around the forest reserve and the expanse of land next to it, there are no villages — just small clearings and faint shapes that don’t look like farmland or houses, with tracks leading in and out. People familiar with this area say these are temporary shelters, where terrorists survive seamlessly, hunting small animals, foraging, and riding into town to buy supplies, and then returning. Here, locals said, terrorists don’t need to live deep inside the forest reserve; the hills and forest-adjacent land outside it are enough. They’re close to communities but not inside them – close enough to reach markets or villages, far enough to stay out of sight. 

When we overlaid the NASA fire data from the days after Dec. 25, 2025, the locations lined up with this pattern. The fires were not inside a village, nor deep in the forest reserve. They appeared in terrain that fits how people actually use this landscape — hilly, open, connected by tracks, and close enough to settlements to be seen and felt, but not inside them. However, we found a dense network of informal routes that makes movement easy and law enforcement’s control almost impossible.

Using Google Earth Pro, we reviewed 2023 imagery of the hills and mountain range south of Nukuru village and the Bauni Mountain and marked points of interest (POIs) across the landscape. The only visible human features in this sparse environment are isolated huts, farmhouses, small clearings under trees, and faint impressions that could be temporary living units. We presented the satellite review to some of the enlightened locals; they believe that if a munition struck a fixed structure there, even a light one, there would be some visible trace. 

When we obtained the latest 2025 Planet imagery, we overlaid the same POIs onto the new images and checked them individually. Most structures were still present; some appeared less distinct, likely due to resolution, seasonal change, or abandonment, but none showed clear signs of blast damage, scorched ground, or collapsed structures. In a few cases, huts visible in 2023 were no longer visible in 2025, yet the sandy compound remained intact, without burn marks or disturbed vegetation. This clearly shows that no permanent or semi-permanent structure in the area was directly hit – at least within the limits of our assessments.

The satellite imagery analyses and eyewitness accounts point away from a classic ground-impact strike. There is no visible crater, no destroyed structure, or abrupt disruption of living units. The evidence fits more closely with a high-energy detonation that occurred at or above ground level, producing intense light, a strong pressure wave felt several kilometres away, and secondary fires in surrounding vegetation. 

Our findings corroborate locals’ accounts of sighting the flash and feeling the vibration despite being several kilometres from the fire detections. A near-surface detonation transfers more energy into the air, creating light and shock without leaving deep or lasting ground damage.

HumAngle’s satellite investigation shows no clear impact point. The cumulative evidence from witness statements, NASA fire detection, and high-resolution satellite imagery indicates that the US missile strike may not have hit the prime targets. 

A recent New York Times story on the incident quoted two anonymous US government officials, who said the strike was “a one-time event” intended to scare terrorists while appeasing the Nigerian Christians that the US has their back, and that the warship responsible for launching the strike has since been withdrawn from the Gulf of Guinea.

Some local conflict and terrorism experts said the US airstrike largely failed to achieve its publicly stated mission. James Barnett, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, who has researched African conflicts for years, believes that the strike “was performative”. “It was not a success,” he noted. “It may not have even killed any militants. And it certainly did not make Christians there safer (possibly the opposite).”

Seeds of doubt and misinformation

Meanwhile, in Jabo, a civilian community in Sokoto’s Tambuwal LGA, kilometres away from Tangaza, where the airstrike also landed, seeds of doubt and misinformation are growing among residents, who believe that the US is targeting Muslim settlements. 

The locals gave accounts of rays of light from flying fireballs and vibrations similar to those of the Tangaza villagers, except that they insisted that the Jabo area does not host terror groups and has not witnessed any terrorist attacks in the past decade. They wondered why such a tactical bombing would be aimed at their peaceful community. 

After HumAngle’s report of the residents’ accounts, the Nigerian government provided a counternarrative, saying what locals saw was debris from the air assaults on terrorists in faraway Tangaza. Residents of Offa, Kwara State, also experienced what the Nigerian Information Minister described as “debris from expended munitions”.

Military authorities have urged civilian residents in Sokoto and Kwara to stop keeping the unexploded ordnance found at the sites of the raid. This came after videos appeared online showing locals scavenging exploded and unexploded debris at strike sites in Sokoto, raising concerns about potential deadly blasts.

“We do not expect civilians to pick up or keep such materials,” Major General Michael Onoja, Director of Defence Media Operations, said. “We can only appeal to them to return all materials that may prove harmful to them.”

Media misreporting

Isa Salihu, the chairperson of the Tangaza local council, confirmed that the US-led aerial assault actually hit a known terrorist hub in the area, but stressed that details of the operation were still sketchy. “We cannot yet confirm if targets were killed,” he said. “We are awaiting detailed security reports to determine the impact and to verify if there were any civilian casualties.”

However, some local media organisations in Nigeria erroneously reported the local leader affirming that the “precision strike” hit the targeted terrorists. 

A day after the strike, the Sokoto State government, through Abubakar Bawa, the state’s spokesperson, had issued a statement titled: “Nigeria-US Aistrike Hits Terrorist Targets in Tangaza”. But the content of the statement betrayed its title, as it merely reiterated what the local council chairperson said. “The impact could not be immediately determined, as they await assessment of the Joint Operations,” the statement read.

Bawa and the local chairman did not respond to HumAngle’s calls and messages for further clarification on their statements. 

In the wake of the devastating fire at a bar in Crans-Montana, many Swiss citizens are asking themselves if their political system is fit for purpose.

Switzerland, often praised for its efficiency, has a very devolved system of government, in which villages and towns are run by local officials elected from and by the community.

It is a system the Swiss cherish, because they believe it ensures accountability.

But there are inherent weaknesses: hypothetically, the official approving a bar license or passing a fire-safety check is the friend, neighbour, or maybe even cousin of the bar owner.

When the news of the fire emerged on New Year’s Eve, first there was shock. Such devastating fires are not, people thought, supposed to happen in Switzerland.

Then there was grief – 40 young people lost their lives, 116 were injured, many of them very seriously. Questions followed – what caused such a catastrophe?

And finally, this week – fury when Crans-Montana’s Mayor, Nicolas Feraud, revealed that Le Constellation bar had not been inspected since 2019.

Crans-Montana is in the Swiss canton of Valais, where fire-safety inspections are the responsibility of Mayor Feraud and his colleagues, and they are supposed to happen every 12 months.

Not only had the checks not taken place, the mayor said, he had only become aware of this after the fire. And, he revealed, of 128 bars and restaurants in Crans-Montana, only 40 had been inspected in 2025.

Asked why, Feraud had no answer, though he did suggest Crans-Montana had too few inspectors for the number of properties that needed checking.

This was echoed by Romy Biner, the mayor of neighbouring upmarket resort Zermatt, who told local media that many communities in the canton of Valais did not have the required resources to inspect so many premises. This is not a line that plays well with many Swiss, who know that Crans-Montana and Zermatt are two of the richest winter resorts in the country.

So when Feraud faced the press, there were pointed questions from Swiss journalists: How well did the mayor know the bar’s owners? Had he ever been to the bar? And, was there any possibility of corruption?

“Absolutely not,” was his indignant answer to the last question.

The mother of two brothers who survived the fire also had questions. “We urgently need complete, transparent answers,” she wrote on social media.

When they escaped the burning bar, each of her sons had thought at first that the other was dead.

“They escaped, but they are deeply traumatised. They will carry the emotional scars forever.”

Those questions, from journalists and families, reveal the problems of Switzerland’s devolved political system.

Elected officials in towns like Crans-Montana have many responsibilities as well as fire safety – running schools and social services, even collecting taxes.

Most of these officials work part-time and, once elected, continue with their day jobs.

Nowadays some communes may be over-challenged trying to supply and oversee all the services a 21st-Century population expects, but Swiss voters expect better than what they heard from Mayor Feraud.

The headlines after his press conference were savage. Many demanded Mayor Feraud and his colleagues resign. Feraud ruled this out, saying, “we were elected by the people. You don’t abandon ship in the middle of a storm”.

“A failure right across the board”, wrote the broadsheet Tagesanzeiger. “Now Switzerland’s reputation is on the line.”

“An utter disaster”, wrote the tabloid Blick, “a total failure of fire safety checks.”

Reputational damage is something the Swiss both hate and fear. Switzerland is a rich country, in part because of its reputation for safety, stability, reliability, and, among its own citizens, accountability.

If those in charge damage that reputation, and put the country’s success at risk, the Swiss are unforgiving.

Heads rolled two decades ago when Swissair, the much-loved national airline, went bankrupt.

Once nicknamed affectionately “the flying bank”, Swissair’s management had made a series of risky financial investments that left the airline dangerously over-extended.

In 2008, banking giant UBS, in which many Swiss, especially pensioners, had shares, had to be bailed out by Swiss taxpayers to prevent not just its own downfall, but disastrous consequences for the global economy.

When the bank’s reckless over-exposure to subprime mortgages was revealed, there was outrage. At the bank’s annual general meeting that year, normally sedate elderly shareholders hissed and booed.

One even jumped on to the stage, demanding the management give up their generous bonuses, ironically waving a string of Swiss bratwursts under their noses “in case you go hungry”.

Crans-Montana, too, has aroused that same angry feeling of trust betrayed. But this is much worse than Swissair or UBS. Forty people, many of them teenagers, are dead. Dozens more have suffered life-changing injuries.

The Swiss authorities know there must be answers, quickly.

At Friday’s memorial service, the president of Valais, Matthias Reynard, was close to tears as he promised a “strict and independent” investigation, warning that “relevant political authorities” would be held accountable.

Switzerland’s president Guy Parmelin said he expected justice “without delay and without leniency”.

The owner of the bar is now in custody, subject to a criminal investigation, but the role of the local government is sure to be examined, too. There are already calls for fire-safety inspection in Valais canton to be taken away from local town councils and given to the cantonal authorities.

Romain Jourdan, a lawyer acting for some of the families, has announced plans to file a case against Crans-Montana’s town council. The families, he said, “are demanding that all local officials be questioned, so that such a tragedy never happens again”.

There is a deeper, nationwide soul-searching going on as well. The Swiss want to know why their beloved devolved system, which many, perhaps complacently, believed to be near perfect, went so catastrophically wrong.

In the first hours after the fire, many people, along with their shock and grief, felt a certain quiet pride that their emergency services had responded so quickly.

Firefighters, ambulances crews, and even helicopters were at the scene within minutes. The emergency services were present at the memorial service. Many openly wept.

The shock and grief still sits deep, but the pride has evaporated.

What good are top-of-the-range, highly professional emergency services, the Swiss are asking themselves, if basic fire safety checks are neglected?

Switzerland’s government says finding answers is a moral responsibility – to the families above all, but also to its own voters.

New Delhi, India – On January 3, 2026, a single directive from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) quietly ended the Indian Premier League (IPL) season of Bangladesh’s only cricketer in the tournament, Mustafizur Rahman, before it could even begin.

The Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), a professional Twenty20 franchise based in Kolkata that competes in the IPL and is owned by Red Chillies Entertainment, associated with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, were instructed by India’s cricket board to release the Bangladesh fast bowler.

Not because of injury, form, or contract disputes, but due to “developments all around” – an apparent reference to soaring tensions between India and Bangladesh that have been high since ousted former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received exile in New Delhi in August 2024.

Within days, Mustafizur signed up for the Pakistan Super League (PSL), the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) protested sharply, the IPL broadcast was banned in Bangladesh, and the International Cricket Council (ICC) – the body that governs the sport globally – was pulled into a diplomatic standoff.

What should have been a routine player transaction instead became a symbol of how cricket in South Asia has shifted from a tool of diplomacy to an instrument of political pressure.

Cricket has long been the subcontinent’s soft-power language, a shared obsession that survived wars, border closures, and diplomatic freezes. Today, that language is being rewritten, say observers and analysts.

India, the financial and political centre of world cricket, is increasingly using its dominance of the sport to signal, punish, and coerce its neighbours, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh, they say.

The Mustafizur affair: When politics entered the dressing room

Rahman was signed by KKR for 9.2 million Indian rupees ($1m) before the IPL 2026 season.

Yet the BCCI instructed the franchise to release him, citing vague external developments widely understood to be linked to political tensions between India and Bangladesh.

The consequences were immediate.

Mustafizur, unlikely to receive compensation because the termination was not injury-related, accepted an offer from the PSL – picking the Pakistani league after an Indian snub – returning to the tournament after eight years.

The PSL confirmed his participation before its January 21 draft. The BCB, meanwhile, called the BCCI’s intervention “discriminatory and insulting”.

Dhaka escalated the matter beyond cricket, asking the ICC to move Bangladesh’s matches from the upcoming T20 World Cup, which India is primarily hosting, to Sri Lanka over security concerns.

The Bangladeshi government went further, banning the broadcast of the IPL nationwide, a rare step that underlined how deeply cricket intersects with politics and public sentiment in South Asia.

The BCB on January 7 said the International Cricket Council (ICC) has assured it of Bangladesh’s full and uninterrupted participation in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026, dismissing media reports of any ultimatum.

The BCB said the ICC responded to its concerns over the safety and security of the national team in India, including a request to relocate matches, and reaffirmed its commitment to safeguarding Bangladesh’s participation while expressing willingness to work closely with the Board during detailed security planning.

Yet for now, Bangladesh’s matches remain scheduled for the Indian megacities of Kolkata and Mumbai from February 7, 2026, even as tensions simmer.

Navneet Rana, a BJP leader said that no Bangladeshi cricketer or celebrity should be “entertained in India” while Hindus and minorities are being targeted in Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Indian Congress leader Shashi Tharoor questioned the decision to release Mustafizur Rahman, warning against politicising sport and punishing individual players for developments in another country.

A pattern, not an exception

The Mustafizur controversy fits into a broader trajectory.

While all cricket boards operate within political realities, the BCCI’s unique financial power gives it leverage unmatched by any other body in the sport, say analysts.

The ICC, the sport’s global body, is headed by Jay Shah, the son of India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah – widely seen as the second-most influential man in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The IPL, meanwhile, is by far the richest franchise league in the world.

India, with 1.5 billion people, is cricket’s biggest market and generates an estimated 80 percent of the sport’s revenue.

All of that, say analysts, gives India the ability to shape scheduling of events and matches, venues, and revenue-sharing arrangements. This, in turn, has made cricket a strategic asset for the Indian government.

When political relations sour, cricket is no longer insulated.

Nowhere is this clearer than in India’s relationship with Bangladesh at the moment. India has historically been viewed as close to Hasina, whose ouster in 2024 followed weeks of popular protests that her security forces attempted to crush using brutal force. An estimated 1,400 people were killed in that crackdown, according to the United Nations.

India has so far refused to send Hasina back to Bangladesh from exile, even though a tribunal in Dhaka sentenced her to death in late 2025 over the killings of protesters during the uprising that led to her removal. That has spurred sentiments against India on the streets of Bangladesh, which escalated after the assassination of an anti-India protest leader in December.

Meanwhile, attacks on Hindus and other religious minorities in Bangladesh since August 2024 – a Hindu Bangladeshi man was lynched last month – have caused anger in India.

Against that backdrop, the BCCI’s move to kick Rahman out of the IPL has drawn criticism from Indian commentators. Senior journalist Vir Sanghvi wrote in a column that the cricket board “panicked” and surrendered to communal pressure instead of standing by its own player-selection process, turning a sporting issue into a diplomatic embarrassment.

He argued Bangladesh did not warrant a sport boycott and warned that mixing communal politics with cricket risks damaging India’s credibility and regional ties.

Echoing the concern, Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic editor of The Hindu, one of India’s largest dailies, said on X that the government was allowing social media campaigns to overpower diplomacy. She referred to how Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar had travelled recently to Dhaka to attend the funeral of former Bangladesh PM Khaleda Zia, and wondered why Bangladeshi cricketers couldn’t then play in India.

Cricket analyst Darminder Joshi said the episode reflected how cricket, once a bridge between India and its neighbours, was increasingly widening divisions.

That was particularly visible late last year, when India and Pakistan faced off in cricket matches months after an intense four-day aerial war.

The Asia Cup standoff

The 2025 Asia Cup, hosted by Pakistan in September, was meant to be a celebration of regional cricket.

But citing government advice, the BCCI informed the ICC and the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) – the sport’s continental governing body – that India would not travel to Pakistan.

After months of wrangling, the tournament was held under a hybrid model, with India playing its matches in the United Arab Emirates while the rest were hosted in Pakistan.

But in three matches that the South Asian rivals played against each other during the competition – India won all three – the Indian team refused to publicly shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts.

“There is no rule in cricket that mandates a handshake. Yet players often tie each other’s shoelaces or help opponents on the field, that is the spirit of the game,” Joshi, the cricket analyst, told Al Jazeera. “If countries are in conflict, will players now refuse even these gestures? Such incidents only spread hate and strip the game of what makes it special.

“Sporting exchanges once softened bilateral tensions; this decision does exactly the opposite, making the game more hostile instead of more interesting.”

The controversy did not end with the final. India won the tournament, defeating Pakistan, but refused to accept the trophy from ACC President Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman and Pakistan’s interior minister.

The trophy remains at the ACC headquarters in Dubai, creating an unprecedented limbo that has defied resolution despite multiple ICC and ACC meetings. The BCCI requested that the trophy be sent to India. Naqvi has refused.

From bridge to divider

Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh has historically enjoyed smoother cricketing ties with India. Bilateral series continued even during political disagreements, and Bangladeshi players became familiar faces in the IPL.

The Mustafizur episode marks a turning point. The current moment stands in stark contrast to earlier eras when cricket was deliberately used to soften political hostilities.

The most celebrated example remains India’s 2004 tour of Pakistan, the so-called “Friendship Series”.

That tour took place after years of frozen ties following the Kargil War, an armed conflict between India and Pakistan that took place from May to July 1999.

The then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee personally met the Indian team before departure, handing captain Sourav Ganguly a bat inscribed with the Hindi words: “Khel hi nahi, dil bhi jeetiye” which translates to “don’t just win matches, win hearts too”.

Special cricket visas allowed thousands of Indian fans to travel across the border. Pakistani then-President Pervez Musharraf followed the games and publicly lauded Indian cricketers who developed followings of their own in Pakistan.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks, carried out by fighters that Pakistan acknowledged had come from its territory, froze cricketing ties.

But in 2011, when India and Pakistan faced off in the World Cup semifinal in Mohali, Indian then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, over – the two premiers watched the match together in what was widely seen as an act of “cricket diplomacy”.

By intervening in a franchise-level contract and linking it, however obliquely, to geopolitical tensions as has happened with the Mustafizur case, the BCCI sent a clear message, say analysts: Access to Indian cricket is conditional.

Sport journalist Nishant Kapoor told Al Jazeera that releasing a contracted player purely on political grounds was “absolutely wrong” and warned it would widen mistrust in the cricketing ecosystem.

“He is a cricketer. What wrong has he done?” Kapoor said.

The Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after SDF fighters refused to withdraw under a ceasefire.

EXCLUSIVE

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Gustavo Petro calls for ‘shared government through dialogue’ in Venezuela, leading to elections.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has stressed the importance of having open lines of communication with the United States despite President Donald Trump’s recent threats of military action against the South American country.

In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo in Colombia’s capital, Bogota – which aired on Friday – Petro said his government is seeking to maintain cooperation on combating narcotics with Washington, striking a softer tone following days of escalating rhetoric.

His comments came after holding a phone call with Trump on Wednesday, a direct contact that Petro called a “means of communication that did not exist before”.

Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president, said that previously, information between the two governments had been transmitted through unofficial channels “mediated by political ideology and my opposition”.

“I have been careful – despite the insults, the threats and so on – to maintain cooperation on drug trafficking between Colombia and the United States,” Petro said.

US threats

Just hours after the US military abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday, Trump turned his threats of military action towards Colombia.

Trump accused Petro – without evidence – of running cocaine mills, calling him a “sick man”.

Asked on Sunday whether he would authorise a military operation against Petro, Trump said, “Sounds good to me.”

In response, Petro promised to defend his country, saying that he would “take up arms” for his homeland.

While temperatures have cooled in the wake of the call between the two leaders on Wednesday, observers have largely seen Trump’s threats as the potential next step in the White House’s stated goal of establishing US “pre-eminence” in the Western Hemisphere.

But the feud between the Trump administration and Petro pre-dated the attack on Venezuela.

The Colombian president has been a vocal critic of Israel’s US-backed genocidal war on Gaza.

In September, Washington revoked Petro’s US visa after he spoke at a pro-Palestine march outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Weeks later, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Colombian president, who is term-limited and set to leave office after a presidential election in May.

‘Shared government through dialogue’

Petro was among the first world leaders to condemn the abduction of Maduro, calling the US raid an “attack on the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America”.

In his interview with Al Jazeera, Petro warned that Venezuela, which borders his country, could fall into violence in the post-Maduro era. He said that “would be a disaster”.

“To that extent, what I have proposed is a shared government through dialogue among all the political forces in Venezuela and a series of steps towards elections,” he said.

Petro added that he has spoken to Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez, and he sensed she is worried about the future of the country.

“She’s also facing attacks,” the Colombian president said. “Some accuse her of betrayal, and that is constructed as a narrative that divides the forces that were part of the Maduro government.”

These are the key developments from day 1,416 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, January 10:

Fighting:

• The death toll from a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv that began on Thursday night has risen to four, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service wrote in an update shared on Facebook on Friday. At least 25 people were also injured, including five rescuers, the service added.
• The attack left thousands of Kyiv apartments without heat, electricity and water as temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and other local officials said.
• Klitschko called on people to temporarily leave the city, saying on Telegram that “half of apartment buildings in Kyiv – nearly 6,000 – are currently without heating because the capital’s critical infrastructure was damaged by the enemy’s massive attack”.
• Russian forces shelled a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Kherson just after midday on Friday, damaging the intensive care unit and injuring three nurses, the regional prosecutor’s office wrote on Telegram.
• “As a result of the attack, three nurses aged 21, 49, and 52 were wounded. At the time of the shelling, the women were inside the medical facility,” the office said in a statement.
• The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned attacks on healthcare in Ukraine in a statement shared on X, saying that there had been nine attacks since the beginning of 2026, killing one patient, one medic and injuring 11 others, including healthcare workers and patients.
• Tedros said that the attacks further “complicated the delivery of health care during the winter period” and called for “the protection of health care facilities, patients and health workers”.
• Russian forces attacked two foreign-flagged civilian vessels with drones in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, killing a Syrian national and injuring another, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba and other officials said on Friday.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on a bus in Russia’s Belgorod region injured four people, the regional task force reported, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency.
• Russian forces seized five settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, including Zelenoye, the Russian Ministry of Defence said, according to TASS.
• Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site DeepState said on Friday that Russian forces advanced in Huliaipole and Prymorske in the Zaporizhia region, but did not report any further changes.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Russia’s Oreshnik missile strike late on Thursday was “demonstratively” close to Ukraine’s border with the European Union.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency has begun consultations to establish a temporary ceasefire zone near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after military activity damaged one of two high-voltage power lines, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Friday.

Sanctions

• US forces seized the Olina oil tanker and forced it to return to Venezuela so its oil could be sold “through the GREAT Energy Deal”, United States President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. According to The Associated Press news agency, US government records showed that the Olina had been sanctioned for moving Russian oil under its prior name, Minerva M.
• Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olha Stefanishyna, said that Ukrainian nationals were among members of the crew of the Russian-flagged tanker Marinera seized earlier this week by US forces over its links to Venezuela, according to Interfax Ukraine news agency.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry separately said on Friday that the US had released two Russian crewmembers from the Marinera, expressing gratitude to Washington for the decision and pledging to ensure the return home of crewmembers.

Politics and diplomacy

• Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “deep regret” over damage to its embassy in Kyiv, confirming that no diplomats or staff were hurt, in a statement on Friday. The ministry underscored the importance of protecting diplomatic buildings and reiterated its call for a “resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis through dialogue and peaceful means”.
• British Defence Secretary John Healey said that the United Kingdom was allocating 200 million pounds ($270m) to fund preparations for the possible deployment of troops to Ukraine, during a visit to Kyiv on Friday.
• The leaders of Britain, France and Germany described Russia’s use of an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in western Ukraine as “escalatory and unacceptable”, according to a readout of their call released by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Friday.

The Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters refused to withdraw under a ceasefire, as more civilians fled their homes to escape the violence in the northern Syrian city.

Aleppo’s emergency chief Mohammed al-Rajab told Al Jazeera Arabic that 162,000 people have fled fighting in the city’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods.

A Syrian military source has told Al Jazeera Arabic that the army is “making progress” in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, the epicentre of the most intense fighting, and now controls 55 percent of the area.

Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said that the military had arrested several members of the SDF in its latest operations in Sheikh Maqsoud, which the army announced on Friday evening after a deadline for Kurdish fighters to evacuate the area, imposed as part of its temporary ceasefire, expired.

Syria’s Ministry of Defence had declared the ceasefire earlier on Friday, following three days of clashes that erupted after the central government and the SDF failed to implement a deal to fold the latter into the state apparatus.

After some of the fiercest fighting seen since last year’s toppling of Syria’s former leader Bashar al-Assad, Damascus presented Kurdish fighters a six-hour window to withdraw to their semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country in a bid to end their longstanding control over parts of Aleppo.

But Kurdish councils that run the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts rejected any “surrender” and pledged to defend areas that they have run since the early days of the Syria’s war, which erupted in 2011.

Syria’s army then warned it would renew strikes on Sheikh Maqsoud and urged residents to evacuate through a humanitarian corridor, publishing five maps highlighting targets, with strikes beginning roughly two hours later.

As violence flared, the SDF posted footage on X showing what it said was the aftermath of artillery and drone attacks on Khaled Fajr Hospital in Sheikh Maqsoud, accusing “factions and militias affiliated with the Damascus government” of “a clear war crime”.

A Defence Ministry statement cited by the state-run news agency SANA said the hospital was a weapons depot.

In another post on X, the SDF said that government militias were attempting to advance on the neighbourhood with tanks, encountering “fierce and ongoing resistance by our forces”.

Later, the Syrian army said three of its soldiers had been killed and 12 injured in SDF attacks on its positions in Aleppo.

It also claimed that Kurdish fighters in the neighbourhood had killed more than 10 Kurdish youths who refused to take up arms with them, then burned their bodies to intimidate other residents.

The SDF said on X that the claims were part of the Syrian government’s “policy of lies and disinformation”.

At least 22 people have been killed and 173 others wounded in Aleppo since the fighting broke out on Tuesday, the worst violence in the city since Syria’s new authorities took power after toppling Bashar al-Assad a year ago.

The director of Syria’s civil defence told state media that 159,000 people had been displaced by fighting in Aleppo.

Mutual distrust

The violence in Aleppo has brought into focus one of the main faultlines in Syria, with powerful Kurdish forces that control swaths of Syria’s oil-rich northeast resisting integration efforts by Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government.

The agreement between the SDF and Damascus was struck in March last year, with the former supposed to integrate with the Syrian Defence Ministry by the end of 2025, ​but Syrian authorities say there has been little progress since.

Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite the group’s assertion that it withdrew its fighters from Aleppo last year, leaving Kurdish neighbourhoods in the hands of the Kurdish Asayish police.

Marwan Bishara, senior political analyst with Al Jazeera, said there were significant gaps between the two sides, particularly when it came to integrating the Kurdish fighters into the army as individuals or groups.

“What would you do with the thousands of female fighters that are now part and parcel, of the Kurdish forces? Would they join the Syrian army? How would that work out?” said Bishara.

“The Kurdish are sceptical of the army and how it is formed in Damascus, and of the central government and its intentions. While … the central government is, of course, wary of and sceptical that the Kurds want to join as Syrians in a strong united country,” he added.

Turkiye refrains from military action

In the midst of the clashes, Syria’s President al-Sharaa spoke by phone with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying he was determined to “end the illegal armed presence” in Aleppo, according to a Syrian presidency statement.

Turkiye, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Syria, views the SDF as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which waged a four-decade armed struggle against the Turkish state, and has warned of military action if the integration agreement is not honoured.

Turkiye’s Defence Minister Yasar Guler welcomed the Syrian government operation, saying that “we view Syria’s security as our own security and … we support Syria’s fight against terrorist organisations”.

Omer Ozkizilcik, nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera that Turkiye had been intending to launch an operation against SDF forces in Syria months ago, but had refrained at the request of the Syrian government.

Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts in Aleppo and of trying to end deals between the two sides.

Alarm spreads

Al-Sharaa spoke with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday, affirming that the Kurds were “a fundamental part of the Syrian national fabric”, the Syrian presidency said.

The former al-Qaeda commander has repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, but government-aligned fighters have killed hundreds of Alawites and Druze over the last year, spreading alarm in minority communities.

A spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed “grave concern” over the ongoing violence in Aleppo, despite efforts to de-escalate the situation.

“We call on all parties in Syria to show flexibility and return to negotiations to ensure the full implementation of the March 10 agreement,” said Stephane Dujarric.

France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was working with the United States, which has long been a key backer of the SDF, particularly during its fight to oust ISIL (ISIS) from Syria, to de-escalate.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged al-Sharaa on Thursday to “exercise restraint”, reiterating his country’s desire to see “a united Syria where all segments of Syrian society are represented and protected”.

A second example of Russia’s Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) has been fired against Ukraine. Moscow claimed the overnight strike was in retaliation for a supposed attempted Ukrainian drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence late last month — an allegation Kyiv and Washington have said is false. Ukrainian authorities described Moscow’s justification for the latest Oreshnik strike, part of a massive overnight missile and drone barrage, as “absurd.”

The Oreshnik (Russian for hazel tree) missile first emerged in public after it was used in what was then an unprecedented attack on Ukraine in November of 2024. The Pentagon states that the Oreshnik is based on the RS-26, a mysterious strategic weapon system, the development of which was supposedly halted in 2018. There was also an unverified report of a failed Oreshnik launch directed at Ukraine in February 2025, but this was subsequently refuted by Ukrainian authorities.

Late last month, the Oreshnik was in the news again, after Belarus announced the deployment of the missile on its territory, which you can read more about here. On this latest occasion, however, it appears that the IRBM was launched from the Kapustin Yar test range in Russia.

Ukraine confirmed the overnight Oreshnik strike, saying it took place in the west of the country, close to the Polish border. Videos posted to social media confirm that the Oreshnik’s target was in the Lviv region; the footage included the telltale signs of glowing reentry vehicles plunging toward the ground.

Unverified social media reports suggested the target may have been a large underground gas storage facility, something that at least one Ukrainian official denied, saying the missile struck a residential area. However, the local governor of the Lviv region confirmed that Russian strikes had damaged a critical infrastructure facility there.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the use of an Oreshnik missile so close to the EU and NATO border posed a “grave threat” to European security and called on partners to increase pressure on Moscow.

Initial reports suggest that the Oreshnik used in last night’s strike may have carried inert warheads, as was apparently the case with the example fired in November 2024. On that occasion, Ukrainian authorities said that the missile carried six warheads, each containing six more sub-payloads, but that these contained no explosives.

It’s possible the missile was used in an attempt to penetrate the underground storage facility and damage it without the use of a large explosive warhead, instead having the reentry vehicles burrow deep into the ground upon impact at very high-speed.

While the Oreshnik is nuclear-capable, the potential value of a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which some countries may be looking at fielding if they haven’t already, is something that we discussed in detail in this previous story.

Dmitry Stefanovich, a research fellow at the Russian Center for International Security, IMEMO RAS, noted that the latest Oreshnik strike differed from the first in that it was combined with a large number of other ground- and sea-launched long-range weapons, and said that it was still unclear whether the United States was notified of the attack in advance, via the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center (NRRC), as was the case when it was first employed.

Other nuclear analysts suggest that the United States did receive prior notification. We have approached U.S. authorities for clarification on that point.

As for the claim that the IRBM strike was in retaliation for an attempted drone strike against Putin himself, Stefanovich was less convinced:

“In general, the question remains that if Russia is engaged in the demilitarization of Ukraine and has been conducting a special military operation for many years, why link massive strikes to ‘terrorist attacks’? Of course, it takes time to accumulate weapons and find targets, but such rhetoric does not look very solid.”

Putin has repeatedly invoked the Oreshnik in recent months as a threat against Ukraine and the West, especially since its range — estimated at up to 3,400 miles — is enough to reach every NATO capital city in Europe from within Russian territory.

Putin has made some extravagant claims about the Oreshnik in the past, pointing to its supposed invulnerability to interception.

The Russian leader has described the Oreshnik as “a ballistic missile equipped with non-nuclear hypersonic technology” capable of reaching a peak speed of Mach 10. “The kinetic impact is powerful, like a meteorite falling,” the Russian president has also said.

As we have discussed in the past, Russian claims of hypersonic performance for the Oreshnik are factual, but also a bit misleading in a modern context. There is no evidence of true hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, for example, but larger ballistic missiles, even ones with traditional designs, do reach hypersonic speeds, typically defined as anything above Mach 5, in the terminal stage of their flight.

As for the claimed attempted Ukrainian attack on Putin’s residence, while this is now being used to frame the latest use of the Oreshnik, Ukraine and U.S. national security officials have denied that attempted attack. Furthermore, a CIA assessment also found no evidence of it having happened.

More significant is likely the fact that the latest Oreshnik strike came just days after Ukraine’s European allies agreed on key elements of postwar security guarantees, which would come into play in the event of a ceasefire with Russia. The agreement included a declaration that some of these allies would be ready to deploy troops to Ukraine after a peace deal.

This very significant new commitment regarding troops has been under discussion for months. The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will categorically oppose any NATO soldiers being based on Ukrainian soil.

Overall, the use of a single Oreshnik against Ukraine overnight appears to be more of a symbolic sideshow, engineered to create alarm in the West (as well as in Ukraine), rather than deliver a specific effect on a high-priority target.

After all, the IRBM was just one part of a much larger barrage launched against targets across the country last night. This is said to have involved 242 drones, 13 other ballistic missiles, and 22 cruise missiles, based on Ukrainian Air Force figures.

Russian forces carried out particularly heavy strikes on Kyiv, hitting several districts of the Ukrainian capital.

According to Ukrainian authorities, at least four people were killed in the region, and another 19 were injured. Meanwhile, at least five rescue workers were injured while responding to the attacks, Ukraine’s security service said.

The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said half of the capital’s apartment blocks were left without heating after the Russian strikes.

Qatar’s Embassy in Kyiv was damaged during an overnight Russian missile-drone strike.

Russian strikes left around half a million households without power amid emergency outages. pic.twitter.com/XAJfzn94uP

— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 9, 2026

Overall, the use of a single Oreshnik IRBM without warheads and the possibility that nothing of military value was hit, suggests that the missile was primarily used as an instrument of intimidation. It’s also unclear how many of these expensive IRBMs have actually been manufactured at this point, and whether Russia would even be able to fire multiple examples in any kind of sustained campaign. According to an assessment from the U.K. Ministry of Defense, Russia currently has only a handful of Oreshniks.

That said, the Kremlin clearly has reasons enough to lash out at Ukraine and its allies at this point, and has opted for this type of missile-based signaling. At this stage, it remains very much questionable whether it will have the desired coercive effect.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

On the 13th day of increasingly tense protests against Iran’s leadership, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene on behalf of the anti-government demonstrators. His comments came a short while after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei finally addressed the unrest with a defiant tone, blaming Trump for sparking the protests and suggesting that crackdowns will become more severe. Meanwhile, an Iranian prosecutor is threatening protestors with death. More on that later in this story.

Amid all the rhetoric, the ferocity of the unrest has reportedly compelled the U.S. intelligence community to rethink its initial assessment of the situation, recognizing that it is more serious than initially thought. Meanwhile, observers say the death toll has increased as millions of Iranians again took to the streets across the nation. Protestors are blaming a regime crackdown, while Iranian security forces say they have been the subject of attacks by unruly mobs.

As we previously noted, the protests began Dec. 28. 2025, sparked by anger over rising prices, devalued currency, a devastating drought, and brutal government crackdowns. You can catch up with our previous coverage of the unfolding events here.

Video emerging on social media shows large crowds continuing demonstrations throughout the country, with some showing damaged buildings in the aftermath of previous protests. However, getting a full picture of what is unfolding remains a challenge given the ongoing shutdown of internet and phone service in Iran.

Despite the violence committed by the Iranian regime and the internet outage across the country the people in Iran are unfazed and continue to fight. Tehran tonight. pic.twitter.com/QyfFvGhclU

— (((Tendar))) (@Tendar) January 9, 2026

🚨 IRAN RISES UP

Despite the massacre we witnessed last night, anti-Islamic Iranians are once again out. Day 13 of the uprising.

This one is in Zahedan. pic.twitter.com/GsSqQx6hIQ

— Tousi TV (@TousiTVOfficial) January 9, 2026

Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, fled Iran ahead of the 1979 Islamic revolution, is now living in exile in the U.S. He called upon Trump to back up tough words with actions. As we have pointed out before, the American leader has said the Khamenei regime is “going to have to pay hell” if it starts killing protestors in large numbers.

“Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action,” Pahlavi extolled on X. “Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets but a total communications blackout. No Internet. No landlines. Ali Khamenei, fearing the end of his criminal regime at the hands of the people and with the help of your powerful promise to support the protesters, has threatened the people on the streets with a brutal crackdown.”

“I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers. Last night they did that,” Pahlavi continued. “Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime’s thugs at bay. But time is of the essence. The people will be on the streets again in an hour. I am asking you to help. You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word. Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran.”

Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support, and action. Last night you saw the millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today, they are facing not just bullets but a total communications blackout. No Internet. No…

— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) January 9, 2026

Asked for a response from the Trump administration, the White House referred us to the president’s remarks yesterday, which can be seen in the following video.

#Trump says: “I have let [#Iran‘s leaders] know that if they start killing people … we’re going to hit them very hard. … [T]hey know and they’ve been told very strongly … that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell”. pic.twitter.com/Uppnejnuvt

— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) January 8, 2026

In his speech before supporters in Qom province, Khamenei took aim at Trump and other outside “hirelings” for fanning the flames.

Trump “made an irrelevant and provocative statement declaring that, should the government of Iran take certain actions, he would move against it,” Khamenei complained. “Such remarks have emboldened rioters and elements hostile to the nation. Were he truly capable of governing his own country, he would attend to its numerous internal crises.”

The Iranian leader then intimated that those continuing to protest will be met with a harsh response.

“Certain people accept and act according to his wishes, engaging in acts of sabotage and arson merely to please” Trump, Khamenei continued. “It must be clearly understood that the Islamic Republic was established through the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of honorable individuals, and those who opposed it have failed. The Islamic Republic will not be overthrown. Do not serve foreign powers, whoever you may be, if you become an agent of foreigners and act on their behalf, the Iranian nation will disown you, and the Islamic establishment will likewise reject you as for that arrogant man who sits in judgment over the entire world.”

Full Speech: Khamenei’s 1st Reaction Amid Iran Protests, Trump Regime Change Threat, Israel War Plan

Tehran’s prosecutor took an even harsher stance, threatening protestors with death.

“We will show no leniency toward instigators of unrest,” said Ali Salehi. “They will be charged with Fasad fil ard (‘spreading mischief on earth’), which carries the death penalty.”

BREAKING:

Tehran’s chief prosecutor said the Islamic regime will execute anti-regime protesters

“We will show no leniency toward instigators of unrest. They will be charged with Fasad fil ard (‘spreading mischief on earth’), which carries the death penalty,” said Ali Salehi. pic.twitter.com/mSjUAeLlFC

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 9, 2026

So far, “at least 51 protesters, including nine children under the age of 18, have been killed and hundreds more injured in the first 13 days of the new round of nationwide protests in Iran,” the Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) reported on Friday. “IHRNGO has also received reports of dozens more protesters being killed in Tehran, Mashhad, Karaj (Fardis) and Hamedan. These reports are currently being verified and not included in the present figures.”

A video shows multiple bodies on hospital floor in Tehran as the Islamic Republic continues its campaign of repression during an internet and telephone blackout. pic.twitter.com/HLTyhrFFzq

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) January 9, 2026

There are claims that Iran’s Basij security forces opened fire on protestors in Tehran.

Eyewitness report from Tehran:

“ Last night in central Tehran, around 8–9 p.m., riot police were dispersing people with tear gas and pellet guns. But when we moved past Enghelab, toward Sharif University and Behboudi, there were no officers there; the riot units had all pulled… https://t.co/i2hi9ApA4e

— ثنا ابراهیمی | Sana Ebrahimi (@__Injaneb96) January 9, 2026

Meanwhile, Iran’s state media has released a video it claims shows protestors shooting security forces in Kermanshah. Iranian officials said security personnel were killed in Tehran as well.

“After unrest in various cities and locations, the capital was also affected by the brutal attacks of armed terrorism,” the official Iranian Tasnim news agency claimed. “Last night, armed terrorists martyred several personnel of the Greater Tehran Police Intelligence with direct Kalashnikov gunfire.”

Meanwhile, Iranian intelligence is urging residents to turn in those engaging in demonstrations.

As the protests rage on, the idea that they pose a serious challenge to the Khamenei regime is gaining increasing traction in U.S. intelligence circles, Axios reported on Friday.

“Early this week, U.S. intelligence assessed that the protests lacked sufficient energy to challenge the stability of the regime,” U.S. officials told Axios. “But that view is being reassessed in light of recent events.”

Mike Waltz, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., said, “America stands with the Iranian people in their quest for basic dignity and freedom.”

The Iranian regime is once again BRUTALIZING its own people instead of listening to them.

As @POTUS has made clear, we are watching!

America stands with the Iranian people in their quest for basic dignity and freedom. https://t.co/FLYLA70sq5

— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) January 9, 2026

Though Khamenei has vowed not to back down to protestors, a British Member of Parliament suggested some Iranian leaders may be preparing to leave the country.

“We’re also seeing Russian cargo aircraft coming and landing in Tehran, presumably carrying weapons and ammunition, and we’re hearing reports of large amounts of gold leaving Iran,” Tom Tugendhat told parliament. He then asked whether the government could update lawmakers on reports that “suggest that the regime itself is preparing for life after the fall.”

U.K. Minister for the Middle East and North Africa Hamish Falconer said he was “not in a position to give a detailed update” on the reports.

The War Zone cannot independently verify Tugendhat’s claim.

In the UK House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative MP and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, asked Hamish Falconer, the Labour MP for and Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, to respond to reports that Russian cargo aircraft have recently landed in Iran… pic.twitter.com/XkKjRUiAI9

— Ounces (@OuncesApp) January 8, 2026

Yesterday, we noted that the protests are raging as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered new plans to attack Iran over concerns about its nuclear weapons ambitions and the rebuilding of the country’s military capabilities. The Israeli leader’s statement came days before Trump’s latest threat to take action against Iran.

Though no military movements by either Jerusalem or Washington appear imminent, these threats, as we reported yesterday, raise the question of whether either would risk an attack that could potentially galvanize the population behind the Ayatollah. A senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) official told us that these concerns are baked into any attack plans.

“If Israel were to strike Iran as an exploitation of an opportunity, namely a moment of Iranian weakness, such a move would, in my view, take place only with full coordination, cooperation, and backing from President Trump,” said the official, offering an unclassified assessment of the situation. “Israel, as I understand it, would not act independently in such a scenario.”

“Should Trump decide that the time is right and that it aligns with his own interests to confront Iran, he would likely give a green light for an Israeli strike,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. “There is a relatively high likelihood that Trump could pursue such a course, particularly in light of Khamenei’s repeated public disparagement of him, Trump’s explicit warnings to the Iranian leadership against harming protesting civilians, and the fact that the Iranian regime has now begun violently suppressing and killing protesters.”

Regardless of what actions will be taken in the future, the official concurred with Khamenei that outside influences have already been at work during these protests.

“It is reasonable to assume that covert operatives, alongside recruited and motivated Iranian citizens, are helping to organize, lead, and sustain the protests and the broader struggle against this totalitarian system,” he posited.

Update: 4:30 PM Eastern –

During a meeting with oil industry officials Friday afternoon, Trump repeated his stance that he could attack Iran if the crackdowns on protesters get out of hand.

“Iran is in big trouble,” Trump said. “It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. We’re watching the situation very carefully. I’ve made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. We’ll be hitting them very hard where it hurts. And that doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts. So we don’t want that to happen.”

Trump – “Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible… We’re watching… I made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved.” pic.twitter.com/GoA5zWEAkN

— Emily Schrader – אמילי שריידר امیلی شریدر (@emilykschrader) January 9, 2026

One site of the ongoing protests has been geolocated to Tehran.

Meanwhile, it appears that Iranian anti-regime demonstrators have practically taken over Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city. The regime’s security forces have retreated to just a few government buildings and don’t move from there.

BREAKING:

The Iranian anti-regime protesters have practically taken over Iran’s 2nd-largest city Mashhad.

The regime’s security forces have retreated to just a few government buildings and don’t move from there. pic.twitter.com/DEiEvr0kYc

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 9, 2026

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com