Iran

Iran and Pakistan have long occupied an uneasy space in one another’s strategic calculus, linked by geography yet divided by history, ideology, and external alliances. Their nearly 1,000-kilometer frontier winds through Balochistan — one of South and West Asia’s most volatile regions — and has often served as both bridge and barrier. What cooperation exists has usually been transactional, rooted in necessity rather than affinity.

Yet, the events of 2024–2025 have brought this already complex relationship to a sharper inflection point. Iran is grappling with the aftermath of its unprecedented direct exchange of strikes with Israel and enduring economic sanctions that limit its options. Pakistan is struggling with economic volatility, renewed clashes with India, and delicate dealings with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Both states face mounting environmental stress, especially water scarcity, and the complex economic and security consequences of informal cross-border trade.

Amid this turbulence, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s recent visit to Islamabad and the signing of multiple cooperation agreements signaled more than symbolic diplomacy. These moves suggested recognition on both sides that episodic crises, if left unmanaged, could harden into lasting hostility. To grasp why this moment matters, it is necessary to examine four interrelated dimensions: security and border governance, environmental and water stress, economic engagement and informal trade, and the web of external powers influencing bilateral choices.

Borders and Security: From Containment to Confrontation

The Iran-Pakistan frontier runs through some of the most sparsely populated and politically marginalized areas of both countries. The Baloch population, divided by colonial-era borders, shares cultural and linguistic ties but also longstanding grievances against central governments that they view as exploitative or indifferent. Both Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province and Pakistan’s Balochistan province rank among their respective countries’ poorest regions, with high unemployment, limited infrastructure, and limited state services.

For decades, these conditions have fueled insurgencies. Iran has grappled with Sunni militant groups such as Jaish al-Adl (formally Jundallah), which accuses Tehran of oppressing the Sunni Baloch population and has carried out attacks on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel. Pakistan has faced its own separatist insurgents, notably the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), whose attacks targeting pipelines, security forces, and infrastructure have intensified since the beginning of 2025. Both sides have accused the other of harboring militants.

For much of their history, Tehran and Islamabad managed these frictions quietly. Even during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) — when Pakistan tilted toward Iraq and maintained close security ties with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia — there was no open military confrontation. Both countries avoided supporting militant movements that could escalate tensions.

That restraint unraveled in January 2024, when Iran launched missile and drone strikes inside Pakistan following an attack in Rask that killed eleven Iranian security officials. Pakistan responded in kind, marking the first open, tit-for-tat exchange of strikes in decades. Although diplomatic engagement quickly de-escalated tensions — ambassadors were reinstated and both sides pledged enhanced intelligence sharing and joint patrols — the episode signaled how fragile the old patterns of border management have become.

Militant violence has persisted, with the BLA carrying out coordinated assaults in August 2024 that left dozens dead, including civilians and security personnel. These attacks revealed the limitations of relying solely on reactive security cooperation. Over the past several years, Iran and Pakistan have accelerated construction of barriers along their border with each other and with Afghanistan, while establishing regulated border markets to formalize trade and reduce smuggling. But these efforts have faced pushback from local communities whose livelihoods depend on informal commerce, which they see as a survival strategy rather than criminality.

This dynamic highlights a deeper reality, namely that security measures alone cannot resolve conflicts rooted in economic exclusion and political marginalization. Without broader economic development and political inclusion, militancy and cross-border tensions will likely persist despite technical security fixes.

Water, Environment, and Shared Vulnerabilities

Beyond security, environmental stress has become an increasingly salient source of tension. While no major rivers flow directly along the Iran-Pakistan border, Iran’s eastern Sistan and Balochistan province depends heavily on flows from Afghanistan’s Helmand River. Under the 1973 Helmand River Treaty, Afghanistan is obligated to deliver 820 million cubic meters of water annually to Iran, yet in recent years Tehran has received far less, largely due to drought and upstream dam projects.

The consequences for Iran are severe, including drying wetlands, accelerating desertification, and collapsing agricultural output. These challenges are magnified by climate change, which has made droughts more frequent and severe. In May 2023, Iranian and Taliban border guards clashed after Tehran accused Kabul of deliberately restricting water flows, an incident that left several dead. Afghan officials blamed drought and technical issues, but Tehran viewed water as a strategic lever. Iranian Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi has repeatedly declared securing water rights a top national priority.

For Pakistan, the Helmand crisis is instructive. Islamabad faces its own growing water stress, driven by population growth, climate variability, and its fraught relationship with India over the Indus River system. Iran’s plight shows how water disputes, once peripheral irritants, are becoming core geopolitical risks.

The environmental challenges of all three states — Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan — are increasingly interconnected: shifting weather patterns, groundwater depletion, and forced migration link domestic environmental problems to regional stability. For Iran and Pakistan, these pressures create incentives to cooperate not only bilaterally but also trilaterally with Afghanistan on water-sharing, environmental management, and climate adaptation (Stratheia; Southwest News). Yet, political distrust — particularly toward the Taliban — and the absence of strong regional institutions make such cooperation difficult.

Economics and Informal Trade: Opportunity and Constraint

Iran-Pakistan economic ties present a puzzle: substantial potential, limited realized value, and a persistent reliance on informal channels. Official trade stood at roughly $3.1 billion in March 2024–March 2025, dominated by Iranian exports of electricity and petroleum products to Pakistan, which suffers chronic energy shortages. Pakistan mainly exports rice, textiles, and other agricultural products to Iran, but the scale remains small relative to both countries’ needs and capacities.

A major reason is U.S. sanctions on Iran, which have discouraged Pakistani banks and companies from deep engagement. Another reason is the geography of trade itself, as Balochistan’s cross-border commerce often bypasses formal routes, relying instead on smuggling networks. Subsidized Iranian diesel has historically supplied as much as 35% of Pakistan’s demand, particularly in border provinces. While this semi-formal trade provides income for local populations, it undermines Pakistan’s fiscal revenue and complicates energy market regulation.

Both governments have sought to formalize commerce. The creation of regulated border markets is intended to offer legal trade opportunities and reduce smuggling. Success, however, depends on infrastructure investment, customs efficiency, and local trust — all in short supply. Communities dependent on informal trade often view government efforts as threatening their livelihoods, resulting in resistance and occasional unrest.

The Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline illustrates the tension between ambition and constraint. Initially envisioned as a trilateral project with India, the pipeline was seen as a potential game-changer for regional energy connectivity. But U.S. sanctions and Islamabad’s fear of secondary sanctions have stalled progress for years. Iran completed its segment, while Pakistan repeatedly delayed its portion, citing financial and political risks. Last November, Tehran filed an international arbitration suit over delays in the project, seeking $18 billion in damages. That said, even if sanctions were lifted, Pakistan’s shifting energy mix — toward liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and renewable energy — might dilute the pipeline’s strategic appeal.

Beyond energy, illicit flows add another destabilizing dimension. The Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan region sits at the heart of the “Golden Crescent,” historically a major hub for global opium production and trafficking. Despite the Taliban’s 2022 enforcement of a ban, which substantially reduced  poppy cultivation across the country, Afghan opium continues to flow, much of it transiting Balochistan en route to Iran and global markets. Iran, bearing the brunt of this traffic, has invested heavily in border fortifications and anti-narcotics operations, suffering thousands of casualties. Maritime trafficking routes, particularly through Pakistan’s Makran coast, have added additional challenges.

Although Iran and Pakistan suffer significant human, security, and political costs from trafficking-related violence and drug-fueled instability, they also benefit from the narcotics trade at multiple levels — from local economic gains and illicit financial flows to the involvement of state and paramilitary actors and the pursuit of geopolitical leverage. These criminal networks often overlap with insurgent financing and systemic corruption, generating hybrid security threats that neither country can manage in isolation.

External Powers and the Geopolitical Web

Layered on top of bilateral issues is the influence of external powers. China has become the most consequential external actor for both countries. For Pakistan, Beijing’s engagement in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has reshaped its infrastructure and energy landscape, making China Islamabad’s largest source of foreign direct investment and a key political partner. For Iran, oil purchases by Chinese “teapot” refineries have served as a crucial economic lifeline in recent years, despite U.S. sanctions, though the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement signed in 2021 (valued at up to $400 billion) has yet to be fully realized.

This creates overlapping opportunities: linking Iran’s Chabahar port with Pakistan’s Gwadar port and integrating infrastructure across both countries could create new trade corridors. Yet, these opportunities also tether both states more closely to Beijing, limiting their flexibility in dealing with other major powers.

The United States continues to shape the relationship, primarily through constraints. Washington’s sanctions have effectively frozen Iranian access to global markets and discouraged Pakistan from deepening energy ties, particularly through the pipeline. At the same time, Islamabad seeks to maintain a minimal working relationship with Washington, exemplified by high-level military contacts in 2025 — even as Pakistan strongly condemned U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities.

India adds another dimension. Historically warm Iran-India relations have been anchored in energy trade and New Delhi’s investment in the Chabahar port, which provides strategic access to Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing Pakistan. This has potentially complicates Pakistan’s strategic calculus, reducing its economic transit monopoly, challenging China-Pakistan infrastructure hegemony, and diminishing its political influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Russia has emerged as a selective but increasingly active partner of both Iran and Pakistan. For Iran, the partnership has gained momentum amid international isolation, with Moscow supplying military hardware, collaborating on drone technology, and helping to bypass Western. Russia’s interest in Eurasian connectivity — particularly through the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) — aligns with Tehran’s ambitions to become a regional transit hub. Meanwhile, Pakistan has cautiously sought to broaden its energy and trade ties with Russia. While the scope of Russia’s engagement remains limited by economic and geopolitical constraints, deepening ties with both countries reflect a shared interest in hedging against Western dominance and promoting multipolar alternatives in regional infrastructure and security.

Conclusion: Between Crisis and Cooperation

Iran and Pakistan’s relationship is defined by necessity yet constrained by mistrust, domestic vulnerabilities, and external rivalries. The challenges are structural: border insecurity rooted in marginalized communities, environmental stress amplified by climate change, economic ties distorted by sanctions and informal trade, and external powers pulling the two countries in competing directions.

Yet, there are opportunities to move beyond crisis management. A cooperative reset is conceivable if both governments commit to sustained border governance, revive energy projects in some form, and engage Afghanistan on shared water challenges. This would require not only technical cooperation but also political investment in addressing local grievances in Balochistan and Sistan-Baluchestan.

A second, more probable scenario is continued fragility, where cooperation remains transactional, focused on short-term crisis avoidance rather than long-term solutions. In this scenario, border incidents, environmental shocks, or disputes over smuggling would continue to disrupt relations, even as high-level dialogue keeps them from complete breakdown.

The most concerning possibility is regional shock disruption — a major external event, such as U.S.–Iran military escalation, Taliban water policies weaponized for leverage, or renewed India-Pakistan conflict, which could derail bilateral cooperation entirely.

These scenarios are influenced by factors beyond bilateral control: global energy transitions, shifting great-power competition, and accelerating climate stress. Whether Iran and Pakistan can move from reaction to strategy will depend on their ability to insulate pragmatic cooperation from these external shocks while addressing the domestic vulnerabilities that fuel conflict.

Ultimately, their shared frontier is more than a line on a map. It is a microcosm of South and West Asia’s wider dilemmas, where borders are at once barriers and bridges, and where resilience, rather than rhetoric, will determine the region’s future.

There is no final agreement between the IAEA and Iran yet, says Iranian foreign minister, but talks will continue.

Iran says the return of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) does not mark the resumption of full cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

Inspectors from the IAEA have entered Iran with the consent of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s foreign minister said on Wednesday.

“No final text has yet been approved on the new cooperation framework with the IAEA and views are being exchanged,” Abbas Araghchi said, in comments cited by the state broadcaster.

He noted that “the changing of the fuel of Bushehr nuclear reactor has to be done under the supervision of inspectors of the international agency”, the state news agency ICANA reported.

Iran suspended cooperation with the agency following a 12-day war with Israel in June, with Tehran pointing to the IAEA’s failure to condemn Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities. Bushehr was not targeted in the attacks.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi confirmed on Tuesday that a team of inspectors was “back in Iran”.

“When it comes to Iran, as you know, there are many facilities. Some were attacked, some were not,” Grossi told Fox News in an interview aired on Tuesday.

“So we are discussing what kind of … practical modalities can be implemented in order to facilitate the restart of our work there.”

The announcement comes after Iran held talks with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in Geneva on Tuesday, with Tehran seeking to avert the so-called snapback sanctions European powers have threatened to reimpose under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei warned Europe’s top three powers that reimposing sanctions on the country will have consequences.

The UK, France and Germany – parties to the 2015 deal – have threatened to trigger the accord’s “snapback mechanism” by the end of August.

Both sides will continue nuclear talks in the coming days.

Tuesday’s meeting was the second round of talks with European diplomats since the end of the June war, which began with an unprecedented Israeli surprise attack targeting senior military officials and nuclear facilities.

The conflict derailed Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the United States.

Israel says it launched the attacks to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon – an ambition Tehran has repeatedly denied, insisting its programme is solely for civilian purposes such as energy production.

Under the JCPOA, Iran committed to regular inspections of its nuclear energy programme in return for relief on some Western sanctions. The nuclear deal was torpedoed in 2018 when Donald Trump, during his first term as president, unilaterally withdrew the US and slapped harsh sanctions on Iran.

Israel made the claim after Australia’s PM said Iran directed two attacks on a Jewish community, which Tehran denies.

Australia has dismissed a claim that Israeli interventions prompted the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to expel Iran’s ambassador to Canberra, after the premier blamed Tehran for directing anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Complete nonsense,” Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke told ABC Radio on Wednesday, when asked about Israel claiming credit for Australia’s decision to order Tehran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, to leave the country.

Albanese said on Tuesday that Australia had reached “the deeply disturbing conclusion” through “credible intelligence” that found Iran’s government had “directed” at least two attacks against Australia’s Jewish community.

Responding to a question from the ABC about Australia’s allegations against Iran, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer had commended Australia for taking “threats seriously” against the Jewish community, which he said had come after a “forthright intervention” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mencer said Netanyahu had “made very forthright comments about the [Australian] prime minister himself”, which spurred Albanese to action.

“He made those comments because he did not believe that the actions of the Australian government had gone anywhere near far enough to address the issues of anti-Semitism,” Mencer added.

The ABC included Mencer’s comments in an article titled: “Israeli government claims credit for pushing Albanese to expel Iranian diplomats.”

Netanyahu last week accused Albanese of being “a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”, days after Albanese announced Australia would move to formally recognise a Palestinian state in September.

Iran said it “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusations regarding the attacks and noted that the claims had come after Australia had directed “limited criticism” at Israel.

“It seems that this action is taken in order to compensate for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel],” Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.

“Any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction,” Baghaei said.

Ilana Lenk, the spokesperson and head of public diplomacy at Israel’s embassy in Canberra, shared Australian newspaper front pages with headlines including, ‘Iran attacks us’ and ‘Iran targets Bondi deli’, in a post on social media.

“We warned Iran wouldn’t stop with Israel or the Jewish people. The West is next isn’t just a slogan, and today Australia sees it,” she wrote.

In a statement, the Jewish Council of Australia said it was “shocked to learn of the Iranian government involvement in coordinating antisemitic attacks”.

“The fact that a foreign government appears to be responsible shows how irresponsible it was for the attacks to be used to demonise the Palestine solidarity protest movement ,” the council said in a statement.

“We call on politicians and the media to exercise caution and to avoid politicisation of these attacks in a way that could further harm the Jewish community,” the statement added.

Background / Context
The 2015 Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. The agreement has largely unraveled since the U.S. withdrawal in 2018, and with key provisions set to expire on Oct. 18, France, Britain and Germany ,the so-called E3,  have warned they may trigger the reimposition, or “snapback,” of U.N. sanctions unless Iran resumes compliance.

What Happened
Senior Iranian and E3 officials are scheduled to meet in Geneva on Tuesday.

The E3 have set conditions: a resumption of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), accounting for Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, and renewed diplomatic engagement.

They have said they will decide by the end of August whether to revive sanctions, though a short extension remains possible if Iran shows progress.

The talks come after U.S. and Israeli strikes in June destroyed or damaged Iranian enrichment sites. Iran has since barred IAEA inspectors, citing safety concerns, and the status of its uranium stockpile remains unclear.

Why It Matters
The outcome could determine whether Iran faces the return of broad U.N. sanctions, deepening its economic isolation, or whether limited diplomacy revives the stalled nuclear framework. Western officials fear Tehran is edging closer to weapons-grade enrichment. Iran, while denying it seeks a bomb, had enriched uranium to 60% and held enough stock for several potential weapons before the strikes.

Stakeholder Reactions

E3 official: “We are going to see whether the Iranians are credible about an extension or whether they are messing us around. We want to see whether they have made any progress on the conditions we set.”

Iranian official: “Due to the damage to our nuclear sites, we need to agree on a new plan with the agency and we’ve conveyed that to IAEA officials.”

Western diplomats: Privately suspect Tehran is buying time and dragging talks out.

Tehran: Warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reimposed.

IAEA: Says it cannot confirm Iran’s program is peaceful, but has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons effort.

What’s Next
The Geneva talks will test whether Iran is prepared to resume inspections and engage diplomatically or risk a snapback of sanctions before the Oct. 18 deadline. The E3 are expected to decide by the end of this week whether to move forward with sanctions, grant a short extension, or continue talks.

With information from Reuters.

Tehran rejects Australia’s accusations, calling the move unjustified and influenced by internal political developments.

Iran has promised reciprocal action following Australia’s decision to expel its ambassador in Canberra over accusations that Tehran was behind anti-Jewish attacks in the country.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusations, saying “any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction”.

Baghaei also said the measures appeared to be “influenced by internal developments” in Australia, including weekend protests across the country against Israel’s war on Gaza, which organisers said were the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in Australia’s history.

“It seems that this action is taken in order to compensate for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel],” he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Iran was behind the torching of a kosher cafe in Sydney last October and directed a major arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne in December.

There were no casualties in either of the attacks where assailants set fire to the properties, causing extensive damage.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said Iran sees Australia’s actions “as a continuation of hostile actions by the Australian side over the past years”.

“Australia has imposed several sanctions [on Iran], for example, in 2024 after Iran’s retaliatory action to attack the Israeli territory”, he said, adding that Tehran sees these latest moves “as another sign of Australia siding with the Israelis”.

Expelled ambassador ‘vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause’

Australia declared the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, “persona non grata” and ordered him and three other officials to leave the country within seven days. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the move marked the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.

Australia also withdrew its ambassador to Iran and suspended operations at its embassy in Tehran, which opened in 1968.

Wong added that the government will continue to maintain some diplomatic lines with Iran to advance Canberra’s interests.

Sadeghi was “vocal in his support for the Palestinian cause”, Foad Izadi, a world studies professor at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

“That is the main reason for Australia’s decision to expel him. Just a few days ago, we saw the largest pro-Palestine demonstrations in many Australian cities.

“Expelling a country’s ambassador is rarely done, and the fact that the Australian government has done this is an indication that … they’re afraid of their own population and they’re afraid of the demands this population [makes] when it comes to the issue of genocide in Palestine.”

PM Albanese also said, “… the government will legislate to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, as a terrorist organisation.”

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is investigating possible IRGC involvement in other anti-Jewish attacks since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Izadi rejected those claims, saying it “has not provided any evidence”. He believes the Australian government has taken these decisions as it “is worried about the fact that the Australian people are seriously questioning Australia’s support for Israel” and “demanding that the government be more active in opposing the genocide in Palestine”.

Australia’s moves against Iran come as the country’s ties with Israel plummet over its criticism of Israeli-imposed famine and the war on Gaza, as well as its decision to join France, the United Kingdom and Canada in recognising a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Albanese a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.

The Australian government has hit back at Netanyahu, with Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke saying that strength was not measured “by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Australia will also designate the IRGC as a ‘terrorist entity’.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has accused Iran of directing at least two anti-Jewish attacks in his country and announced plans to expel Iran’s ambassador to Canberra.

Speaking to reporters in the Australian capital on Tuesday, Albanese described the attacks as attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in Australia.

“It is totally unacceptable, and the Australian government is taking strong and decisive action,” he said. “A short time ago, we informed the Iranian ambassador to Australia that he will be expelled.”

The prime minister said Australia has also suspended operations at its embassy in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and moved all of its diplomats to a third country.

“I can also announce the government will legislate to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, as a terrorist organisation,” he added.

The attacks took place last year, at the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on October 10 and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on December 6, according to Australian officials.

Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, said the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, and three of his colleagues have been declared persona non grata and given seven days to leave the country. She said the move marked the first time that Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II and that the country has also withdrawn its envoy to Tehran.

Still, the Albanese government will maintain some diplomatic lines with Iran to advance Canberra’s interests, Wong said, advising Australians in the Middle Eastern country to return home. She also warned Australians considering travelling to Iran to refrain from doing so.

More soon.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said.

No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Trump, who has demanded loyalty across the government. The administration also stripped security clearances this week from additional current and former national security officials.

Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.

Agency’s assessment contradicted Trump

Kruse’s firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of U.S. airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months by the military bombardment, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his long-running distrust of intelligence assessments, including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA — has been declassifying years-old documents meant to cast doubt on those previous findings, which have been endorsed by bipartisan congressional committees.

After the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.

Democrats raise concerns

While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired, or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

Other military and intelligence changes

The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would slash its staff and budget and revoked more security clearances, a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second-highest-ranking officer and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies purge DEI efforts.

The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Toropin, Jalonick and Price write for the Associated Press.

Head of US Defense Intelligence Agency Jeffrey Kruse fired alongside two senior Navy officials in latest purge.

United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s preliminary intelligence assessment angered President Donald Trump for reporting that the US attack on Iranian nuclear sites in June had inflicted limited damage, according to reports.

The Pentagon firings on Friday, which, according to US officials who spoke to the Reuters and Associated Press (AP) news agencies, also include two other senior military commanders, are the latest moves by the Trump administration to purge officials at the Department of Defense .

It was not immediately known on what grounds Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) since early 2024, was fired.

But President Trump had previously decried the agency’s initial findings on US strikes against Iran.

The initial DIA assessment – which was widely reported on by US media – contradicted claims by Trump that the strikes totally destroyed the nuclear sites, drawing the ire of both the president and officials within his administration.

Kruse “will no longer serve as DIA director”, a senior defence official said on condition of anonymity on Friday, without providing an explanation for the general’s departure.

Prior to becoming director of the DIA, Kruse served as the adviser for military affairs for the director of national intelligence, and also held positions including director of intelligence for the coalition against the ISIL (ISIS) group.

Hegseth also fired Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, who is chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Admiral Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, according to officials who spoke to both AP and Reuters.

All three military officials said they did not know why they were fired by the Trump administration, which has demanded loyalty across the government.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said US Senator Mark Warner, who is the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Since beginning his second term in January, Trump has overseen a purge of top military officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles “CQ” Brown, whom he fired without explanation in February.

Other senior officers dismissed this year include the heads of the US Navy and Coast Guard, the general who headed the National Security Agency, the vice chief of staff of the US Air Force, a Navy admiral assigned to NATO, and three top military lawyers.

The chief of the US Air Force also made a surprise announcement on Monday that he planned to retire only halfway through his tenure.

Hegseth has insisted the president is simply choosing the leaders he wants in top positions, but Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential politicisation of the traditionally neutral US military.

Earlier this year, Hegseth additionally ordered at least a 20 percent reduction in the number of active-duty four-star generals and admirals in the US military, as well as a 10 percent cut in the overall number of general and flag officers.

News of Kruse’s firing came two days after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that she was revoking – on Trump’s orders – the security clearances of 37 current and former US intelligence professionals.

Gabbard has also announced the first major overhaul of her office since its creation, slashing personnel by more than 40 percent by October 1 and saving more than $700m per year.

Iran and European countries agree to resume nuclear talks next week despite threats of unilateral sanctions.

Iran and three major European powers have agreed to resume nuclear talks next week, even as the threat of revived sanctions looms.

Iranian state media reported on Friday that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a call with his French, British and German counterparts, during which they agreed deputy ministers would meet on Tuesday.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul confirmed the talks, warning that Europe was prepared to re-impose United Nations sanctions under the so-called “snapback” mechanism unless Iran committed to a verifiable and lasting deal. “Time is very short and Iran needs to engage substantively,” he said.

According to Iranian outlets, Araghchi rejected the threat, accusing the European trio of lacking “legal and moral competence” to trigger snapback sanctions and warning of consequences if they did so.

The three European governments, backed by the United States, have accused Tehran of advancing uranium enrichment in violation of international commitments and say its programme could be used to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran has said its work is strictly for civilian purposes, and Western governments have not provided any evidence that Tehran is weaponising its nuclear programme.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has said Iran remains far from building a nuclear weapon. In March, US National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard testified that intelligence agencies had found no evidence of Iran moving towards a bomb.

Talks between Iran and the US collapsed in June after Washington and Israel attacked Iranian nuclear sites during a 12-day conflict.

Since then, IAEA inspectors have not been allowed into Iran’s facilities, despite the agency’s chief, Rafael Grossi, stressing that inspections are essential.

President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned the IAEA to abandon its “double standards” if it hopes to restore cooperation over the country’s nuclear programme, amid an acute mistrust following Israeli and US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, and the UN nuclear watchdog’s refusal to condemn the strikes.

In July, Pezeshkian signed a law suspending Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA, with Tehran making it clear that it no longer trusts the agency to act impartially.

Negotiations between Tehran and the Europeans last took place in Geneva on June 20, while the fighting was still under way. Little progress was reported at the time.

Iran’s state broadcaster said an Iranian delegation would travel to Vienna on Friday to meet IAEA officials, but offered no further details.

A passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.

The death toll from a bus crash in western Afghanistan has risen to 79, after two survivors died from their injuries, an interim Taliban administration official said.

The incident occurred late on Tuesday in Herat province’s Guzara district, when a passenger bus carrying Afghan returnees from Iran struck a motorcycle and a fuel truck, triggering a huge fire.

At least 19 children were among those killed, Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the interim Interior Ministry, told reporters in Kabul on Wednesday.

Mohammad Janan Moqadas, chief physician at the military hospital, said many bodies were too badly burned to be identified.

A journalist with the AFP news agency reported that cleanup crews were working on Wednesday to remove the burned-out bus and the twisted wreckage of the other vehicles.

“There was a lot of fire… There was a lot of screaming, but we couldn’t even get within 50 metres to rescue anyone,” witness Akbar Tawakoli, 34, told AFP. “Only three people were saved from the bus. They were also on fire and their clothes were burned.”

Abdullah, 25, another witness, told AFP, “I was very saddened that most of the passengers on the bus were children and women.”

The bus was transporting Afghans recently expelled from Iran to the capital, Kabul, provincial spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi said. The central government has ordered an investigation.

“It is with deep sorrow that we mourn the loss of numerous Afghan lives and the injuries sustained in a tragic bus collision and subsequent fire in Herat province last night,” it said in a statement.

More than 1.5 million Afghans have returned from Iran and Pakistan this year alone, according to the United Nations migration agency, as both countries step up deportations after decades of hosting Afghan refugees. Many arrive with little means and face dire conditions in a country battling poverty and mass unemployment.

The state-run Bakhtar News Agency described the incident as one of Afghanistan’s deadliest accidents in recent years.

In December 2023, two separate bus crashes involving tankers killed 52 people, while in March 2024, another 20 died in a collision in Helmand province. In late 2022, a tanker overturned in the Salang Pass, igniting a fire that killed 31.

Police in western Afghanistan’s Herat province say the accident was due to the bus’s ‘excessive speed and negligence’. 

At least 71 people, including 17 children, have been killed in western Afghanistan after a passenger bus carrying refugees, recently deported from neighbouring Iran, caught fire after colliding with a truck and motorcycle, according to provincial government spokesman Ahmadullah Muttaqi and local police.

Police in Herat province said on Tuesday that the accident was due to the bus’s “excessive speed and negligence”.

The returnees are part of a massive wave of Afghans deported or forced out of Iran in recent months.

The accident took place a day after Iranian Minister of Interior Eskandar Momeni announced that a further 800,000 people would have to leave the country by next March.

The bus was carrying Afghans recently returned from Iran and en route to the capital Kabul, provincial official Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi told the AFP news agency on Tuesday. He added that all the passengers boarded the vehicle in Islam Qala, a border crossing point.

Taliban government chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to the dpa news agency that the victims had been deported from Iran, but said that further details were not available immediately.

Police in the Guzara district outside Afghanistan’s city of Herat, where the accident occurred, said a motorcycle was also involved.

The majority of those who died were on the bus, but two people travelling in the truck were also killed, as well as another two who were on the motorcycle.

Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, due in part to poor roads after decades of war, dangerous driving on highways and a lack of regulation.

Last December, two bus accidents, involving a fuel tanker and a truck on a highway through central Afghanistan, killed at least 52 people.

Every year, conflict, persecution, poverty and high unemployment drive large numbers of Afghans to cross the 300km (186-mile) Islam Qala border into Iran without documentation. Many work in low-wage jobs in big cities, including on construction sites, where they are valued as cheap and reliable labour.

Nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since early June, according to the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), after Tehran imposed a July 6 deadline for undocumented refugees to leave the country.

The surge compounds Afghanistan’s existing challenges, as the impoverished nation, back under hardline Taliban rule since 2021, struggles to integrate waves of returnees from Pakistan and Iran since 2023, amid one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after decades of conflict.

The UNHCR reports that more than 1.4 million people have “returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan” this year alone. Iran’s late May directive potentially affects 4 million undocumented Afghans among the approximately 6 million Afghan residents claimed by Tehran.

Border crossings increased dramatically from mid-June, with some days seeing approximately 40,000 people entering Afghanistan. Between June 1 and July 5, 449,218 Afghans returned from Iran, bringing the 2024 total to 906,326, according to an International Organization for Migration spokesman.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says in Yerevan that ‘governance in the Caucasus region must remain Caucasian’.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that a planned corridor linking Azerbaijan with its exclave would be under Armenian control, days after Iran said it would block the project included in a United States-brokered peace accord that puts a potential Washington presence on its doorstep.

“Roads passing through Armenia will be under the exclusive jurisdiction of Armenia, and security will be provided by Armenia, not by any third country,” Pashinyan said at a meeting with Pezeshkian in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday. He added that the corridor would open new economic perspectives between the two countries, and could offer a rail route from Iran to the Black Sea coast through Armenia.

The land corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), is part of a deal signed this month in Washington between former foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Under the agreement, the US will hold development rights for the proposed route, which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave bordering Iran and Turkey.

“Governance in the Caucasus region must remain Caucasian – outsourcing the resolution of Caucasus issues to extra-regional forces will complicate it,” Pezeshkian said during his visit on Tuesday. “Iran’s position has always been to reject any changes to international borders in the Caucasus region.”

Iran has long opposed the planned transit route, also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus while bringing potentially hostile foreign forces close to its borders.

Since the deal was signed on August 8, Iranian officials have stepped up warnings to Armenia, saying the project could be part of a US ploy “to pursue hegemonic goals in the Caucasus region”.

The proposed corridor has been hailed as beneficial by other countries in the region, including Russia, with which Iran has a strategic alliance alongside Armenia.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan that had a mostly ethnic Armenian population at the time, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan Baku took control of the territory in a military operation in 2023, leading to an exodus of the ethnic Armenian population.

Armenia last year agreed to return several villages to Azerbaijan in what Baku described as a “long-awaited historic event”.

Iran rejects ‘Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity’ (TRIPP), says the presence of American companies in the region would be ‘worrying’.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is visiting Armenia for talks on a planned corridor linking Azerbaijan near the border with his country, days after Iran said it would block the project included in a United States-brokered peace accord that puts a potential Washington presence on Iran’s doorstep.

The land corridor, dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), is part of a deal signed earlier this month in Washington between former foes Armenia and Azerbaijan.

US President Donald Trump said the deal granted the US exclusive developmental rights to the transport corridor. Washington was also signing bilateral agreements with both countries to increase cooperation in areas like energy, trade and technology, including artificial intelligence.

Before departing for the Armenian capital Yerevan on Monday, Pezeshkian described the possible presence of American companies in the region as “worrying.”

“We will discuss it [with Armenian officials] and express our concerns,” he told state television.

The proposed route would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave, passing near the Iranian border. Tehran has long opposed the planned transit route, also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus while bringing potentially hostile foreign forces close to its borders.

Since the deal was signed on August 8, Iranian officials have stepped up warnings to Armenia, saying the project could be part of a US ploy “to pursue hegemonic goals in the Caucasus region”.

On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described it as a “sensitive” issue, saying Tehran’s main concern is that it could “lead to geopolitical changes in the region”.

“They [Armenian officials] have assured us that no American forces … or American security companies will be present in Armenia under the pretext of this route,” he told the official IRNA news agency.

The proposed corridor has been hailed as beneficial by other countries in the region including Russia, with which Iran has a strategic alliance alongside Armenia.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said Tehran would block the initiative “with or without Russia”.

Trump “thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years”, Velayati told state-affiliated Tasnim News soon after the deal was signed, adding that the area would become “a graveyard for Trump’s mercenaries”.

Moscow cautiously welcomed the deal, saying that it supported efforts to promote stability and prosperity in the region. Similarly to Iran, however, it warned against outside intervention, arguing that lasting solutions should be developed by countries in the region.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan that had a mostly ethnic Armenian population at the time, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan Baku took control of the territory in a military operation in 2023, leading to an exodus of the ethnic Armenian population.

Armenia last year agreed to return several villages to Azerbaijan in what Baku described as a “long-awaited historic event”.

South African Army Chief General Rudzani Maphwanya is facing backlash in his home country following the release of alleged comments he made during an official visit to Iran, which analysts say could further complicate the already turbulent relations between South Africa and the United States.

The comments, which appeared to suggest that Iran and South Africa have common military goals, come at a time when Pretoria is attempting to mend strained relations with US President Donald Trump to stabilise trade.

Last week, a 30 percent trade tariff on South African goods entering the US kicked in, alarming business owners in the country. That’s despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s attempts to appease Trump, including by leading a delegation to the White House in May.

Here’s what to know about what the army chief said and why there’s backlash for it:

What did the army chief say in Iran?

Meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Major-General Seyyed Abdolrahim Mousavi in Tehran on Tuesday, Maphwanya is reported to have stated that the two countries had close ties, according to Iran’s state news agency, Press TV and the Tehran Times.

“Commander Maphwanya, recalling Iran’s historical support for South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, stated that these ties have forged a lasting bond between the two nations,” the Press TV article read.

According to Tehran Times, he went on to say: “The Republic of South Africa and the Islamic Republic of Iran have common goals. We always stand alongside the oppressed and defenceless people of the world.”

Maphwanya also reportedly condemned Israel’s “bombing of civilians standing in line for food” and its “ongoing aggression in the occupied West Bank”, Tehran Times reported.

His visit, the publication quoted Maphwanya as saying, “carries a political message”, and comes “at the best possible time to express our heartfelt sentiments to the peace-loving people of Iran”.

On the other hand, General Mousavi hailed South Africa’s genocide case against the “Zionist regime” at the International Court of Justice, and said that the effort was aligned with Iran’s policies, according to Press TV.

He also condemned the US and Israel’s military and economic actions against Iran as “violations of international laws and norms”. He added that Iran’s army is prepared to deliver “a more decisive response in the event of renewed aggression”, Press TV reported.

How has the South African government reacted?

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office on Thursday clarified that the president was not aware of General Maphwanya’s visit to Iran, although such a trip would normally be approved by the Ministry of Defence, not the president’s office.

Ramaphosa appointed Maphwanya as army chief in 2021. The general, in apartheid-era South Africa, served in the army wing of the African National Congress (ANC), which started as a liberation movement, and commanded a parliamentary majority until 2024.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya, at a press briefing, said the general’s decision to visit Iran was itself badly timed.

“At this period of heightened geopolitical tensions and conflict in the Middle East, one can say the visit was ill-advised, and more so, the general should have been a lot more circumspect with the comments he makes.”

He added, “We are in the delicate process of resetting political relations with the US, but more importantly, balancing the trade relationship in such a manner that the trade relationship is mutually beneficial.”

Similarly, the Ministry of International Relations and the Defence Ministry dissociated the government from the army chief’s alleged comments.

“It is unfortunate that political and policy statements were reportedly made…The minister of defence and military veterans [Matsie Angelina Motshekga] will be engaging with General Maphwanya on his return,” a statement by the Defence Ministry on Wednesday read.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, one of the four parties that form the South African coalition government, is calling for the army chief to be tried in a military court on grounds of “gross misconduct and a flagrant breach of the SANDF [South African National Defence Force] Code of Conduct.”

“According to Iranian state media, General Maphwanya went far beyond his constitutional and professional mandate, pledging ‘common goals’ with Iran, endorsing its stance on Gaza, and calling for deeper strategic alignment,” the DA said in a statement on Thursday.

“Such political statements are explicitly prohibited for serving officers, violate the SANDF’s duty of political neutrality, and undermine the constitutional principle of civilian control over the military,” the party added.

The US and South Africa’s relations are at their lowest in decades, making this a particularly sensitive time, analysts say, as it follows June’s 12-day war between Iran and the US-Israel coalition.

President Trump slapped a 30 percent tariff on South African goods entering the US as part of his wide-ranging reciprocal tariff wars in April. The US is a major destination for South African goods such as cars, precious metals and wine.

Trump’s main gripes with Pretoria include South Africa instigating a genocide case against Israel, the US’s ally, at the International Court of Justice, amid the ongoing war in Gaza. He earlier accused South Africa of strengthening ties with Iran.

Trump has also wrongly claimed that white South Africans are being persecuted in the country under the majority Black leadership of the ANC, the country’s main political party to which President Ramaphosa belongs. He also claims South Africa is confiscating land belonging to whites.

White South Africans are a wealthy minority and largely descendants of Dutch settlers. Afrikaner governments controlled the country under the racist apartheid system until 1990.

South African wealth, particularly land, continues to be controlled disproportionately by the country’s white population. In recent times, fringe, extremist Afrikaner groups claiming that whites are being targeted by Black people have emerged, pointing to cases of white farmers being attacked by criminals on their farmland.

Elon Musk, Trump’s one-time adviser before their public fallout in June, had also made claims of white persecution and claimed that the South African government’s business laws were blocking his internet company from operating in the country.

He was referring to laws requiring that foreign businesses be partly owned by Blacks or other historically disadvantaged groups, such as people living with disabilities.

The South African government denied Musk’s accusations.

In early May, Trump’s government admitted 59 white “refugees” in a resettlement programme meant to protect them.

Previously, the US, under former President Joe Biden, was at loggerheads with South Africa over its close ties with Russia and its vocal criticism of Israel.

The latest incident echoes a 2022 scandal when a sanctioned Russian cargo ship called the Lady R docked at Simon’s Town Naval Base in the Western Cape, said analyst Chris Vandome of think tank Chatham House. The US alleged at the time that South African military supplies were loaded onto the ship and used in the Ukraine war, claims South Africa denied.

“It lies with South African foreign policy formation and the lack of clarity and consistency around it that has created this confusion whereby people think they are saying things in line with what the nation thinks,” he said.

How has South Africa tried to appease the US?

On May 21, President Ramaphosa led a delegation to the White House in a bid to “reset relations” with Trump and hopefully secure lower tariff deals.

At the heated meeting, however, Trump refused to back down from his claims of white persecution, despite Ramaphosa clarifying that South Africa was facing widespread crime in general, and that there was no evidence that whites in particular were being targeted.

South Africa, during the meeting, offered to buy US liquefied natural gas and invest $3.3bn in US industries in exchange for lower tariffs. The delegation also agreed to a review of the country’s business ownership laws.

However, Trump’s 30 percent tariffs went into effect last week. Analysts say it could put up to 30,000 South African jobs at risk, particularly in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors.

Meanwhile, Ramaphosa’s government promised to take further action to ease the burden on manufacturers and exporters. On Tuesday, Trade Minister Parks Tau told reporters that South Africa has submitted a revised proposal to Washington, without giving details.

General Maphwanya’s pronouncements this week, therefore, “couldn’t have come at a worse time” for South African diplomatic ties with the US, security analyst Jakkie Cilliers of the International Security Institute said, speaking to South African state TV, SABC.

“For the chief of the national defence force to pronounce so clearly and so unequivocally at this time is remarkably politically sensitive,” Cilliers said, adding that the general could be asked to resign upon his return.

What has General Maphwanya said?

Maphwanya, who the presidency said has returned to the country, has not put out public statements on the controversy. It is unclear how the government might sanction him. President Ramaphosa is set to meet with the army chief for briefings in the coming weeks, a presidency spokesperson said.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — Britain, Germany and France told U.N. officials that snapback sanctions are on the table if Iran does not sit down to negotiate over its nuclear weaponry.

The letter delivered to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, signed by the three foreign ministers, indicated the E3 was prepared to enforce severe sanctions if Iran did not agree to limit it’s nuclear program and gave Iranian officials until the end of the month.

“We have made it clear that if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic solution before the end of August 2025, or does not seize the opportunity of an extension, E3 are prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism,” read a letter in part signed by Britain’s David Lammy, Jean-Noel Barrot of France and Germany’s Johann Wadephul.

The sixth round of American-Iranian negotiations were abandoned in June after a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on known parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The 12-day conflict escalated regional tension amid Israel’s war in Gaza and spiked oil prices.

The “snapback” guardrail built into Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, officially titled the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” was set to trigger if an instance arose in which Iran committed an act of “significant non-performance.”

Signed by Tehran with Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and United States it removed sanctions and curbed Iran’s nuclear program. Initially the United States left the JCPOA in 2018 during U.S. President Donald Trump‘s first term in the White House.

Iran, however, has periodically violated parts of the agreement for years and the snapback mechanism threatened more than once by Europe and the E3 as far back as 2019 nearly four years after the deal was inked.

In addition to limiting Iranian nuclear activities, it thawed U.S. sanctions against Tehran that hampered its economy for years.

On Wednesday, Germany’s Wadephul said Iran “must never acquire a nuclear weapon” and reiterated that the E3 had “every right” to resort to snapback.

“Iran has the opportunity to return to diplomacy and resume full cooperation with the IAEA,” he wrote in an X post a little before 11 a.m. local time.

“The ball is now in Iran’s court,” Germany added.

The security chief’s visit comes after Iran expressed opposition to a government plan to disarm Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s president has told a senior Iranian official that Beirut rejects any interference in its internal affairs and has criticised Tehran’s statements on plans to disarm Hezbollah as “unconstructive”.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Larijani’s visit to Beirut on Wednesday comes a week after the Lebanese government ordered the army to devise plans by the end of 2025 to disarm the Iran-aligned Lebanese armed group.

Iran expressed opposition to the plan to disarm Hezbollah, which before a war with Israel last year was believed to be better armed than the Lebanese military.

“It is forbidden for anyone … to bear arms and to use foreign backing as leverage,” Aoun told Larijani, according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency posted on X.

Larijani responded to Aoun by stating that Iran does not interfere in Lebanese decision-making, and that foreign countries should not give orders to Lebanon.

“Any decision taken by the Lebanese government in consultation with the resistance is respected by us,” he said after separate talks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement is an ally of Hezbollah.

“Iran didn’t bring any plan to Lebanon, the US did. Those intervening in Lebanese affairs are those dictating plans and deadlines”, said Larijani.

He said Lebanon should not “mix its enemies with its friends – your enemy is Israel, your friend is the resistance”.

Larijani further added that Lebanon should appreciate Hezbollah, and its “value of resistance”.

Reporting from Beirut, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said Larijani appeared to have softened his language on the visit.

“Ali Larijani has been using more diplomatic language than … a few days ago [when] he was blunt that Iran opposes the Lebanese government’s decision to disarm Hezbollah.”

“He said that Iran’s policy is about friendly cooperation, not giving orders and timetables, so he was referring to the United States, the US envoy, which presented a plan to end tensions with Israel, and that plan involves disarming Hezbollah [on] a four-month timetable.”

A ‘state-by-state’ relationship

Dozens of Hezbollah supporters gathered along the airport road to welcome Larijani on Wednesday morning. He briefly stepped out of his car to greet them as they chanted slogans.

“If … the Lebanese people are suffering, we in Iran will also feel this pain and we will stand by the dear people of Lebanon in all circumstances,” Larijani told reporters shortly after landing in Beirut.

The Iranian official is also scheduled to meet Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, as well as Berri, who is close to Hezbollah.

Iran has suffered a series of blows in its long-running rivalry with Israel, including during 12 days of open war between the two countries in June.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, was weakened during the war with Israel, which ended in a November 2024 ceasefire that Israel continues to violate.

The new Lebanese government, backed by the United States, has moved to further restrain the group.

“What the new Lebanese leadership wants is a state-by-state relationship, not like in the past where …  the Iranians would be dealing with Hezbollah and not [with] the Lebanese state,” said Khodr.

Hezbollah has called the government’s disarmament decision a “grave sin”.

Khodr said the tensions have sparked concern about potential unrest in the country.

Hezbollah is part of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” – a network of aligned armed groups in the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who oppose Israel.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, his late father and predecessor Heydar Aliyev and some of their closest political allies hail from Nakhchivan.

The name of this tiny, mountainous and underdeveloped Azeri area sandwiched between Armenia, Iran and Turkiye sounds unfamiliar to those outside the strategic South Caucasus region.

But Nakhchivan’s name and geopolitical significance resurfaced after United States President Donald Trump hosted a White House summit between Azeri and Armenian leaders on Friday.

Azerbaijan’s Aliyev and the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a preliminary peace deal to end the decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the early 1990s, ethnic Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region broke away from oil-rich Azerbaijan after a war that killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Moscow brokered a truce in 1994, maintaining two military bases in resource-poor Armenia, supplying it with cheap energy while selling arms to Azerbaijan.

Even though the conflict did not involve Nakhchivan, it cut off the Zangezur Corridor, a 40km (25-mile) logistical umbilical cord to Azeri mainland that consists of a derelict road and parallel rusty rail tracks.

Air travel and hours-long, bumpy transit through Iran remained the only way to reach the exclave, whose authorities ruled it like a personal fiefdom, with laws and ways of life often contradicting those of the mainland.

After winning the 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh and restoring control over it three years later, Baku has been eager to revive the corridor, demanding its exterritoriality and even pondering the use of military force.

‘A new reality in the region’

The reasons go far beyond restoring access to Aliyev’s ancestral land. The corridor could become a mammoth transport hub between Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Central Asia.

It may increase the flow of Central Asian hydrocarbons to Turkiye and further to Europe, boost the regional economy – and upend Russia’s two centuries of domination in the region that also includes Georgia.

Armenia was reluctant to allow Azeri access to the corridor, fearing that the emboldened Turkish-Azeri tandem may jeopardise its security.

But Trump cut through the Gordian knot on Friday, and his role “essentially, cements a new reality in the region”, according to Emil Mustafayev, the Baku-based chief editor of the Minval Politika online magazine.

“This is a serious shift in the security architecture and transport logistics of the South Caucasus,” he told Al Jazeera.

While in the White House, Aliyev and Pashinyan lavished Trump with praise and nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

“What cracked me up is that [they] didn’t lose their way about how one has to communicate in Washington,” Andrey Kazantsev, an expert on the region, told Al Jazeera.

They also flattered Trump by naming the corridor the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) and leasing it to Washington for up to 99 years with exclusive development rights.

What looks like one of Trump’s favourite real estate deals actually heralds a tectonic shift.

“Trump’s administration has indeed been quick to find its way towards the long-due geopolitical pivot,” Kazantsev said.

China, which has been promoting its Belt and Road Initiative in Asia and Eastern Europe, may remain “neutral” to it, and Russia, which has two military bases in Armenia, may “ignore it, at least, publicly”, he said. “But for Iran, it’s a real blow.”

‘A boost of Washington’s clout’

To guard the TRIPP, Washington may use a private military company – and eventually build a military base that nominally safeguards Armenia but actually keeps an eye on Iran, said Ukrainian political analyst Aleksey Kushch.

“It means more potential pressure on Iran and a boost of Washington’s clout in the resource-rich Caspian region where US oil companies made sizeable investments” in the 1990s, he said.

And Moscow is also about to lose a lot.

“No matter how paradoxical it sounds, it’s Moscow that has been and still is a decisive factor in the peace settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and in solving the latter’s problem of accessing Nakhchivan,” said Alisher Ilkhamov, head of Central Asia Due Diligence, a think tank in London.

“One of the main motives for rapprochement of both sides is their push to get rid of Moscow’s influence, of the peacekeeper’s role it has imposed on them,” he told Al Jazeera.

The new deal “only highlights how fictitious Moscow’s role as peacekeeper and middleman in peace settlement in the South Caucasus is”, Ilkhamov said.

However, the deal is not yet set in stone, and the Trump-hosted summit “sparked premature optimism”, said Kevork Oskanian of the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom.

This optimism “should be tempered by realism and historical precedent [as] many peace processes have failed despite promising starts”, he told Al Jazeera.

A deal not yet done

Baku, whose annual $5bn defence spending exceeds Yerevan’s entire debt-hobbled state budget, affirmed Armenia’s territorial integrity but did not withdraw from some 200sq km (77sq miles) of its land.

The TRIPP’s concept avoids Baku’s demand for the corridor’s extraterritoriality, balancing sovereignty with strategic access, Oskanian said.

But there are also questions as to whether Washington’s initiatives are “a principled intervention or opportunistic geopolitics”, he added.

Even without direct confrontation, Moscow and Tehran could try to undermine the deal.

“Their grudging acquiescence is essential – but far from guaranteed,” Oskanian said.

Iran threatened on Saturday that the TRIPP “will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries – it will become their graveyard”.

Armenia is a democracy “polarised” over the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and Pashinyan’s conflict with the Armenian Apostolic Church, Oskanian said.

To finalise the peace deal, Pashinyan would need to hold a referendum amending Armenia’s constitution that mentions the “reunification” with Nagorno-Karabakh – and win the 2026 parliamentary vote.

Therefore, the success of Trump’s deal depends on many intricacies of South Caucasus politics – and the West “must engage with nuance – not just geopolitics”, Oskanian concluded.

Tehran says it carried out widespread internal arrests as Israel, US launched huge strikes on the country in June.

Iranian police arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the country’s 12-day conflict with Israel and the United States in June, according to state media citing a law enforcement spokesperson.

Following massive Israeli air strikes that began on June 13, which killed top military officials and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians, Iranian security forces began a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints and “public reports”. The US also carried out extensive strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict on Israel’s behalf.

Iranian citizens were called upon to report on any individuals they thought were acting suspiciously.

“There was a 41 percent increase in calls by the public, which led to the arrest of 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war,” police spokesperson Saeid Montazerolmahdi said.

He did not say what those arrested were suspected of, but Tehran has spoken before of people passing on information that may have helped direct the Israeli attacks.

Since the end of June, Iran has executed seven men convicted of spying for Israel.

Deportations of Afghans

The Israel-US-Iran conflict has also led to an accelerated rate of deportations for Afghan refugees and migrants believed to be illegally in Iran, with aid agencies reporting that local authorities have also accused some Afghan nationals of spying for Israel.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones. [A total] 261 suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorised filming were also arrested,” the spokesperson added.

Montazerolmahdi did not specify how many of those arrested had since been released.

He added that Iran’s police handled more than 5,700 cases of cybercrimes such as online fraud and unauthorised withdrawals during the war, which he said had turned “cyberspace into an important battlefront”.