Thick, black smoke rose from Kuwait International Airport Saturday after suspected Iranian drone strikes damaged radar systems and fuel storage facilities, state media said. No fatalities were reported. The airport has been repeatedly targeted since the US-Israeli war on Iran erupted.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
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Yemen’s Houthis have attacked Israel for the first time, a month after US and Israeli forces began striking Iran, opening up a new front in a rapidly escalating conflict that has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and rattled the global economy.
The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, entered the fray on Saturday with two missile and drone attacks on Israel in the space of fewer than 24 hours. The Israeli army said the attacks were intercepted, but the Iran-aligned group pledged to continue fighting in support of “resistance fronts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran”.
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The Houthis had sat out of the hostilities until now, in contrast with their stance during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, when their attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea upended commercial traffic worth about $1 trillion a year.
Their widely anticipated involvement in the latest conflict comes just as Iran has throttled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s oil, raising fears that the Yemeni group will again disrupt Red Sea traffic by blocking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
Reporting from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry described Bab al-Mandeb as the group’s “ace”.
“They want to make Israel pay economically. They want to disrupt their trade routes. They want to disrupt the imports and exports in and out of Israel,” he said.
The Houthi attacks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington expected to conclude its military operations against Iran within weeks, even as a new deployment of US Marines has begun to arrive in the region, so US President Donald Trump would have “maximum” flexibility to adjust the strategy as needed.
With no immediate diplomatic breakthrough in sight as both the US and Iran harden their positions, many fear that the US-Israel war on Iran, which started on February 28 and has since engulfed the region, will spiral out of control.
The US and Israel continued their bombardment over the past 24 hours, with the Israeli military claiming it had struck an Iranian research facility for naval weapons, while a series of loud explosions rattled Tehran as night fell on Saturday.
Iranian media said at least five people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential unit in the northwestern city of Zanjan. In Tehran, authorities said the University of Science and Technology was the latest educational facility to be struck, prompting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to issue a threat against Israeli and US universities in the region.
Separately, Iran’s Fars news agency said a water reservoir in the city of Haftgel, located in western Khuzestan province, had also been attacked.
The Iranian Ministry of Health announced that 1,937 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, including 230 children. Iran’s Red Crescent Society said US-Israeli strikes had damaged more than 93,000 civilian properties.
“Civilians are bearing the brunt of this war,” Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said.
Meanwhile, Israel’s devastation of Lebanon continued apace, as the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that 1,189 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2.
The death toll has been mounting as Israeli troops have pushed further into the south, advancing towards the Litani River in their stated bid to wipe out Hezbollah and carve out a buffer zone along the lines of the “Gaza model”.
Among Saturday’s killings, an Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon. In parallel, the Health Ministry announced that Israel had also killed nine paramedics, bringing the death toll among healthcare workers in the latest war to 51.
Lebanon’s Public Health Emergency Operations Centre said an Israeli attack on the town of al-Haniyah, in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, killed at least seven people, including one child.
An Israeli air raid on the southern Lebanese town of Deir al-Zahrani killed a Lebanese soldier, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Hezbollah, which attacked Israel amid a ceasefire that Israel kept violating in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, claimed dozens of operations against Israeli forces in the past 24 hours.
Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Tehran does not fully open the Strait of Hormuz. But he has extended the deadline he had imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond.
With the US midterm elections coming up in November, the increasingly unpopular war is weighing heavily on the president’s Republican Party.
Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Friday that he believed Tehran would hold talks with Washington in the coming days. “We have a 15-point plan on the table. We expect the Iranians to respond. It could solve it all,” Witkoff said.
Pakistan, which has been a go-between between US and Iranian officials, will host foreign ministers from regional powers Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt in Islamabad for talks on the crisis.
Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, late on Saturday, urging “an end to all attacks and hostilities” in the region.
In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Dar had told Araghchi that Pakistan remains committed to supporting efforts aimed at restoring regional peace and stability.
Dar also announced that Iran had agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a meaningful step towards easing one of the worst energy crises in modern history.
Tensions continue to rise with Iran warning a ‘heavy price’ will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
President Donald Trump said he is “very disappointed” with NATO’s response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran, accusing the alliance of failing to support Washington despite years of US military spending on its allies.
Meanwhile, Iran warned a “heavy price” will be paid after Israeli attacks on nuclear and industrial sites, with Tehran accusing the US and Israel of “playing with fire” by targeting energy infrastructure. Iran also said there was no radioactive leak following attacks on two nuclear facilities.
The warnings come as fighting and tensions continue to escalate across the Middle East, with growing fears of a wider conflict.
Here is what we know:
“Cuba’s next.” Donald Trump publicly threatened Cuba with military attack while speaking at a Saudi investment conference.
Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026
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“We affirm that our fingers are on the trigger.” The Houthis have warned that they are ready for direct military intervention in the US-Israeli war on Iran, laying out the conditions that could prompt their involvement.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Iranian football players laid backpacks on a football pitch in Turkey to pay tribute to the children killed in a US-Israeli strike on Minab elementary school last month. The tribute came ahead of a friendly match against Nigeria.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Israel’s Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir issued a stark warning to the country’s cabinet this week: unless urgent measures are taken, the Israeli army is on the brink of collapse.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 13 on Thursday, Zamir told ministers that he was “raising 10 red flags”, urging the government to move quickly on long-delayed legislation to alleviate the strain on its “exhausted” military.
The army has been overseeing what rights groups and the United Nations have determined is a genocide in Gaza, the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank and numerous incursions into Lebanon and Syria.
Addressing ministers, Zamir stressed the need for a “conscription law, a reserve duty law, and a law to extend mandatory service”, adding that without these measures, “before long, the [Israeli military] will not be ready for its routine missions and the reserve system will not last”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since said that plans will be made to extend mandatory military service. However, this is not the first time the alarm has been raised that the military is straining under the pressure of repeated operations, which have seen it involved in the killings of tens of thousands of civilians across the Middle East.
The first came as early as June 2024, just eight months into the genocidal war on Gaza, when France24 reported on shortfalls in troop numbers, exhaustion and a lack of supplies.
That situation has only worsened since.
So, how large was the army before October 2023, how active has it been and how has the current era of unprecedented regional aggression sapped the military’s reserves? Here is what we know.
Not very.
Launched in 1948, the idea of an Israeli military made up of a relatively small standing army backed by a large reserve corps of mobilised citizenry was the plan from the outset in order to instil a narrative of social cohesion, national identity and shared responsibility within the new country’s populace. Reservists would move between civilian life and military service to achieve this.
Before the war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Israel’s standing army numbered just 100,000. This was immediately bolstered by calling up 300,000 reservists, pulling Israel’s “citizen soldiers” from their jobs and families to take part in the bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel.
Ultimately, this means that the majority of troops serving are reservists rather than career soldiers.
On March 1, the day after US-Israeli strikes on Iran began, Israel announced the mobilisation of another 100,000 reserve soldiers.
That was in addition to 50,000 reservists currently on duty as a result of the Gaza war.
At the time, military sources said the additional troops would bolster existing positions along the border with Lebanon, its frontier and occupied positions within Syria, as well as in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
Additionally, Israel’s Home Front Command called up 20,000 reservists, primarily for search and rescue operations, with reinforcements also deployed to the Israeli Air Force, Navy and Intelligence Directorate.
Israel has since deployed “thousands” of those troops to take part in its invasion of southern Lebanon, which it resumed in response to rocket fire from Iranian ally Hezbollah on March 3.
Addressing the same security cabinet meeting as Zamir, Central Command chief Major General Avi Bluth told ministers that government policies in the occupied West Bank were also placing increasing pressure on the military’s already stretched manpower.
According to the report, Bluth told ministers that over the past year, the government has approved the construction of multiple illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley and elsewhere in the West Bank as part of a wider operation characterised by rights groups and more than 20 countries as Israel’s “effective annexation” of the occupied Palestinian territory.
Bluth added: “This is your policy, but it requires security and a full protection package, because the reality on the ground has completely changed – and that requires manpower.”
According to many of the army’s own members, particularly reservists, they are.
Speaking to the Ynet News outlet, which is typically supportive of Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party, one reservist told the newspaper in December of his decision not to report for duty.
“We have battles to fight at home,” he said, explaining his decision. “There are guys on the team who were fired from their jobs, others whose families are barely staying afloat, or who have been dragging out their studies for a very long time. This is a problem, a complexity that is hard to describe.”
Resentment of the apparent exemption offered to members of Israel’s ultra-religious Haredim community, whose refusal to enlist for service is often overlooked by politicians, is also growing, Israeli media reports.
Responding to Zamir’s comments to the security cabinet, Israel’s opposition leader, Yair Lapid, took to Twitter to address the government directly.
“The government must stop the cowardice, immediately halt all budgets to the Haredi draft dodgers,” he said of the extensive social benefits many in Israel’s ultra religious community rely upon. “Send the military police after the deserters, draft the Haredim without hesitation,” he said.
“The warning has been given. It’s on your heads. It’s in your hands. You cannot continue to abandon Israel’s security, in wartime, for petty politics.”
Rescue teams from the Iranian Red Crescent Society have been searching the rubble of residential buildings hit in US-Israeli attacks in Iran, where officials say around 2,000 people have been killed.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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“A bit” is what United States President Donald Trump thinks about the scale of Russia’s military aid to Iran.
Moscow “might be helping them a bit”, he told Fox News on March 13.
A day later, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated laconically that Moscow’s military cooperation with Tehran was “good”.
His words seemed to confirm earlier media reports that Russia is providing Iran with satellite and intelligence data on the locations of US warships and aircraft.
It may not sound like much, given the superiority of Western military satellites and Russia’s battlefield losses and communication problems after Elon Musk’s SpaceX company switched off smuggled Starlink satellite Internet terminals.
But data on US military assets Iran is receiving most likely comes from Liana, Moscow’s only fully functional system of spy satellites, according to an expert on Russia’s space programme and military.
“The [Liana] system has been created to spy on US carrier strike groups and other navy forces and for identifying them as targets,” Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.
Russia also played a key role in the development of Iran’s space programme and its key satellite, the Khayyam.
Launched in 2022 from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome, the 650kg (1,430 pound) satellite orbits the Earth at 500 kilometres (310 miles) and has a resolution of one metre (3.3 feet).
Moscow “can, in theory, receive and process data from Iran’s optical imaging satellite and share data from its own several satellites”, Luzin said.
On Wednesday, Tehran claimed to have struck the Abraham Lincoln carrier with multiple cruise and ballistic missiles, but the Pentagon called the claim “pure fiction”.
On Sunday, Iranian media claimed that a “massive blaze” was caused by a strike on a US destroyer refuelling in the Indian Ocean.
Washington did not comment on that strike.
Russia has, for decades, supplied weaponry to Iran, including advanced air defence systems, trainer and fighter jets, helicopters, armoured vehicles and sniper rifles, worth billions of dollars.
Since Washington and Tel Aviv began their strikes on February 28, Russia has continued aiding Iran with “intelligence, data, experts and components” for weaponry, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.
While Moscow and Tehran loudly proclaim their strategic partnership, they do not have a mutual defence clause, and Moscow has not intervened in the conflict directly.
But the arms supplies have been mutual. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Tehran has provided Moscow with ammunition and artillery shells, firearms and short-range ballistic missiles, helmets and flak jackets.
And then there are the Shahed kamikaze drones – slow, noisy, yet cheap to manufacture – which have been launched on Ukrainian cities in swarms of dozens and then hundreds. Ukraine became so adept at bringing these down – now mass-producing cheap interceptor systems specifically to target Shaheds – that it is now providing its own know-how to Gulf states where US military assets have come under fire from Iran in recent weeks.
In the course of its war with Ukraine, Moscow has manufactured and modernised Shaheds, making them faster and deadlier, and equipping them with cameras, navigators and, occasionally, artificial intelligence modules.
And now, some of the upgrades have made their way back to Iran.
A Shahed drone with a pivotal Russian component launched by Iran-backed Hezbollah from southern Lebanon was able to hit a British airbase on Cyprus on March 1, the UK’s Times newspaper reported on March 7.
It reportedly contained Kometa-B (Comet B), a Russian-made satellite navigation module that also acts as an anti-jamming shield, making drones more resistant to interference.
Russia has also perfected the tactic of sending waves of real and decoy drones to exhaust and overwhelm Western-supplied air defence systems in Ukraine.
These days, the scheme helps Iran hit targets in the Gulf, Western officials say.
“I think no one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well,” British Defence Secretary John Healey said on March 12 after Iranian drones struck a base used by Western forces in Erbil, northern Iraq.
However, if Iran is suffering a shortage of drones – as some analysts believe it is – that would render the use of Russian tactics, as well as Russia-supplied satellite data useless, experts say.
“Russia does supply data, it’s obvious, the data helps Iran, but not much,” Nikita Smagin, a Russian expert who has written extensively on ties between Moscow and Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
After four days of intensive strikes using up to 250 drones a day in early March, Iran has been launching only up to 50 drones a day, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen University.
“Iran ran out of steam really fast,” he told Al Jazeera.
Moreover, Moscow is not necessarily particularly interested in an Iranian military victory, as the war is benefitting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own conflict in Ukraine.
Skyrocketing oil prices make “Putin financially capable of further hostilities,” Lieutenant General Romanenko said.
As Iran strangles shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the price of Brent crude – the international benchmark – has soared past $100 a barrel in the past three weeks. US President Donald Trump was forced to temporarily suspend sanctions on shipped Russian oil to ease the economic backlash. The result has been tankers laden with Russian oil bound for China making U-turns in the open ocean to divert to India, as countries scramble to grab Russian oil cargoes out at sea. The price of Urals crude has bounced.
Putin “hasn’t achieved his goals in Ukraine and will therefore use anything, including the war [in Iran] and lies to achieve his vision, press with his ultimatums,” Romanenko said.
The Kremlin “doesn’t pursue a breakthrough in this war, doesn’t help Iran break the United States and Israel,” Ruslan Suleymanov, an associate fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Center, a US-British think tank, told Al Jazeera.
The current intelligence and military aid is “more of a goodwill gesture, an attempt to create an illusion of help, to show Tehran that despite the lack of formal commitments, Russia doesn’t leave its friend in need”, he said.
And Tehran fully understands how insufficient Moscow’s aid is – and therefore relies on its own stratagem of expanding hostilities to the entire region through strikes on neighbouring states and of crippling the global economy with soaring oil prices.
“Iranians understand that the forces are not equal and it’s impossible to defeat the United States and Israel on the battlefield, and no Russian aid is going to help,” he said.
It seems that Trump’s assessment that Moscow “might be helping them a bit” may not be too far wide of the mark.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gifted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a gun after the two countries signed a friendship treaty during the Belarusian’s first official state visit.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
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The US and Israel’s war on Iran is intensifying, as Trump again claims Iranian leaders want to ‘make a deal’.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
The United States and Israel’s war on Iran continues, with an Al Jazeera correspondent in Tehran reporting strikes are “increasing in number and in intensity” amid conflicting claims about whether negotiations are taking place.
US President Donald Trump says talks are happening, but Iran rejects the talks, saying it will continue to “resist” US aggression.
On Thursday, Iran carried out retaliatory strikes against Israel and several Gulf countries, as the Middle East conflict sees no signs of ending, and global energy and food prices continue to rise.
March 26 (UPI) — Britain’s armed forces and law enforcement have been authorized to board sanctioned vessels of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Wednesday, as London targets a key revenue source funding the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
In an effort to hinder Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage war, Britain, along with other European nations, has focused on his fleet of semi-clandestine tankers used to evade sanctions to ship and sell oil.
London has sanctioned at least 544 of these ships and the EU has blacklisted nearly 600.
Russia’s shadow fleet is estimated to consist of anywhere from several hundred to more than 1,000 vessels, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In September, this fleet transported a seasonal high of 3.7 million barrels of oil a day, real-time intelligence, analytics and data-tracking firm Kpler said.
Britain’s armed forces will be able to interdict vessels London has sanctioned and found transiting its waters, Starmer said a day before he is to arrive at the Joint Expeditionary Force Summit in Helsinki, Finland, where leaders will discuss regional security amid the U.S.-Israel war with Iran and how they can combat Russia’s escalating aggression.
“Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets,” Starmer said in a statement.
“That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder, not just keeping Britain safe but starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in Ukraine.”
According to 10 Downing Street, a suspect vessel will first be reviewed by law enforcement, military and energy specialists, who will then make a recommendation to ministers before an operation is carried out.
After the ship is detained, criminal proceedings may be brought against the vessel’s owners, operators and crew on allegations of breaching British sanctions, it said.
Starmer said that Putin and those in his inner circle “should be in no doubt: We will always defend our sovereignty and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
The announcement comes months after Britain aided the United States in seizing Bella 1 on Jan. 7. Following the operation, British ministers ordered the development of plans for London to carry out future, similar operations targeting Russia’s shadow fleet, resulting in Wednesday’s announcement, according to 10 Downing Street.
A week into the United States-Israeli war on Iran, and Iran’s attacks on its Gulf neighbours, Jaya Khuntia spoke – as he often did – to his Doha-based son Kuna on the phone.
It was March 6, about 10pm, and Khuntia and the family were worried. “He told me, ‘I am safe here, don’t worry,’” the father recalled from the conversation with Kuna.
It was the last time they spoke.
The next day, the family in Naikanipalli village of India’s eastern Odisha state received a phone call from Kuna’s roommate telling them that the son had suffered a heart attack after hearing the sound of missiles and debris from interceptions falling near their residence. He collapsed and was later declared dead. Kuna’s body reached home days later.
Al Jazeera cannot independently confirm the cause of Kuna’s death, but the family of the 25-year-old, who worked as a pipe fitter in Qatar’s capital, is among millions across South Asia directly affected by the war in the Middle East.
Of the eight people killed in the United Arab Emirates in Iranian attacks, two were Emirati military personnel, a third a Palestinian civilian, and the remaining five were from South Asia: Three from Pakistan, and one each from Bangladesh and Nepal. All three people killed in Oman were from India. An Indian national and a Bangladeshi national are the only deaths in Saudi Arabia.
Migrant workers from South Asia total nearly 21 million people in the Gulf nations, a third of the total population of the region. At stake, for their families back home, is the safety of their loved ones and the future of their dreams.
The Khuntia family had taken on a 300,000-rupee ($3200) debt in 2025 for the marriages of their two daughters. Kuna’s income in Doha – where he had moved only in late 2025 – of 35,000 rupees ($372) was helping them collect what they needed to pay back the loan. Kuna had been sending back about 15,000 rupees ($164) every month.
“We thought our suffering was finally ending,” Jaya said, his voice trembling. “My only son would say, ‘Baba, don’t worry, I am here.’ He was our only hope… our everything.”
That hope is now extinguished. “That one call finished us,” Jaya cried. “He promised to return after clearing our debts … but he came back in a coffin. We have nothing left now. Losing our only son is the biggest debt we have to live with.”
![Kuna Khuntia, a 25-year-old pipe fitter from India's Odisha, who died of a heart attack in Doha Qatar [Photo courtesy the Khuntia family]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Kuna-Khuntia-1774503793.jpeg?w=640&ssl=1)
In all, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – the six Arab countries in the Gulf – host 35 million foreign nationals, who form a majority of their total population, 62 million.
They include 9 million people from India, 5 million each from Pakistan and Bangladesh, 1.2 million from Nepal, and 650,000 from Sri Lanka. Most of them are engaged in blue-collar work, building or supporting the industries and services that are at the heart of the Gulf’s success and prosperity.
But since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran, these migrant workers have often been among the most vulnerable. That vulnerability extends beyond deaths and injuries to the very nature of their work: Oil refineries, construction areas, airports and docks, where many work, have been targeted in Iranian attacks.
The suspension of work at many of these facilities, coupled with fears of a major economic downturn in the region, has also left many workers and their families worried about the future of their jobs.
Hamza*, a Pakistani migrant labourer working at an oil storage facility in the UAE, recalled a recent attack that he witnessed. “A drone struck a storage unit right in front of us. We were completely shaken. Most of us there are from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“We couldn’t sleep for nights after that. The drone was so close that it could have killed us, too,” Hamza added. “For a moment, I thought we would be next.”
Despite these dangers, he said, leaving is not an option.
“We want to go back, but we can’t,” Hamza said. “Our families depend on us. It’s dangerous here, but if we stop working, they will have nothing to eat. We have no choice.”
Experts say Hamza’s sentiment is common across South Asian blue-collar workers in the Gulf, because of poverty and limited employment opportunities back home.
Imran Khan, a faculty member at the New Delhi Institute of Management working on migration economics, said migrant labourers from South Asia are often driven by desperation to take up jobs in the Middle East. He said Western countries have, in recent years, dramatically raised entry barriers for less-educated blue-collar foreign workers.
“These workers are the worst affected during crises – whether war or natural disasters,” he says. “I have been speaking to several migrant labourers, particularly Indians in the Middle East, and many are living in distress since the conflict began.”
But, like Hamza, most cannot afford to leave, Khan said.
“They cannot simply quit. Their income would stop immediately, and there are very limited opportunities back home,” he explained. “They have families to support, and without these jobs, survival becomes difficult.”
Middle Eastern countries remain a key source of remittances for South Asian nations such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The remittances these five countries receive from the region, $103bn, are comparable to Oman’s total gross domestic product (GDP).
Just the remittances that India receives from the Gulf, $50bn, are more than Bahrain’s entire GDP. Pakistan receives $38.3bn in remittances, Bangladesh $13.5bn, Sri Lanka $8bn, and Nepal $5bn.
With the recent escalation of conflict in the Middle East, experts warn these flows could be significantly affected, especially if Gulf economies contract and layoffs follow.
Faisal Abbas, an expert in international economics and director at the Centre of Excellence on Population and Wellbeing Studies, a Pakistan-based research institute, said remittances from the Middle East form a crucial economic backbone for South Asian nations, not just families.
“Remittances are a critical pillar for Pakistan and other South Asian economies, and a large share comes from Middle Eastern countries,” he explained. “If the situation worsens, it will not be a positive development for the region.”
Pakistan’s remittances from the Gulf constitute nearly 10 percent of its GDP, about $400bn.
Abbas added that the effect may extend beyond remittance flows. “Migration patterns could also be disrupted. Many workers may return home, while those planning to migrate might reconsider,” he said. “This could further increase unemployment in a region already facing job shortages.”
Unlike Hamza, a number of South Asian workers are planning to return home.
Noor*, a migrant worker from Bangladesh employed at an oil facility in Saudi Arabia, said he no longer feels safe and plans to return home once his contract ends.
“I will never come back here again,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t even sleep at night. The fear never leaves us.”
Noor said drone attacks had occurred close to his workplace. “We saw it happen in front of us,” he said. “That fear stays with you… It doesn’t go away.”
His family, too, is deeply affected. “My children cry every time they call me. They are scared for my life,” he added.
He said he knows that returning to Bangladesh would mean more economic hardship for his family. But Noor said he had made up his mind.
“I would rather go back and struggle to survive with my family than live here in constant fear,” he said. “At least there, I will be with them.”
*Some names have been changed at the request of workers who fear retribution from contractors for speaking to the media.
‘Despite all of the talk of diplomacy, there is going to be some kind of a military escalation.’
Ross Harrison, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, says public talk of diplomacy between the US and Iran is hiding hardline positions, warning that despite the messaging, the situation is still likely heading toward military escalation.
Published On 26 Mar 202626 Mar 2026
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WASHINGTON — Most Americans believe recent U.S. military action against Iran has gone too far, and many are worried about affording gasoline, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
As the war launched by the U.S. and Israel continues in its fourth week, the survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates that while President Trump’s approval rating is holding steady, the conflict could be swiftly turning into a major political liability for his Republican administration.
While Trump is deploying more warships and troops to the Middle East, about 59% of Americans say U.S. military action in Iran has been excessive.
Meanwhile, 45% are “extremely” or “very” concerned about being able to afford gas in the next few months, up from 30% in an AP-NORC poll conducted shortly after Trump won reelection with promises that he would improve the economy and lower the cost of living.
There is significant support for at least one of the president’s objectives, which is preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. About two-thirds of Americans say that should be an “extremely” or “very” important foreign policy goal for the U.S. However, they are just as likely to say it’s important to keep U.S. oil and gas prices from rising — a juxtaposition that could be difficult for the White House to manage.
About 4 in 10 U.S. adults continue to approve of Trump’s performance as president, which is unchanged from last month. His approval on foreign policy, while slightly lower than his overall approval, also largely held steady.
Trump has left unclear his next steps on Iran. Despite escalating threats, he’s also suggested diplomatic talks could resolve the fighting. Americans remain broadly apprehensive about Trump’s ability to make the right decisions on the use of military force outside the U.S., and they mostly oppose more aggressive steps, such as deploying ground forces.
Keeping the price at the pump down is the rare goal that unites Americans in both major political parties.
About three-quarters of Republicans and about two-thirds of Democrats say it’s highly important to prevent U.S. oil and gas prices from going up.
However, concern about the current situation isn’t evenly felt. Only about 3 in 10 Republicans said they’re “extremely” or “very” worried about affording gas in the next few months, as opposed to about 6 in 10 Democrats.
Trump’s focus on Iran’s nuclear program also appears more compelling to Republicans than to Democrats. About two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. should prioritize keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but about 8 in 10 Republicans say this is at least “very” important, compared with about half of Democrats.
The war has exacerbated political debates over the role that Israel should play in U.S. foreign policy, especially since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was a leading voice for attacking Iran. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say preventing Iran from threatening Israel should be a high priority.
Toppling Iran’s leaders is viewed as slightly less important. Only about 3 in 10 say it’s at least “very” important for the U.S. to replace Iran’s government with one that’s friendlier to U.S. interests.
As Trump provides mixed messages on whether the Iran war will end soon, about 9 in 10 Democrats and about 6 in 10 independents say the Iran attacks have “gone too far.”
Republicans are more divided. About half of Republicans say the U.S. military action has been “about right,” but relatively few want to see it go further. Only about 2 in 10 Republicans say the U.S. military action has not gone far enough, while about one-quarter say it’s gone too far.
Recent AP-NORC polling has found that about 6 in 10 Americans say Trump has “gone too far” on a range of issues, including his approach to tariffs and presidential power. That number, which is broadly reflective of his overall approval, signals that while Trump’s actions in Iran are unpopular, it’s still comparable to other controversial moves he’s taken as president.
Further entrenching the U.S. in the war could change that, depending on what happens next. About 6 in 10 Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose deploying U.S. troops on the ground to fight Iran, including about 8 in 10 Democrats and roughly half of Republicans. Just under half of Americans oppose airstrikes targeting Iranian leaders and airstrikes against military targets in Iran, while about 3 in 10 are in favor and about 3 in 10 don’t have an opinion.
About half of U.S. adults have “only a little” trust or “none at all” in Trump when it comes to making the right decisions about the use of military force outside the U.S., in line with an AP-NORC poll from February.
About 34% of U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling foreign policy, similar to 36% in February. That measure has been consistent in recent months despite a cascade of actions, including confrontations over Greenland and an attack on Venezuela, that have generated controversy at home and abroad.
It’s also very similar to Trump’s approval on Iran in the new poll, which found that 35% of Americans have a positive view of his handling of that issue.
Sanders and Catalini write for the Associated Press. The AP-NORC poll of 1,150 adults was conducted March 19-23 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
As the United States-Israeli war on Iran rages on, schools across Israel have been closed, cultural venues shuttered and large gatherings cancelled under police orders.
Dissent against the war, if there is much at all, has little chance of being aired.
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A few demonstrations against the war, such as those staged by the Israeli-Arab activist group Zazim, still flicker through central cities, but they do so under heavy supervision, with officers warning crowds to disperse when sirens sound or when assemblies grow beyond what commanders deem safe.
The effect is a public sphere constrained less by decree than by the constant threat hanging overhead.
“Kids aren’t going to school, while employers are insisting their parents go to work,” Zazim’s co-founder and executive director, Raluca Ganea, says. Everyone is too overwhelmed by the daily grind to voice any dissatisfaction, she adds.
“We’re enduring multiple missile attacks daily, which means people aren’t sleeping. It’s like a manual for tyrants. It’s how you suppress protest or opposition and it’s working so far,” she added.
“We’ve attempted a couple of protests, but people are just too tired to engage,” Ganea says of Zazim’s efforts to resist the war. “It’s not so much that people are telling you that you can’t so much as protesting becomes impossible when a missile attack could happen at any time.”
Support for the war on Iran has remained strong in Israel, a fact borne out by polls. But as exhaustion grows and resentment builds over having their fates decided by often distant leaders such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, who have shown little investment in their welfare, the societal fractures that came to define the war on Gaza are almost inevitable, she warns.
“It’s depressing,” she says. “The only response people have is to feel helpless when their fate is in the hands of people like Trump and Netanyahu, who really don’t care about them.”
Those who have put their heads above the parapet to object openly to the war are shunned anyway, as 19-year-old Itamar Greenberg knows only too well. People spit at him in the street.
“It comes in waves,” he says of the criticism he faces for his opposition to the war on Iran on the streets of his hometown, near Tel Aviv. “Sometimes they follow me, shouting ‘traitor’ or ‘terrorist’.”
Itamar is clear enough that he isn’t a terrorist, though he seems ready to accept the label of traitor if it means halting the war on Iran.
“At my university, everywhere, they say my opposition to the war on Iran is somehow crossing a red line. For instance, because of the [danger to the Israeli] hostages, some people could understand opposition to the genocide on Gaza, but opposing the war on Iran, the great evil, is somehow too much,” he says.
Across Israel, journalists and activists like Itamar describe a pervasive atmosphere of self-policing and censorship that, they say, has left people less informed about the consequences of the war than the citizens in Iran, whom many in their media encourage them to pity.
In a country largely unified against a threat that, for generations, politicians have told them is existential, criticism, dissent or opposition is, for the majority, beyond the pale.
This way of thinking is baked into Israeli society. The systems employed by the country’s military censor today to curtail media reporting predate the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Furthermore, new wartime restrictions on what can and cannot be broadcast of the Iranian missile barrages targeting Israel, where they land and what damage they have done – introduced on March 5 – mean these largely go entirely unreported, Israeli journalists say.
Reporting on the new media restrictions in mid-March, the Israeli magazine +972 documented one instance when journalists were permitted to report on debris that had hit an educational facility, but did not mention the actual strike by an Iranian missile, which had successfully hit its intended target nearby. Nor were they allowed to examine the site.
In another case reported by +972, journalists photographing damage to a residential block said they were approached by a man they believed to be linked to a security agency. He asked police to stop reporters from recording the real target of the attack, which was located behind them. The police officer replied that the journalists would not have noticed that site at all had it not been pointed out, since the visible destruction was concentrated on the civilian building.
The censorship, which had been growing more relaxed in recent years, had been tightened once more during the current war, Meron Rapoport, an editor at +972’s sister paper, Hebrew language Local Call, told Al Jazeera, “We don’t really know what is being or with what explosives,” he said, “The IDF [Israeli army] announcements always refer to strikes being on ‘uninhabited areas,’ which is peculiar, because there aren’t that many uninhabited areas in Tel Aviv. It’s a very compact city.”
Indeed, Iran has launched multiple missiles at Tel Aviv, some of which have resulted in damage and injuries – either by the missiles themselves or by debris falling following interception. Most recently, on Tuesday, missiles triggered air raid sirens in the city, where gaping holes were ripped through a multistorey apartment building.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said: “Six people were lightly injured at four different sites.”
“It’s curious,” Rapoport says. “Israeli commentators are always saying how the Iranian public has no real idea how badly they’re being hit. The irony is that they probably have a better idea of how hard Israel is being hit than most Israelis.”
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?
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.
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.
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.
By AFP, AP, EPA and Reuters
Published On 24 Mar 202624 Mar 2026
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.
Published On 24 Mar 202624 Mar 2026
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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.
Con profundo dolor informo que un avión Hércules de nuestra @FuerzaAereaCol sufrió un trágico accidente mientras despegaba de Puerto Leguízamo (Putumayo), cuando transportaba tropas de nuestra Fuerza Pública.
Unidades militares ya se encuentran en el lugar de los hechos; sin…— Pedro Arnulfo Sanchez S. Orgullosamente Colombiano (@PedroSanchezCol) March 23, 2026
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.
Pobladores de la zona aseguraron que hay, al menos, una decena de heridos, que están siendo evacuados con ayuda del Ejército, la FAC y la Policía. pic.twitter.com/PONeOtZLgg— La FM (@lafm) March 23, 2026
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.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.