Military

Commander of the Presidential Guard, head of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), and now Minister of Defense. The meteoric rise of General-in-Chief Gustavo Enrique González López in the 75 days since January 3 is only comparable to Delcy Rodríguez’s own improbable ascent to Venezuela’s presidency.

In less than three months, González López went from leading the Bolivarian Intelligence Service to commanding the Armed Forces and becoming one of the most powerful figures in the Venezuelan government. His appointment points in several directions: counterbalancing Diosdado Cabello’s power (no longer an ally) in the monopoly of force; shielding the acting president from enemies within chavismo itself; and building a loyal enforcement structure for the new ruling clan.

Amid celebrations of Venezuela’s victory in the World Baseball Classic on March 18, Rodríguez seized the moment to overhaul her cabinet. One of the most radical moves was the dismissal of Vladimir Padrino López, the longest-serving minister in the chavista cabinet. After 12 years at the helm of the Defense Ministry, he will hardly be remembered for defending the nation.

Although rumors had long suggested that Padrino López would soon step down, the selection of his successor caught observers off guard.

There were strong reasons to replace Vladimir Padrino López.

Replacing Padrino with González López raises several questions:

What role will he play in a power structure divided among four family-based factions, consisting of Diosdado Cabello, the Rodríguez siblings, the Chávez family, and the Maduro-Flores clan?

If this marks a new political moment, why recycle officials from the Chávez and Maduro governments?

What is the point of US sanctions if the acting president rewards sanctioned officials with key posts?

Does his appointment guarantee impunity for human rights abuses committed under his command?

And, since it came after official visits from the CIA director and the head of US Southern Command, does it have Donald Trump’s backing?

Neither hero nor martyr

Before examining why González López was chosen, it is clear there were several reasons to replace Padrino López.

On January 3, 2026, when US forces bombed key military infrastructure and captured Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan Armed Forces offered no resistance. The attack left 83 dead among those guarding Maduro, including 32 Cubans, while US forces only reported minor injuries. There was no troop mobilization afterward to restore order or deter further attacks.

Padrino appeared only hours later in a solitary video, declaring: “The Bolivarian National Armed Forces inform the world that the Venezuelan people have been the victims of a criminal military aggression by the United States.”

Days later, he justified his inaction bluntly: “It would have been a massacre if we had confronted the Americans.”

When Delcy became the acting minister of petroleum, she appointed González López to a tailor-made role at PDVSA overseeing strategic affairs and production control.

This was not his only failure. In 2021, the FANB lost the so-called Apure war, an operation aimed at expelling FARC dissidents from Venezuelan territory.

The Colombian guerrillas killed 17 Venezuelan soldiers and kidnapped eight more to force negotiations that allowed them to remain in the country. By January 2022, the ELN had finished the job the FANB could not, pushing FARC factions out of the border region.

Nor did the Defense Ministry respond to US attacks on more than 20 Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean. US tactical teams seized at least eight oil tankers without any naval reaction from Venezuela. Padrino also failed to deploy troops to prevent Maduro’s blatant presidential election fraud on July 28, 2024.

Beyond his rank and decorations, Padrino leaves behind another legacy: signing Resolution 008610, which authorizes the use of “firearms or potentially lethal weapons” for public order control.

Why González López?

González López was the first official appointed after Delcy Rodríguez herself. On January 6, 2026, he was named Commander of the Presidential Guard and head of Military Counterintelligence. These roles are clearly designed to protect the new head of state.

Since then, he has been inseparable from Rodríguez: her shadow, her watchdog, the strongman of the Rodríguez clan. His appointment is key to consolidating this new ruling faction. Previous chavista groups had their own enforcers. These are figures with intelligence expertise, coercive power, and influence over security forces and armed groups. González López fills that role for the Rodríguez siblings.

Their Achilles’ heel had been precisely a lack of support from armed elements within the Venezuelan State. For this reason, the Rodríguez siblings could not operate independently from other chavista factions. They had secured economic power and built extensive business ties, including in the oil sector. Rodríguez’s tenure as foreign minister also gave her a broad international network.

The rise of González López could even foreshadow a purge to both consolidate Delcy’s power and polish the image of a criminalized State.

González López has been close to her since at least 2018, when as vice president she oversaw SEBIN, then led by him.

In 2024, when Rodríguez became the acting minister of petroleum, she appointed him to a tailor-made role at PDVSA overseeing strategic affairs and production control. Such position combined security and operational authority.

González López has therefore become Delcy’s trusted operator, the man that can enforce her orders.

At the same time, chavismo has spent 26 years building a system of power rooted in complicity, which explains the constant recycling of officials. Even if the Rodríguez faction wanted to break away, it cannot fully detach from that structure without risking collapse. It still lacks independent foundations.

Blessed and lucky

After overseeing more than 2,000 arbitrary detentions in 2024 as head of SEBIN, being identified as one of Maduro’s torture chiefs, and linked to the deaths of political prisoners, González López has not been punished. He has been promoted.

His appointment disregards warnings from human rights groups and signals that the regime’s institutional chain remains intact—one of chavismo’s enduring strengths. If prosecutions ever come, they will likely follow the familiar script: a few scapegoats.

His rise could even foreshadow a purge to both consolidate Rodríguez’s power and polish the image of a criminalized State.

As the architect of the Operation for the Liberation and Protection of the People (OLP), González López has already demonstrated a zero-tolerance approach to crime. In practice, that policy led to the killing of young men in poor neighborhoods under the banner of law enforcement.

Could Rodríguez appoint a defense minister of this magnitude without a green light from Washington?

His profile aligns with hardline anti-crime and anti-migrant approaches promoted by US policy in recent years, which could appeal to sectors in Washington.

This may help explain why he appears to have received approval from Donald Trump’s team. Could Rodríguez appoint a defense minister of this magnitude without a green light from Washington? Perhaps not. While not every minister requires it, Defense almost certainly does.

Other signs point in that direction: González López appeared as host during John Ratcliffe’s visit (Trump’s CIA director) and was part of the delegation that met US Southern Command chief General Francis L. Donovan. There have also long been rumors of his role as a US intelligence informant. Which is unsurprising, given that intelligence and repression are his specialties.

For now, sanctions imposed under Barack Obama and accusations of crimes against humanity are not part of Venezuela’s new political moment, as Delcy Rodríguez has labelled it.

After two months, the new era seems to prioritize “stabilization, economic recovery, and political transition.” Not human rights, not justice.

Iran has launched a round of missiles targeting Israel, causing damage and injuries in Tel Aviv, as uncertainty swirled over possible talks to end the three-week US-Israel war on Iran.

The missiles triggered air raid sirens in Israel on Tuesday, including in Tel Aviv, where gaping holes were torn through a multistorey apartment building. It was not immediately clear whether the damage was caused by a direct hit or debris from an interception.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said: “Six people were lightly injured at four different sites.”

Police in Tel Aviv said they were dealing with “several impact sites of munitions”.

Israel’s National Fire and Rescue Authority said the search was on for people trapped in one building in Tel Aviv, adding that civilians were found in a shelter in another damaged building.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said on Tuesday that its jets carried out a wave of strikes in central Tehran on Monday, targeting key command centres, including facilities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence arm and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. It said more than 50 additional targets were hit overnight, including ballistic missile storage and launch sites.

At least one person is confirmed dead while dozens have been pulled alive from the wreckage of a Colombian air force plane that crashed on the border with Peru.

March 23 (UPI) — A Colombian Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed Monday in the southern department of Putumayo while transporting military personnel, with the number of casualties still unknown, authorities said.

Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed the accident and said the cause remains under investigation. Initial reports indicate the aircraft was carrying about 100 people, including members of Colombia’s armed forces and National Police.

“Military units are already at the scene; however, the number of victims and the causes of the accident have not yet been precisely determined,” Sánchez said on X.

Gen. Carlos Silva, commander of the Colombian Aerospace Force, said the aircraft was carrying “114 passengers on board and 11 crew members.” He also said that “48 injured people have already been rescued,” though he cautioned that the figure is preliminary, France24 reported.

A witness at the crash site told local radio station La FM that several injured people had been evacuated.

“We are in a rural area where the plane went down and we are collecting the injured. About 10 to 15 people have been taken out. We are transporting them in police vehicles and local residents are helping move people on motorcycles,” the witness said.

Early reports indicate the aircraft may have experienced difficulties during takeoff and failed to gain proper altitude, according to Noticias Caracol.

The aircraft, identified as FAC 1016, was carrying troops from the Army’s 27th Jungle Brigade. The personnel were traveling from Puerto Leguízamo to Puerto Asís as part of a troop rotation, and the plane was expected to return to Bogotá.

President Gustavo Petro addressed the incident on X, expressing concern over possible casualties.

“I hope we do not have deaths in this horrific accident that should not have happened,” Petro said.

He added that his administration has sought to modernize the military’s equipment but has faced bureaucratic obstacles.

“If civilian or military administrative officials are not up to this challenge, they must be removed,” he said.

Petro also said his government has worked to modernize the country’s strategic air fleet and has requested the immediate purchase of helicopters and transport aircraft to expand troop mobility, particularly in regions affected by the grounding of Russian-made helicopters.

He said, contrary to some media reports, the military has been losing operational capacity for more than 15 years and that his administration is committed to fully modernizing its equipment.

Iran’s paralysis of the Strait of Hormuz has led to major disruption in global oil and gas supply and many countries have begun tapping into their strategic oil reserves to evade an economic crisis.

Since the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28, Tehran, whose territorial waters extend into the Strait, has blocked the passage of vessels carrying 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas (LNG) from the Gulf to the rest of the world. The strait is the only waterway to open ocean available for Gulf oil and gas producers.

Last week, the price of Brent crude topped $100 a barrel compared to the pre-war price of around $65.

The United States Trump administration has tried and failed to re-open the strait. First, it called on Western nations to send warships to help escort shipping through the strait – an option all have declined or failed to respond to. Then, on Sunday, Trump gave Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait or face US attacks on its power plants.

However, on Sunday, Iran said it would hit back at power plants in Israel and those in the region supplying electricity to US military assets. And, on Monday, Iran said it would completely shut the Strait of Hormuz if US attacks on its energy infrastructure continue.

Following Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure across the Gulf over the past three weeks, countries including Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq and Kuwait have also cut their oil output, raising further concerns about global oil and gas supply.

On Monday, Trump appeared to backtrack on his Hormuz ultimatum when he ordered all US strikes on power plants in Iran to be paused for five days and claimed the US was holding talks with Iran. Iran has denied this.

In the face of chaos, on March 11, the 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic emergency reserves – the largest stock draw in the agency’s history. It is far higher than the 2022 release of 182 million barrels of oil by the group’s members after Russia invaded Ukraine.

What are strategic oil reserves and which countries hold them?

What is a strategic oil reserve?

A strategic oil reserve or strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) is an emergency stockpile of crude oil which is held by the government of a country in government facilities.

This oil reserve can be drawn on in cases of emergencies like wars and economic crises. Governments generally buy the oil through agreements with private companies in order to keep their reserves filled.

According to the IEA, its members currently hold more than 1.2 billion barrels of these public emergency oil stocks with a further 600 million barrels of industry stocks held by private organisations but under government mandate to be available to supplement public needs.

Other reserves are also held by non IEA members like China.

Which countries have strategic oil reserves? Can they withstand the war in Iran?

China

Beijing is not an IEA member, but holds the world’s largest strategic oil reserve.

According to China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing “started a state strategic oil reserve base programme in 2004 as a way to offset oil supply risks and reduce the impact of fluctuating energy prices worldwide on China’s domestic market for refined oil”.

“The bases are designed to maintain strategic oil reserves of an equivalent to 30 days of imports, or about 10 million tonnes,” according to a 2007 report from Chinese state news agency Xinhua.

These strategic oil reserves are primarily located along China’s eastern and southern coastal regions such as Shandong, Zhejiang and Hainan.

China does not officially publish information about its crude inventories so it is not clear how much oil the country has in reserve. However, according to energy analytics firm Vortexa, in 2025, “China’s onshore crude inventories (excluding underground storage) continued to rise… reaching a record 1.13 billion barrels by year-end”.

According to data from Kpler, China bought more than 80 percent of Iran’s shipped oil in 2025. As the war in Iran escalates, therefore, Chinese companies such as refiner Sinopec have begun pushing for permission to use oil from the country’s reserves according to a Reuters report on Monday.

“We basically won’t buy Iranian oil, this is pretty clear,” Sinopec President Zhao Dong told a company results briefing in March, according to Reuters.

“We believe the government is closely monitoring crude oil and refined fuel inventories and market situations, and will advance policies at the appropriate ⁠time to support refinery productions,” he added.

US

Of the IEA members, the US holds one of the largest strategic oil reserves with 415 million barrels of oil. The stores are maintained by the US Department of Energy. It has confirmed that it will release 172 million barrels of oil from its SPR over this year as its contribution to coordinated efforts with the IEA.

On Friday, the Trump’s administration announced that it has already lent 45.2 million barrels of crude from the SPR to oil companies.

The US created its SPR in 1975 after an Arab oil embargo triggered a spike in gasoline prices which badly affected the US economy.

The reserves are located near big US refining or petrochemical centres, and as much as 4.4 million barrels of oil can be shipped globally per day.

The SPR currently covers roughly 200 days of net crude imports, according to a Reuters news agency calculation.

US presidents have tapped into the stockpile to calm oil markets during war or when hurricanes have hit oil infrastructure along the US Gulf of Mexico.

In March 2024, US President Joe Biden announced oil would be released from the reserve to ease pressure from oil price spikes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and amid subsequent sanctions imposed on Russian oil by the US and its allies.

Japan

An IEA member, Japan also has one of the world’s largest strategic oil reserves.

According to Japanese media Nikkei Asia, at the end of 2025, the country held about 470 million barrels of in emergency reserves which is enough to meet 254 days of domestic consumption. Out of this amount, 146 days worth of oil are government-owned, 101 days are owned by the private sector, and the remainder is jointly stored by oil-producing countries.

Japan set up its national oil reserve system in 1978 to prevent future economic disruptions following the global oil crisis in 1973. That oil crisis heightened Japan’s vulnerability and dependence on oil from abroad. The country remains one of the world’s largest oil importers, relying on fossil fuels from overseas for about 80 percent of its energy needs.

Japan’s reserves are primarily located in 10 coastal national stockholding bases with major storage sites in the Shibushi base in Kagoshima in southern Japan.

On March 16, Japan announced that it had begun releasing oil from its emergency reserves amid the global energy crisis sparked by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told journalists the country would unilaterally release 80 million barrels of oil from stockpiles amid supply concerns.

UK

As of February 26, according to the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, the UK holds about 38 million ⁠barrels of crude oil and 30 million barrels of refined products, as strategic reserves. The reserves are thought to be able to last around 90 days.

The country established its reserves in 1974 following the oil crisis of the 1970s and also to meet its IEA obligations. Members of the organisation are required to maintain at least 90 days of net imports in reserve.

The UK’s strategic reserves are largely held by private oil companies, but are regulated by the government. Milford Haven in South Wales and Humber in northeast England are key locations of reserves.

The country is among the 32 IEA nations releasing oil from its reserve to address the oil crisis amid the war in Iran. The UK government will be contributing 13.5 million barrels as a part of the release.

EU

EU member nations including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, all IEA members, also hold strategic oil reserves.

Germany has 110 million barrels of crude oil and 67 million barrels of finished petroleum products which are held by the government and can be released in a matter of days, according to Germany’s economy ministry.

France reported about 120 million barrels’ worth of crude and finished products in reserve at the end of 2024, the most recent data publicly available. About 97 million barrels of that is held by SAGESS, a government-mandated entity, with ‌a breakdown ⁠of about 30 percent crude oil, 50 percent gasoil, 9 percent gasoline, 7.8 percent jet fuel and some heating oil. Another 39 million barrels are held by the country’s oil operators.

On March 16, Spain approved the release of around 11.5 million barrels of oil reserves over 90 days to counter ⁠supply shortages caused by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Minister Sara Aagesen told reporters. This is the country’s contribution to the IEA release. The country has around 150 million barrels of crude oil reserves in total.

Italy, by law, was holding about 76 million barrels of reserves, representing 90 days of Italy’s average net oil imports, in 2024.

Iranian missiles have struck the towns of Arad and Dimona near an Israeli nuclear research centre in what Iran says was a response to an Israeli attack on its Natanz nuclear facility in Isfahan province.

At least 180 people were wounded in Saturday’s attack, and hundreds of people have been evacuated from the strategic towns as the Israeli-United States war on Iran is seemingly entering a new, more lethal phase of fighting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had a “very difficult evening in the battle for our future”. There have been at least 4,564 people wounded in Israel, according to the Ministry of Health, since the start of the war on February 28.

Analysts said that while Israel has regularly waged military campaigns on Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere, it is rare for the Israeli public to feel the effects of war like it has over the past three weeks.

In Palestinian territory, including Gaza, Israeli forces have used disproportionate force against armed groups, who use rudimentary rockets to fire at Israel. Israel’s war on Gaza has been called a genocide by scholars and rights groups.

With Saturday’s high casualty count, the attacks in Arad and Dimona raise a question: Has Israel underestimated Iranian military capabilities?

What weapons is Iran using?

Defence analysts described Iran’s missile programme as the Middle East’s largest and most varied. Developed over decades, it contains ballistic and cruise missiles and is designed to give Tehran reach even despite its lack of a modern air force.

Iran has short- and medium-range missile systems and longer-range land-attack and antiship cruise missiles.

Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles have a range of roughly 150km to 800km (93 to 500 miles) and are built for nearby military targets and rapid regional strikes.

Their core systems include the Fateh variants: Zolfaghar, Qiam-1 and older Shahab-1/2 missiles. Their shorter range can be an advantage in a crisis. They can be launched in volleys, compressing warning times and making pre-emption harder.

Those medium-range systems include the Shahab-3, Emad, Ghadr-1, the Khorramshahr variants and Sejjil. They also have newer designs like Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassem.

Iran’s land-attack and antiship cruise missiles include the Soumar, Ya-Ali and the Quds variants, Hoveyzeh, Paveh and Ra’ad.

The longest reaching ballistic missiles, the Soumar, have a range of 2,000km to 2,500km (1,243 to 1,553 miles). However, it was reported that two Iranian missiles were fired late on Thursday or early on Friday on Diego Garcia, the site of a joint US-United Kingdom military base in the Indian Ocean that is 4,000km (2,485 miles) from Iran. The UK said the attack failed, and an Iranian official denied firing the missile.

Former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had previously limited Iranian missile ranges to 2,200km (1,367 miles) but removed that limit after Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in June. The US joined Israel in that war as well, carrying out one day of attacks on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities.

“Iran has also used cluster munitions in its attacks on Israel. Each kind of warhead the Iranians have also uses a cluster warhead,” Uzi Rubin, founding director of Israel’s missile defence programme and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told the US news agency Media Line.

What is a cluster munition or warhead?

Instead of a single explosive payload, a cluster warhead disperses multiple bomblets.

“The tip of the missile, instead of containing a big barrel of explosives, contains a mechanism which holds on to a lot of small bombs. And when the missile approaches the target, it opens its skin, it peels off and it spins around and the bomblets are released and released into space and fall on the ground,” Rubin told Media Line.

He added that Iranian cluster warheads may contain 20 to 30 bomblets or 70 to 80, depending on the missile.

These munitions are not new for Iran either. Iran reportedly also used cluster munitions in the 12-day war.

Amnesty International called Iran’s use of cluster munitions during that war a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law while Israel has also been accused of using cluster bombs in Lebanon.

Cluster munitions were banned in 2008 when the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted. Neither Iran nor Israel are signatories to the convention.

Why are they making an impact now?

An Israeli military spokesman said Israel’s air defence systems failed to intercept some of the Iranian missiles that hit Arad and Dimona despite being activated. He said Iran’s weaponry was not “special or unfamiliar” and an investigation was under way.

So why are these cluster munitions now making an impact? There are a few reasons.

For a ballistic missile equipped with cluster bomblets to be intercepted, it must happen before the payload opens and releases the submunitions. After the payload opens, the missile goes from a single point of attack to multiple points, making it difficult to stop.

On Thursday, The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli air force will start conserving interceptors. Military officials reportedly said at the time that Iranian cluster bombs are unlikely to cause significant harm if people have taken shelter and, therefore, may avoid shooting down some of them.

What is next?

In the next stage of the war, Iran, the US and Israel may continue to target important infrastructure.

The US and Israel struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on Saturday, according to the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation. This facility in central Iran is one of the country’s most important uranium enrichment sites, about 220km (135 miles) southeast of Tehran.

In response, Iran launched the attacks on Arad and Dimona, home to Israel’s main nuclear facility.

Israel previously struck fuel storage facilities in Tehran, leading to vast, toxic smoke over the Iranian capital. For its part, the US previously hit Kharg Island, Iran’s oil export hub, and threatened to do it again.

Iran has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global shipping and oil transport, and has targeted military bases and crucial energy infrastructure across Arab Gulf countries.

US President Donald Trump demanded the reopening of the strait and threatened to begin hitting energy infrastructure should Iran not comply.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 23:44 GMT on Saturday.

As the United States-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, the conflict seems to have escalated beyond President Donald Trump’s control.

The Iranian government has been able to endure the killings of its top political and military leaders and has launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and Gulf countries despite weeks of air strikes.

Tehran has also been able to impose a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies pass, sending oil prices soaring. Analysts said the conflict risks unleashing a global recession. And that has put pressure on Trump, prompting his administration to allow the sale of sanctioned Russian oil to try to ease the energy crisis and pressure allies to police the strait, so far unsuccessfully.

Trump’s response in how to deal with the situation has been anything but coherent.

On Saturday, Trump upped the ante, issuing a threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. This came a day after he said the US was “winding down” its military operations in Iran.

Analysts said Trump launched the war without a clear goal and misjudged how Tehran would respond. The conflict has expanded across the Middle East.

So is Trump looking to exit the war – or escalate it?

Trump’s mixed messaging on the Iran war

Here’s a brief look at the changing statements from Washington:

Is the war winding up or widening?

While one statement from Trump signalled that the US is considering “winding down” the war on Iran, another one indicated that the conflict would widen in the coming days.

On Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Washington was “very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran”.

Trump listed the goals of the war as: completely degrading Iran’s missile capability, destroying its defence industrial base, eliminating the Iranian navy and air force, never allowing Iran to get even close to having nuclear weapons, protecting Middle Eastern allies, and guarding and policing the Strait of Hormuz.

Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have claimed repeatedly in the past few days that Iranian military capabilities have been “completely destroyed” even as Tehran continues to retaliate against Israel and strike countries in the region.

US military officials said they have carried out heavy bombardments of Iran’s coast, including with bunker buster bombs, but still have not been able to limit Tehran’s capacity to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz.

On Saturday, Trump said the US “has blown Iran off of the map” and insisted that he has “met my own goals … and weeks ahead of schedule!” He also reiterated that Iran’s “leadership is gone, their navy and air force are dead, they have absolutely no defense, and they want to make a deal”.

Iranian leaders have consistently denied reaching out to the US with a ceasefire offer.

Just an hour later, Trump returned to his Truth Social platform with a warning for Iran.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump wrote.

Iran has since responded by saying it will hit energy sites across the Middle East if its power facilities are targeted. It has already fired hundreds of missiles and drones on Gulf countries, targeting US assets as well as energy facilities.

Between Trump’s claims to be “winding down” operations and upping the ante later, his administration announced it is sending three more warships to the Middle East with about 2,500 additional Marines.

The US military said about 50,000 military personnel are already deployed for the war against Iran.

When will the war on Iran end?

That has been among the foremost questions posed to US officials, including Trump, since the war on Iran was launched on February 28.

The next day, Trump told the Daily Mail that “it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process.” A day later, Trump said at the White House: “We projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”

On March 8, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the CBS TV network’s 60 Minutes programme: “This is only just the beginning.” The next day, the US president told the same channel that he thinks “the war is very complete, pretty much.” And the US military operation was “way ahead of schedule”.

Then, on March 9, Trump said one could say the war is “both complete and just beginning”. Later the same day, the president said: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough” and promised to go further and harsher against Iran.

On March 11, Trump said: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”

Why did US and Israel launch strikes on Iran?

Responses to this question are perhaps the most telling about US posturing in the war against Iran.

On March 2, Hegseth said the attacks were aimed at ending “47 long years” of war by “the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran” and were launched because Iran refused to negotiate with the US.

Hours later, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, told reporters the US knew Israel was about to strike Iran, adding that the Trump administration believed the US needed to launch a pre-emptive strike before Iran’s retaliation potentially targeted US forces. “We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage,” he said.

This sparked a massive row in Washington with critics saying Israel had forced the US into war with Iran. Soon Trump rebutted his top diplomat, saying: “They [Iran] were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. … So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

The next day, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, concluded that Trump just had a “good feeling” that Iran would strike so Washington attacked Tehran.

The launch of the war came as Washington and Tehran were scheduled to meet for another round of talks that were started late last year. Before the war, their Omani mediator said a deal was “within reach”.

The US and Israeli assertion that Tehran was on the verge of making a nuclear bomb has not been backed up by the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Last week, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also told Congress that Iran was not in a position to make an atomic bomb.

Some analysts said the Trump administration was convinced to go to war by Netanyahu, who has been seeking US military intervention in Iran for decades. They said Trump was buoyed by a swift US military operation in Venezuela and did not think through Iran’s strengths before going into the war. In January, the US military abducted President Nicolas Maduro in a military operation in Caracas that took two and a half hours.

What does the conflicting messaging mean for US strategy?

Analysts said the moving goalposts in the Iran war show the policy limits of the current Trump administration as well as its strategy, to some extent, of keeping off-ramps available.

Zeidon Alkinani, a Middle East analyst at the Arab Perspectives Institute, told Al Jazeera that in the earlier days of the hostilities, there appeared to be clearer targets and limited objectives.

“There now seems to be a more chaotic reaction,” he said. He described the attacks as increasingly reciprocal, suggesting strikes on oil or energy facilities could prompt further escalation.

Last week, Iran attacked energy facilities in Qatar and caused “significant damage”, knocking out  17 percent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity. Qatar produces 20 percent of global LNG supplies. Iran said the attack was in retaliation for Israeli attacks on a gas plant.

Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera that Trump changes his mind “very quickly” and it is hard to predict what his next step could be in the war on Iran.

The analyst said it was unclear to him what “tools” Trump has to end the war.

“We look at his message saying the war is winding down. OK, good. Things are quiet. Maybe there is an off-ramp somehow. But now he says that if the Iranians don’t open the Strait of Hormuz, then we [the US] are going to unleash hell and what have you,” von Schirach noted.

“It is not quite clear to me what he wants and what the tools are to accomplish this.”

Von Schirach added that it would be difficult to predict whether the US could force Iran into submission, given its size and population. Using as a reference Iraq, where 150,000 American soldiers were deployed during the Second Gulf War, the analyst predicted that the US might need as many as half a million soldiers if Trump “wants to take over Iran”.

The move follows a drone strike on the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia’s main oil export outlet, after Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Arabia has given Iran’s military attache and embassy staff 24 hours to leave the kingdom due to “repeated Iranian attacks” on its territory.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday that it had declared personae non gratae the “military attache of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Kingdom, the assistant military attache and three members of the mission staff”.

The move comes amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, which has seen Tehran target Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours hosting US military assets with increasingly damaging retaliatory attacks on civilian hubs and energy facilities, unleashing chaos across the region and roiling global energy markets.

Saudi Arabia, which holds the world’s second-largest proven crude oil reserves, has come under attack by hundreds of Iranian missiles and drones since the start of the war, the vast majority of which have been intercepted, authorities have said.

Among the attacks, energy facilities in the east of Saudi Arabia have been repeatedly targeted, as well as the capital, Riyadh, where the US Embassy was hit by two drones earlier this month.

On Thursday, oil loadings at the Red Sea port of Yanbu were disrupted after a drone fell on the nearby Aramco-Exxon refinery, SAMREF.

The port is the only export outlet for Saudi Arabia after Iran effectively blocked tanker traffic leaving the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz.

Saturday’s statement came after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said earlier in the week that trust in Iran had been “shattered”, asserting his country’s right to defend itself.

The foreign minister said that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states had “very significant capacities and capabilities that they could bring to bear should they choose to do so”.

Saudi Arabia’s relations with Iran have historically been rocky, but the two countries embarked on a Beijing-brokered rapprochement three years ago.

On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said that continued Iranian attacks would lead to further escalation and have “significant consequences” for current and future relations.

The statement followed Qatar’s decision on Wednesday to declare the Iranian Embassy’s military and security attaches in Doha as personae non gratae, along with their staff.

Joe Kent says he resigned as director of the US National Counterterrorism Center over opposition to the war in Iran, telling an audience at a Washington prayer event that he couldn’t “send young men and women off to die on foreign battlefields” in “good conscience.”

The fate of an Iranian woman caught in a US-Israeli bomb attack is unknown, after video emerged of the moments she filmed the bombardment on her phone.

A federal judge in the United States has agreed to block the administration of President Donald Trump from enforcing a policy limiting news reporters’ access to the Pentagon.

Friday’s ruling sides with The New York Times in its argument that key portions of the new rules are unlawful.

US District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, DC, ruled that the Pentagon policy illegally restricts the press credentials of reporters who walked out of the building rather than agree to the new rules.

The Times sued the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in December, claiming the credentialing policy violates the journalists’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process.

The current Pentagon press corps is comprised mostly of conservative outlets that agreed to the policy. Reporters from outlets that refused to consent to the new rules, including those from The Associated Press, have continued reporting on the military.

Friedman, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the policy “fails to provide fair notice of what routine, lawful journalistic practices will result in the denial, suspension, or revocation” of Pentagon press credentials.

He ruled that the Pentagon policy ultimately violates the First and Fifth Amendment rights to free speech and due process.

“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech. That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now,” the judge wrote.

Times lauds ruling

New York Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander said the newspaper believes the ruling “enforces the constitutionally protected rights for the free press in this country”.

“Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars,” Stadtlander said in a statement. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public’s behalf.”

Theodore Boutrous, a lawyer who represented the Times at a hearing earlier this month, said in a statement that the court ruling is “a powerful rejection of the Pentagon’s effort to impede freedom of the press and the reporting of vital information to the American people during a time of war”.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

It has argued that the policy imposes “common sense” rules that protect the military from the disclosure of national security information.

“The goal of that process is to prevent those who pose a security risk from having broad access to American military headquarters,” government lawyers wrote.

The Times’ legal team, meanwhile, claimed the policy is designed to silence unfavourable press coverage of President Trump’s administration.

“The First Amendment flatly prohibits the government from granting itself the unbridled power to restrict speech because the mere existence of such arbitrary authority can lead to self-censorship,” they wrote.

Weeding out ‘disfavoured’ journalists

The judge said he recognises that “national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected”.

“But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing,” Friedman wrote.

Friedman said the “undisputed evidence” shows that the policy is designed to weed out “disfavored journalists” and replace them with those who are “on board and willing to serve” the government, a clear instance of illegal viewpoint discrimination.

“In sum, the Policy on its face makes any newsgathering and reporting not blessed by the Department a potential basis for the denial, suspension, or revocation of a journalist’s [credentials],” he wrote. “It provides no way for journalists to know how they may do their jobs without losing their credentials.”

The Pentagon had asked the judge to suspend his ruling for a week for an appeal. Friedman refused.

The judge ordered the Pentagon to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times journalists. But he said his decision to vacate the challenged policy terms applies to “all regulated parties”.

Friedman gave the Pentagon a week to file a written report on its compliance with the order.

The Times argued that the Pentagon has applied its own rules inconsistently. The newspaper noted that Trump ally Laura Loomer, a right-wing personality who agreed to the Pentagon policy, appeared to violate the Pentagon’s prohibition on soliciting unauthorised information by promoting her “tip line”.

The government didn’t object to Loomer’s tip line but concluded that a Washington Post tip line does violate its policy because it purportedly “targets” military personnel and department employees.

The judge said he does not see any meaningful difference between the two tip lines.

“But the problem is that nothing in the Policy explicitly prevents the Department from treating these two nearly identical tip lines differently,” Friedman added.

The US is moving military assets to the Middle East that are key to providing support for ground troop operations. Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett says it’s the clearest sign yet of potential US boots on the ground in Iran to secure the Strait of Hormuz.

Air raid sirens sounded across Kuwait City as Iran targeted US assets with missiles and drones. Footage shows alerts sounding as the call to Eid al-Fitr prayers was made at a mosque.

Gulf countries are coming increasingly under attack from Iranian strikes as the United States-Israeli war on Iran continues to escalate.

On Friday, Saudi Arabia intercepted multiple waves of Iranian drones and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery had been targeted by several early-morning drone attacks, leading to some units being shut down.

Gulf countries have repeatedly insisted that their defences are sufficient to repel these Iranian strikes. However, they also have military partnerships and agreements in place with other countries which could potentially provide more assistance as tensions escalate.

In this explainer, we look at what these partnerships are, how they are helping the Gulf and whether they could do more.

What military partnerships do the Gulf countries have?

The Gulf countries have a handful of military partnerships of different kinds.

Qatar

Qatar is home to the largest military base hosting US assets and troops in the region – Al Udeid.

The 24-hectare (60-acre) base, located in the desert outside the capital Doha, was established in 1996 and is the forward headquarters for US Central Command, which directs US military operations in a huge swath of regional territory stretching from Egypt in the west to Kazakhstan in the east.

It houses the Qatar Emiri Air Force, the US Air Force, the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force, as well as other foreign forces.

Qatar is the second largest Foreign Military Sales (FMS) partner to the US after Saudi Arabia. FMS is the official, government‑run channel the US uses to sell weapons, equipment and services to other governments.

In January, the US State Department said that “recent and significant” sales to Qatar included the Patriot long-range missile system, the National Advanced Surface to Air Missile System, early warning systems, radars and attack helicopters.

On September 9, 2025, Israel struck a residential area of Qatar’s capital, Doha, targeting senior leaders of Hamas including negotiators for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

On September 29, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order reaffirming support for Qatar, saying: “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.”

On Wednesday, Israel struck Iran’s critical South Pars gasfield. Soon after, Iran retaliated, hitting a major gas facility at Qatar’s Ras Laffan plant.

In response, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post guaranteeing that Israel would not attack the South Pars field again unless Iran again “unwisely” attacked Qatar.

Trump added that, if it did, the US “with or without the help or consent of Israel, will massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before”.

There is also a Turkish military base in Qatar as the two countries collaborate via defence cooperation agreements and joint training.

In recent years, Qatar has also strengthened ties with the United Kingdom through joint training and exercises and with France from which it buys weapons.

Earlier this month, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would send four additional Typhoon fighter jets to Qatar to help with defence.

Despite initially stating that the UK would not permit the US to use UK bases for strikes on Iran, Starmer partially relented on March 1 when he granted a US request to use UK bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian capabilities.

Nevertheless, Starmer has stated that the UK will not send its own assets or troops or otherwise become involved in the ongoing war.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia hosts US military assets and personnel at the Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB), located near Al Kharj, southeast of Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia is also the largest Foreign Military Sales (FMS) partner of the US.

There is no formal mutual‑defence treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia, similar to NATO’s Article 5. Instead, there are defence cooperation agreements between Riyadh and Washington.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have had a decades-long security partnership. This was strengthened in September 2025, when the two countries signed a formal mutual defence pact.

The extent to which Pakistan, which shares a 900km (559-mile) border with Iran in its southwest, can and will intervene is unclear, however.

On March 3, Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told a news conference he had personally reminded Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi of Pakistan’s defence obligations to Saudi Arabia.

“We have a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, and the whole world knows about it,” Dar said. “I told the Iranian leadership to take care of our pact with Saudi Arabia.”

An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 Pakistani troops are stationed in Saudi Arabia.

United Arab Emirates

The UAE also hosts US assets and personnel at its Al-Dhafra airbase, including advanced aircraft such as F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and various surveillance planes, drones and airborne warning and control systems (AWACS).

On Thursday, the US announced an $8.4bn arms deal with the UAE, for the Gulf nation to buy drones, missiles, radar systems and F-16 aircraft.

Recently, the UAE has bolstered its military partnership with India. In January this year, the president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, visited India.

During this meeting, India and the UAE reaffirmed the India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Established in 2017, this is a bilateral agreement focused on defence cooperation, energy security and technology exchange.

The UAE and India do not have a mutual defence-style agreement in place, however.

Oman

The US has long-term access agreements for key air and naval facilities in Oman, notably the Port of Duqm and Port of Salalah, both of which have been subject to Iranian strikes over the past three weeks.

The UK and Oman also have a defence cooperation agreement and conduct regular joint exercises.

Pakistan and Oman also have military ties where they hold regular joint naval exercises.

However, there are no mutual defence commitments in place.

Bahrain

The US operates the Naval Support Activity (NSA) in Bahrain. Home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, the base provides security to ships, aircraft, detachments and remote sites in the region.

Bahrain and the UK also have a comprehensive security pact. Earlier this month, Starmer held talks with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain and confirmed that the UK would send aircraft to bolster Bahrain’s security.

Kuwait

Kuwait hosts Camp Arifjan, a major US Army installation that functions as the main logistics, supply and command hub for US military operations across the Middle East, especially within the US Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility.

On Thursday, the US announced an $8bn arms deal with Kuwait – for air and missile defence radar systems.

In 2023, Kuwait signed an agreement on military cooperation with Pakistan, focusing on joint training and military exercises.

These are not mutual defence agreements, however.

What could these partners be doing to better assist Gulf countries?

Experts say military allies of Gulf nations could provide naval escorts to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. One-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies are shipped through this route in peacetime from Gulf producers.

On March 2, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the Strait of Hormuz – through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas is transported – was “closed”. This has contributed to the recent surge in oil prices, which have surpassed $100 a barrel, compared with the pre-war Brent crude price of about $65.

In recent days, countries have been individually scrambling to negotiate safe passage for ships with Iran. A handful of mainly Indian, Pakistani and Chinese-flagged ships have been able to get through as a result.

“Pakistan and India are working with Iran to ensure of safe passage of tankers for their markets,” David Roberts, a senior academic in international security and Middle East studies at Kings College London, told Al Jazeera.

Roberts said that theoretically, the countries could also offer a naval escort for their tankers and other tankers.

“As neutrals, this might be a plausible gambit, but would need the acquiescence of Iran. Support establishing a shipping channel from the monarchies to China, Pakistan, India is plausible with concerted pressure from the three states, but Iran will be reluctant to give up that pressure point.”

Roberts said that European countries on the other hand, are “stretched thinly” when it comes to offering any such military support in the Strait of Hormuz.

He suggested the UK could send “another plane or two” to Qatar to join their joint Typhoon squadron. However, he added that it is difficult to make predictions about what support is likely to be forthcoming.

“Gulf states clearly need support. But it’s not clear what can be offered by anyone,” Roberts said.

He added they likely need more munitions for missile defence but stocks are tight everywhere.

EXPLAINER

Tehran has warned of zero restraint if energy facilities are attacked again, while Netanyahu signals that there could be a ‘ground component’ to the war.

Iran has warned it will show “zero restraint” if its energy facilities are attacked again, a day after Israel struck the South Pars gasfield and Tehran attacked energy sites across the Gulf.

In the United States, President Donald Trump raised controversy during a meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi by invoking the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbour while defending the element of surprise in the Iran attack.

Meanwhile, as the conflict intensifies, concerns over supply disruptions have pushed global oil and gas prices higher, with sharp increases reported across the United Kingdom and Europe.

In Iran

• Escalation: After Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gasfield, Tehran hit targets in Haifa, Israel, and Ras Laffan, Qatar, warning of “zero restraint” if its energy facilities are attacked again and claiming Iran has only used a “fraction” of its firepower so far.
• Widespread regional missile strikes: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced a new wave of missile and drone attacks on US bases and central and southern Israel, including Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
• Humanitarian toll:  The Iranian Red Crescent Society reported that more than 18,000 civilians have been injured and 204 children have been killed in Iran since the war began on February 28. In all, more than 1,400 people have been killed in Iran.
• US airbase in Germany: Iran said it had asked Germany to clarify the role of the Ramstein Air Base in the war. “The role of Ramstein is not officially clear for us,” Tehran’s ambassador to Germany, Majid Nili, said. The Ramstein Air Base matters because it is one of the US military’s most important hubs and a key link in operations in the Middle East.
• Macron eyes UN action on Hormuz: French President Emmanuel Macron said he will consult United Nations Security Council members on a framework to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global chokepoint through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas flows – once fighting subsides.

In the Gulf

• Gulf attacks: UAE and Kuwaiti air defences were responding to missile attacks on Friday, authorities in the Gulf states said. Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense said it had intercepted and destroyed 10 drones in the country’s east and another in the north.
• UAE arrests: Authorities detained at least five members of a “terrorist network” linked to Iran and Hezbollah that allegedly used business fronts to infiltrate the economy as part of a coordinated external plan, the official WAM news agency reported.
• Qatar – Ras Laffan attack: Iran hit Qatar’s key LNG facility, cutting about 17 percent of output for as long as five years, the CEO of QatarEnergy has said. With Qatar supplying 20 percent of global LNG, disruptions are expected, with force majeure likely on some contracts to Belgium, Italy, South Korea, and China. Diplomatically, Qatar’s prime minister and Turkiye’s foreign minister held a joint news conference condemning the act of sabotage as a “dangerous escalation” by Iran. On Thursday, Qatar’s defence forces again reported ballistic missile attacks.
• Missile and drone interceptions in Bahrain: Bahrain’s Defence Force reported shooting down five incoming missiles recently, bringing its total interceptions to 139 missiles and 238 drones since the start of the conflict more than two weeks ago.

In the US

• ‘Pearl Harbour’ remarks: Trump defended not informing allies about the US strikes on Iran, saying “we wanted surprise.” He then turned to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who was visiting the White House and was seated next to him, and invoked the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbour, saying, “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbour, OK? Right?”
• Diplomatic shockwaves: Analyst Mireya Solis called Trump’s Pearl Harbour remark to Japan’s PM “unusual – a shock” that brings up a bitter rivalry rather than emphasising shared allied bonds.
• US war objectives unchanged: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said US goals remain the same since February 28 – targeting Iran’s missile systems, military industry and navy, and preventing a nuclear weapon, with no set end date.
• No US ground troops: Trump said he was not sending US ground troops to Iran, telling reporters: “If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. But I’m not putting troops.” However, Trump has frequently changed his position on whether he is open to deploying boots on the ground in Iran.
• F-35 incident: A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at a Middle East airbase after a combat mission over Iran. The aircraft landed safely and the pilot is stable, while US officials investigate reports it may have been struck by Iranian fire. If that is the case, it would be the first US jet struck by Iran during the current war.

In Israel

• Explosions over Jerusalem: Israel’s military said it had identified three rounds of missile fire in the hour and a half preceding midnight, and another a few hours later.
• Netanyahu says Iran ‘decimated’: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference he saw “this war ending a lot faster than people think … We are winning and Iran is being decimated.”
• Trump and Netanyahu: Netanyahu also denied that Israel “dragged” the US into the war, asking, “Does anyone really think that someone can tell President Trump what to do?”
• Israel ‘acted alone’: The PM also said Israel acted on its own when it struck an Iranian gasfield. “President Trump asked us to hold off on future attacks and we’re holding out.”
• Netanyahu signals possible ground phase: “It is often said that you can’t win, you can’t do revolutions from the air. That is true. You can’t do it only from the air. You can do a lot of things from the air, and we’re doing, but there has to be a ground component as well,” the Israeli prime minister said in his remarks.
• Next stage questions: Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride described Netanyahu’s comments about a possible ground component as “intriguing”, suggesting a potential next stage while raising questions about how it would unfold. Netanyahu’s remarks were also seen as an attempt to reassure Israelis that the nearly three-week war has been worthwhile.
• Core objectives: Netanyahu also reiterated goals of dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, degrading its ballistic missile capabilities, and shaping conditions for a future without the “current regime”.
• Regional framing: “In a wider sense, he was also claiming that with their American allies, they were reshaping the Middle East altogether, and that the balance of power and the dynamics within that – that Israel, he said, had never been stronger, while Iran, he claimed, had never been weaker,” McBride said.

In Lebanon

• Severe humanitarian crisis and displacements:  Since Israeli attacks on Lebanon escalated on March 2, the death toll in the country has surpassed 1,000 people, with at least 2,584 wounded. Furthermore, residents in towns such as Machghara and Sahmar in the Bekaa Valley reported receiving threatening phone calls from foreign numbers urging them to evacuate.
• Ongoing clashes and military actions: Fierce fighting continues in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army has expanded its ground troop presence. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks, including firing missiles at Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the southern Lebanese towns of al-Aadaissah, Meiss el-Jabal, and Maroun al-Ras.
• Diplomatic efforts for a truce: Amidst the heavy fighting, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has renewed calls for a truce and the opening of negotiations with Israel to end the war.

Oil and gas

• Global economic effect: The Ras Laffan strike cut about 17 percent of LNG capacity, with losses near $20bn a year and an estimated 9 percent annual hit to Qatar’s gross domestic product, according to Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko, who was reporting from Doha.
• Soaring global prices: Concerns over these supply disruptions have triggered a surge in global oil and gas prices. Gas prices have risen sharply across the UK and Europe. The ripple effects are being felt in developing nations as well; for instance, fuel prices in Zimbabwe recently topped $2 per litre for the first time as a direct result of the conflict’s effect on oil and gas exports.
• International pushback and warnings: Due to the escalating energy crisis, the European Council has urgently called for a moratorium on strikes against energy and water facilities.
• US may ‘unsanction’ Iranian crude: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington might “unsanction” Iranian oil that is already being shipped to ease oil prices. In comments to Fox Business, Bessent also said the US government could release more oil from its strategic reserves.

Omar Oswaldo Torres, the leader of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa criminal network, was detained in the raid.

Mexican authorities have revealed that 11 people were killed during a raid that resulted in the capture of Omar Oswaldo Torres, the leader of a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

In a social media post on Thursday, the Mexican Navy said the raid took place in Culiacan, part of the state of Sinaloa in northern Mexico.

It alleged that its personnel were attacked at the site of the raid and returned fire, killing 11 “assailants”. Their identities have yet to be released to the public.

“High-powered weapons and tactical equipment were seized at the scene,” the navy said in a statement.

The navy added that a woman identified as Torres’s daughter was also present during the operation, but she was released to her family due to a lack of connection to criminal activities.

Torres, known by the nickname “El Patas”, is the leader of the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

In recent years, Los Mayos have been in a fight with another faction, Los Chapitos. Each side is named for a different Sinaloa Cartel leader: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, both of whom have been arrested and imprisoned in the United States.

Thursday’s raid comes as governments across Latin America seek to deliver US President Donald Trump tangible results in the fight against crime and drug trafficking.

Just this week, the Mexican government participated in a law enforcement operation with Ecuador and Colombia to arrest Angel Esteban Aguilar, the leader of the Los Lobos crime group.

A separate Mexican military operation in the state of Jalisco last month led to the death of Nemesio Oseguera, also known as “El Mencho”, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Criminal groups responded with a burst of violence, including the erection of roadblocks and attacks on security force outposts across Mexico.

Critics have questioned the efficacy of the more militarised methods Trump has pressured Latin American leaders to use against cartel leaders.

Capturing or killing cartel leaders is sometimes referred to as a “decapitation strategy”, and the method is designed to weaken the structure of criminal networks.

But experts warn that the “decapitation strategy” risks increasing violence over the long term, as new conflicts emerge to fill the leadership vacuum.

Many also point out that such militarised approaches fail to address the root causes of crime, among them corruption and poverty.

Still, Trump has labelled groups like the Sinaloa Cartel “foreign terrorist organisations”, and has indicated he would consider taking military action on Mexican soil against such groups, despite concerns that such actions would violate Mexican sovereignty.

Trump told a summit of Latin American leaders earlier this month that he considered Mexico to be the “epicentre” of cartel violence.

“We have to eradicate them,” Trump said of the cartels. “We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that.”

Mexican officials, meanwhile, have called on the US to stem the flow of illicit weapons into Mexico, to little avail.

Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit from the Mexican government accusing US gun manufacturers of negligence, given that their products end up arming criminal networks in the Latin American country.

Iran’s strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility will cut an estimated 17% of the country’s Liquefied Natural Gas export capacity for up to five years, officials say. The damage is a major blow to the global energy market, which could disrupt supplies to Europe, Asia and beyond.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister warns Iran that regional neighbours have ‘significant’ capabilities with which to respond to Tehran’s aggression.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has warned Iran that tolerance of its attacks on his country and those of neighbouring Gulf states is limited, calling on Tehran to immediately “recalculate” its strategy.

Warning that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have “very significant capacities and capabilities” that could be drawn on should they “choose to do so”, the foreign minister told a news conference early on Thursday that Iran had carefully planned its strategy for striking regional neighbours, despite denials from Tehran’s diplomats.

“The level of accuracy in some of this targeting – you can see it in our neighbours as well as the kingdom – indicates that this is something that was premeditated, preplanned, preorganised and well thought out,” Prince Faisal said.

“I’m not going to lay out what would and would not precipitate a defensive action by the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] because I think that is not a wise approach to signal to the Iranians,” the foreign minister continued.

“But I think it’s important for the Iranians to understand that the kingdom, but also its partners who have been attacked and beyond, have very significant capacities and capabilities that they could bring to bear should they choose to do so,” he said.

“The patience that is being exhibited is not unlimited. Do they [the Iranians] have a day, two, a week? I’m not going to telegraph that,” he added.

“I would hope they understand the message of the meeting today and recalculate quickly and stop attacking their neighbours. But I am doubtful they have that wisdom.”

Prince Faisal’s warning followed a meeting of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries in the Saudi capital earlier in the day to discuss the expanding war in the region, which on Wednesday saw Iranian attacks on Gulf energy sites, including Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility, where significant damage was reported, and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan ⁠ gas facility.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its “strong condemnation and denunciation of the blatant Iranian attack targeting Ras Laffan Industrial City”, located 80km (50 miles) northeast of the Qatari capital Doha, which is the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facility, producing some 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had warned earlier that oil and gas facilities in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would face retaliation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s South Pars gasfield.

Iranian state media reported that facilities linked to the country’s huge offshore South Pars field – located off the coast of southern Iran’s Bushehr province – had come under attack.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defence also said on Wednesday that its air defences had intercepted four Iranian ballistic missiles that targeted Riyadh and two launched towards the country’s eastern region.

Air defences in the UAE dealt with 13 ballistic missiles and 27 drones, according to the country’s Defence Ministry, while operations ⁠were ⁠suspended at the Habshan ⁠gas facility as authorities responded to ⁠incidents caused by fallen debris after the successful interception of a ‌missile.

The Saudi foreign minister also told the news conference on Thursday that while the war will end one day, it will take much longer to restore relations with Iran as trust “has completely been shattered” due to Tehran’s tactics of targeting its neighbours.

“We know for a fact that Iran has been building this strategy over the last decade and beyond,” Prince Faisal said.

“This is not something that is a reaction to an evolving circumstance where Iran is improvising. This has been built into their war planning: targeting their neighbours and using that to try and put pressure on the international community,” he said.

“So when this war eventually ends, in order for there to be any rebuilding of trust, it will take a long time. And I have to tell you, if Iran doesn’t stop … immediately, I think there will be almost nothing that can re-establish that trust,” he added.

In another timeline, in that parallel universe where Venezuela is a normal Latin American country and not a case study of self destruction and democratic retreat, Vladimir Padrino López might have been a good military officer. A native from Caracas, he graduated with honors in the Military Academy in 1984, and as was normal for promising Venezuelan Army officers like him, he was sent to study in the infamous School of the Americas where the United States managed to train the armies of their allied countries. Padrino Lopez was sent later to command an Army post in the border with Colombia, and then came Hugo Chávez.

He was back in Caracas when the crisis of April 2002 allowed Chávez to purge the armed forces and control them as a whole, after promoting the politicization—to his favor, of course—of the military caste. Padrino read the room and focused on rising as a hardcore chavista. By the end of the Chávez years, he was leading the chief of staff of the Army, in the pole position to jump into the highest job an active military officer can get in Venezuela: minister of defense. Nicolás Maduro appointed him as such in October 2014, as well as chief of the FANB’s Strategic Operations Command. 

By then, he was a general-in-chief with four stars on his uniform, but the most important thing is what he did, and what he didn’t. 

Padrino López didn’t stop Colombian guerrillas from controlling villages, rivers, mines and illegal businesses in Venezuela. On the contrary, he helped him to use our territory as a sanctuary that protected them from Colombian soldiers and as a hunting ground for kidnapping and drug trafficking. He didn’t purge military intelligence from Cuban advisors and spies, but let them impose terror in the ranks and prevent the rise of conspirators against Maduro with extreme prejudice. What Padrino López focused on was on lucrative arms trade and cooperation with the Russian and Iranian industrial-military complexes. His most important function for Maduro was to help him to keep FANB in line, to lead the different military tribes around the chavista regime, and to ensure support from the women and men in uniform to an autocratic consolidation—through the illegal Constituent Assembly, and the two illegitimate inaugurations of Maduro in 2019 and 2025.

He was the minister of defense when FANB was tasked with overseeing the Mining Arc, when the protest wave of 2017 was drowned in blood, when FANB deployed with the police the killing squads of the Operación de Liberacion del Pueblo, and when DGCIM became the spearhead of the worst place Venezuela has been in terms of human rights since the military dictatorship of General Marcos Perez Jimenez. This is why you can find the name of Padrino López in several reports on repression and crimes against humanity in Venezuela: he was at the top of the military chain of command responsible for kidnapping, torturing and killing people.

Now he has completed his comeback, with the mission of helping Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez keep stability, to deter potential spoilers from trying to change the post-Maduro order.

The demise of Padrino López has been a rumor for years, as his ascendancy among troops decayed. Thousands of members of the armed forces have been victims of witchhunts or abandoned FANB, by quitting or even deserting, fed up with abuse, low wages, corruption and miserable operational arrest. In January 3, years of preaching about asymmetric war and millions spent on Russian toys did nothing to avoid the capture of Maduro and the bombing of Fuerte Tiuna. Delcy Rodriguez found a pretext to send Padrino to retirement, which was way past due. Naturally, she didn’t do it to punish him for being useless as an army leader, incapable of defending the country and his commander in chief, but because she needed someone she trusts more.

The successor might not be as visible or as well known as Padrino Lopez, but he is not very different. General Gustavo González López is also an alumni of the School of the Americas, a loyal chavista and a longtime member of the Maduro regime’s military elite. Twenty years ago he was already serving in civilian positions, like director of the Caracas Metro, that had nothing to do with his training, and everything to do with his loyalty to Chávez and the chavista (but not only chavista) myth that military officers are good managers because they know how to boss people around and impose order. González López’s organizational abilities, though, were more in the realm of building an efficient repressive apparatus than in running a decades-old public transport system.

He was appointed head of SEBIN, the civilian political police in charge of the dungeons in El Helicoide, during the 2014 repression wave. That meant González López was one of the men who dragged the country down the ladder of poor human rights indicators. Just like Padrino López, he quickly entered the list of Venezuelan high-level officials targeted by international sanctions and investigations. One year later, he became interior minister. Just when an assassination attempt with drones surprised Maduro and his security ring during a military parade in Caracas, and a scandal followed the murder of opposition councilman Fernando Albán in the SEBIN headquarters, González López was dismissed and put aside. 

Now he has completed his comeback, with the mission of helping Delcy and Jorge Rodríguez keep stability, to deter potential spoilers from trying to change the post-Maduro order. González López was appointed chief of the DGCIM and commander of the Presidential Guard just after January 3, and now is at the top of the pyramid. 

This is about loyalty, not about any political transition. We can’t expect justice, reconciliation or any movement towards the restoration of the rule of law with a man like González López heading the Venezuelan military. No one in the barracks or the streets is safer because one symbol of the Maduro regime, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, has been replaced by another.

As United States President Donald Trump tries to build a coalition of navies willing to open the Strait of Hormuz, some countries are negotiating safe passage directly with Iran, underscoring a new de facto reality, analysts say: Regardless of military results, Tehran is calling the shots on who gets to use the world’s most important energy waterway.

After US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28 and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Iranian military leadership responded by focusing on its most potent form of leverage – Iran’s geography. The country controls the northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of global crude oil and natural gas supplies pass. It is 33km (20 miles) wide at its narrowest point, so any naval force that wants to cross it becomes easy prey for Iranian attacks coming from the mainland.

Considering insurance companies’ low appetite for risk, it took relatively few attacks on vessels in the strait – or just the threat of them – to undermine market confidence and send insurance premiums shooting up, causing a near paralysis in maritime traffic. About 20 vessels have been attacked since the start of the war.

“Iran has effectively proven that it dictates the terms of passage through the strait. They have now shown they are the gatekeeper of this important chokepoint. This will elevate the status of Iran in the geography of the Gulf,” said Andreas Krieg, an associate professor in Security Studies at King’s College London and a fellow at King’s Institute of Middle Eastern Studies. This will be the new reality for the foreseeable future, he added.

Meanwhile, crude prices have risen above $100 a barrel, more than 20 percent higher than pre-war prices, forcing countries to make the biggest releases of emergency reserves in history. Gas prices have risen by more than 40 percent since the war began.

Trump initially floated the idea of ordering the US Navy to escort vessels through the waterway. He then appealed to some countries to send warships and warned NATO members they would face “a very bad” future if these allies failed to help in opening the strait. But the appeal was either turned down or received noncommittal responses. Japan said it had no plans to deploy naval vessels. Australia ruled out sending ships. The United Kingdom said it would not be drawn into the wider war. Germany sent a clear message: “This is not our war”.

Others decided to take action – but not of the kind that Trump asked for. On Saturday, two India-flagged gas tankers passed through the strait after days of negotiations between New Delhi and Tehran, including a phone call between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Ships from Pakistan, Turkiye and China also have transited through the Strait of Hormuz. The Financial Times has reported that Italy and France have also reached out to Iran for deals although Italian authorities have rejected making such an overture.

Meanwhile, Windward, a maritime intelligence tracking group, said that while traffic in the strait on Tuesday remained 97 percent below average, a growing number of ships have been passing through Iran’s territorial waters, suggesting that Tehran is allowing “permission-based transit”.

‘It is up to us to decide’

There is a precedent for US naval forces to escort convoys through the strait dating back to the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. But today’s scenario is different, experts said. Back then, the US, while it was backing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, was not a direct party to the conflict. Iran was still in a post-revolutionary process of consolidating power, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was nowhere near as organised as it is today.

Today, Iran has drones that its factories are capable of producing on a large scale and has been using them. Iranian forces could also use small boats to assault tankers, deploy mines and engage in other guerrilla-style tactics. While there are conflicting reports on whether Iran has placed mines in the strait, experts said it would be a counterproductive move for Tehran because it would disrupt the passage for any ships – Iranian vessels included – and it would take away from Tehran the power to choose who may pass.

Iranian officials are aware of their geographic advantage. “This is up to our military to decide,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, referring to who will be allowed to use the strait.

Pro-government figures increasingly frame the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic bargaining tool beyond the war itself, suggesting the waterway could be used to extract compensation, sanctions relief or broader economic concessions after the war, Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iran and visiting fellow with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, commented on X.

Recent attacks seem to suggest that Iran wants to increase its pressure on the energy market.

On Tuesday, a drone attack caused a fire at the port of Fujairah, the United Arab Emirates’s only crude export terminal. It is located outside the eastern entrance of the Strait of Hormuz, allowing its exports to circumvent it. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen could also further squeeze oil prices by disrupting the Bab al-Mandeb strait. That would force the US to operate across multiple maritime theatres. So far, the Houthis have not carried out such attacks, but this month, they said they were ready to strike at any ‌moment.

Still, the US is focused on applying maximum pressure on Tehran and forcing it to open the Strait of Hormuz. The US Central Command, the US military’s combat command responsible for operations in the Middle East, said early on Wednesday that its forces had used 2,270kg (5,000lb) bunker-busting munitions against antiship missile sites along Iran’s coastline near the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has also ordered amphibious ships carrying thousands of US Marines to move to the Middle East, and some experts believe the US might try to seize Kharg Island, a tiny piece of land in the northern Gulf where 90 percent of Iranian crude oil is exported from. The US has already bombed what it said were military sites on the island.

Such an operation, however, might do little to force Iran into opening the Strait of Hormuz, Krieg said. The island is 500km 310 miles) from the strait, and should the US take control of it, it would expose US Marines to Iranian fire. Should Iran see its key terminal being seized, it could also opt to mine the strait outright, having fewer reasons to allow some vessels to pass through.

“The issue with the Strait of Hormuz is really not a military one. … It’s a market issue, and confidence cannot be restored by the military. Confidence can be restored through diplomacy only,” Krieg said.

BEIRUT —  Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, has been killed in an Israeli airstrike, a move that represents a palpable hit to an Iranian leadership that has shown little interest in compromise after almost three weeks of war with the U.S. and Israel.

Killing Larijani, who led Iran as de facto wartime leader after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on the first day of the war, eliminates a veteran official seen as the consummate insider despite not having the religious credentials for the Islamic Republic’s highest offices. Israel, in an announcement Tuesday, said the attack occurred the night before.

For all his bellicose comments since the war began, Larijani was also seen as a pragmatist, and observers say his death might strengthen the resolve of what’s left of Iran’s leadership, rather than induce a willingness to compromise.

His post as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council gave Larijani control of the country’s top security body, where he tasked government forces with subduing anti-regime protests in January. Thousands of Iranians were killed.

Also killed in the Israeli strikes was Gen. Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, the volunteer auxiliary wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an integral part of the state’s ability to keep order.

“Larijani and the Basij commander were eliminated overnight and joined the head of the annihilation program, Khamenei, and all the eliminated members of the axis of evil, in the depths of hell,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Tuesday.

Israeli officials have employed “axis of evil” to refer to Iran and its allies, including the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

Larijani had served as parliamentary speaker for 12 years and became the point man on nuclear negotiations as well as relations with allies such as China and Russia. He often acted as the government’s representative in the media.

Iranian officials confirmed that Larijani and Soleimani had been killed. They said Larijani’s son, the head of his office and several guards were also killed in the strikes.

Soon after Katz’s announcement, Iranian authorities released an undated note said to have been written by Larijani in which he honored Iranian sailors killed in a U.S. attack. The image of the note was also posted to Larijani’s account on X.

There was no explanation why the note was released and whether it is signified Larijani was still alive.

“We are undermining this regime in the hope of giving the Iranian people an opportunity to remove it,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and President Trump have repeatedly called on ordinary Iranians to topple the government.

Though assassinating Larijani counts as yet another intelligence coup for Israel and the U.S., both may come to regret the loss of a figure who, despite his defiant rhetoric since the war began Feb. 28, was considered by some analysts as a realist.

His killing adds to the evisceration of Iran’s upper echelons, raising the question of who is left to negotiate an end to the war, or have enough influence to make Iran’s deep state accept compromise.

Some observers say that’s the point.

“Why did the Israelis take out Larijani in this moment? Because Netanyahu is focused on blocking Trump’s pathways for a ceasefire and follow-up negotiations with Iran,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations, adding that “Larijani would have been the man to get that job done.”

Khamenei’s assassination, Geranmayeh said, had already empowered more hard-line figures in government, and Larijani’s death “could act as an accelerator to that path.”

“Israel seems to be turning its attention to targeting those that could push for a political solution to the current crisis,” she said.

Larijani’s death would add to the murkiness surrounding Iran’s leadership. After Khamenei was killed and it remained unclear who would replace him, Trump added to the uncertainty by saying that the country’s new leader would need his approval, but also that the U.S. had killed many of the leaders whom he would have deemed acceptable.

After Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was named the new supreme leader, Trump expressed his displeasure but repeatedly dodged questions about what the transition under the younger Khamenei would mean for the U.S. war effort.

After the elder Khamenei’s death, Larijani emerged as a high-profile voice for Iran, saying that Trump must “pay the price” for the U.S. strikes on the country.

In response, Trump acted as if he didn’t know who Larijani was.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about, who he is. I couldn’t care less,” Trump told CBS News.

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said Larijani was perceived to be “the last of the competent bunch” within the Iranian leadership — an intellectual who had a complex understanding of the geopolitical reality on the ground, who had negotiated with the U.S. in the past, and who was “adept at maneuvering” all the various parts of the Iranian power structure.

Radd said Larijani “lost that mantle of being the pragmatist” when he strongly backed the deadly January crackdown on protesters, for which he was “more responsible than anyone else.”

He “absolutely was responsible for a tremendous amount of carnage and death and destruction,” Radd said.

And yet, with his death, “all of that diplomatic, institutional experience” that he did have “is gone” from the Iranian leadership, Radd said.

Those left in power, he said, are “generally not the sharpest people, they’re not the people who understand the subtleties of diplomacy, of what negotiating with the U.S. is like.”

Bulos reported from Beirut and Rector from Colorado.