An Iranian missile attack on the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, 30 kilometers west of Jerusalem, has killed at least nine people and wounded dozens more. The strikes reportedly targeted an army headquarters and a weapons manufacturing complex.
Published On 1 Mar 20261 Mar 2026
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Explosions are being heard in Iran, Israel and across several Middle Eastern states after the United States and Israel began attacking Iran on Saturday.
Tehran has responded by launching waves of missiles and drones at Israel and towards several military bases in the Middle East where US forces operate.
Iran had previously warned that if it were attacked, it would respond by targeting US military facilities across the region, which it considers legitimate targets.
Israel’s air force says it dropped more than 1,200 munitions across 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces over the past day in its joint attack with the US.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it has launched attacks on 27 bases in the Middle East where US troops are deployed as well as Israeli military facilities in Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel.
So far, Iran has launched strikes across eight countries in the region: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Most of these attacks have been intercepted.
The US has operated military bases in the Middle East for decades.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the US operates a broad network of military sites, both permanent and temporary, across at least 19 locations in the region.
Of these, eight are permanent bases in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
As of mid-2025, there are about 40,000 to 50,000 US soldiers in the Middle East stationed in both large, permanent bases and smaller forward sites.
The countries with the most US soldiers are Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. These installations serve as critical hubs for US air and naval operations, regional logistics, intelligence gathering and force projection.
Below are the confirmed casualties across the 10 countries that have been subject to attacks as of Sunday at 13:40 GMT.
Due to the rapidly evolving situation, all figures may change as more information becomes available.
As of Sunday morning, the Iranian Red Crescent Society and official state-linked media have reported preliminary casualty figures of 201 people killed and at least 747 injured as rescue operations continue.
Since then, explosions continue to be heard across Iran with Israel saying it has carried out a large aerial attack on the “heart of the capital”.
The deadliest single incident occurred in the city of Minab in southeastern Iran, where a strike on an elementary girls school reportedly killed at least 148 people and injured 95. The attack occurred on Saturday, and the death toll has been climbing since.
On Sunday afternoon, an Iranian ballistic missile strike on central Israel’s Beit Shemesh killed eight people and injured about 20. Rescue workers are still combing through the rubble.
Late on Saturday, one woman in the Tel Aviv area was confirmed killed after being struck by falling shrapnel.
At least 121 others have been reported injured, at least one seriously.
At least 40 buildings in Tel Aviv were damaged in Iranian strikes on Saturday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, citing the city government.
Iranian missiles targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain’s Juffair area.
Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior also confirmed that the country’s international airport was targeted with a drone, “resulting in material damage without loss of life”.
On Saturday night, several residential buildings in the capital, Manama, were struck by Iranian drones.
Government hospitals said four people were receiving treatment for shrapnel-related injuries.
The US and Israel also targeted the Jurf al-Sakher base, also known as Jurf al-Nasr, in southern Iraq, which houses the Popular Mobilisation Forces, made up of mostly Shia fighters, and the Iran-supported Iraqi paramilitary group Kataib Hezbollah.
Iraqi state media and sources within Kataib Hezbollah confirmed that two fighters were killed in the strikes and five were wounded.
In northern Iraq‘s semiautonomous Kurdish region, where the US is reported to still have troops, several powerful explosions were reported near the US consulate and international airport in Erbil.
Air defences intercepted the drone attacks on Saturday, according to reports.
The Jordanian armed forces reported intercepting 49 drones and ballistic missiles that entered Jordanian airspace. While their fragments caused localised property damage, there have been no deaths or injuries within the kingdom.
Kuwait’s Ministry of Defence says Ali al-Salem Air Base came under attack by a number of ballistic missiles, all of which were intercepted by Kuwaiti air defence systems.
A drone targeted Kuwait International Airport on Saturday, resulting in minor injuries to a number of employees and limited damage to the passenger building.
On Sunday, Kuwait’s Ministry of Health said one person had been killed and 32 wounded.
On Sunday morning, the Oman News Agency, quoting a security source, said two drones had targeted the Duqm port, injuring one foreign worker.
Later, Oman’s Maritime Security Centre said a Palau-flagged oil tanker was attacked about 5 nautical miles (9km) off Oman’s Musandam governorate, injuring four people.
As of Sunday morning, the Qatari Ministry of Interior confirmed that the number of injured was at 16 people. Most injuries were reported to be from falling shrapnel and debris with one person seriously hurt.
The Qatari Ministry of Defence confirmed that two ballistic missiles struck the Al Udeid military base, where US forces are stationed, while a drone targeted an early warning radar installation.
Qatari air defence systems, in coordination with regional partners, successfully intercepted about 65 missiles and 12 drones over Qatari airspace, it said.
The Qatar Civil Aviation Authority suspended all air navigation indefinitely. Qatar Airways grounded all flights and advised passengers that updates will be provided on Monday by 9am (06:00 GMT).
All schools have moved to remote learning, and public gatherings for Ramadan have been suspended until further notice to ensure public safety.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Iranian attacks targeted both the capital, Riyadh, and Eastern Province, home to major oil infrastructure and the King Abdulaziz Air Base.
The kingdom has officially reported no casualties as of Sunday afternoon.
As of Sunday afternoon, at least three people in the UAE were confirmed killed and 58 others wounded.
A Pakistani national was killed and seven people were injured when debris from intercepted missiles and drones fell on a residential area near Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that another individual, identified as an Asian national, was killed by falling shrapnel in a residential district of the capital.
Additionally, four airport staff at Dubai International Airport sustained injuries, and four people were injured at Palm Jumeirah after a fire in a building caused by falling debris.
As of Sunday afternoon, The UAE’s Defence Ministry says it detected 165 ballistic missiles, destroying 152, and intercepted two cruise missiles.
The assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in joint US-Israeli air attacks has caused one of the most significant blows to the country’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution, triggering protests by his supporters.
Khamenei assumed Iran’s supreme leadership in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had led the Islamic revolution against the pro-United States Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said seeking revenge for the killing of Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials is the country’s “duty and legitimate right”.
President Donald Trump has framed the operation as a “liberation” moment, predicting that the removal of the “head” will lead to the swift collapse of the body. However, in Iran, the reality suggests a far more complex situation.
Interviews with insiders, military experts and political sociologists suggest that the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership may not go the way the West envisions. Instead, it risks birthing a “garrison state” – a paranoid, militarised system fighting for its existence with no political red lines left to cross.
The central premise of the US operation is that Iran is too brittle to survive the death of its supreme leader. In a phone interview with CBS News, Trump claimed he “knows exactly” who is calling the shots in Tehran, adding that “there are some good candidates” to replace the supreme leader. He did not elaborate on his claims.
However, military analysts warn against the assumption that air strikes alone can trigger “regime change”. Michael Mulroy, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence, told Al Jazeera Arabic that without “boots on the ground” or a fully armed organic uprising, the state’s deep security apparatus can survive simply by maintaining cohesion.
“You cannot facilitate regime change through air strikes alone,” Mulroy said. “If anyone is left alive to speak, the regime is still there.”
This resilience is rooted in Iran’s dual military structure. The government is protected not just by a regular army (Artesh), but also by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – a powerful parallel military force constitutionally tasked with protecting the velayat-e faqih system – the principle of the guardianship of the Islamic jurist.
Supporting them is the Basij, a vast paramilitary volunteer militia embedded in every neighbourhood, specifically trained to crush internal dissent and mobilise ideological loyalists.
That cohesion is already being tested.
Hossein Royvaran, a political analyst based in Tehran, confirmed that the strikes wiped out the country’s top security tier, including Khamenei’s adviser and secretary of the newly-formed Supreme Defence Council, Ali Shamkhani.
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, said the leadership transition will begin on Sunday.
“An interim leadership council will soon be formed. The president, the head of the judiciary and a jurist from the Guardian Council will assume responsibility until the election of the next leader,” said Larijani.
“This council will be established as soon as possible. We are working to form it as early as today,” he said in an interview broadcast by state TV.
The rapid formation of an interim leadership council – comprising the president, judiciary chief, and a Guardian Council religious leader – indicates that the system’s “survival protocols” have been activated.
According to Royvaran, the system is designed to be “institutional, not personal”, capable of functioning on “autopilot” even when the political leadership is severed.
But a Tehran-based analyst said direction of Iran is still unclear as officials try to ‘project stability’.
“Officials here are trying to project stability, emphasising that the situation is under control and that state institutions are functioning effectively,” Abas Aslani, senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies, said.
“Today, [the US-Israeli] air strikes targeted security and military infrastructure in the capital [Tehran] and other cities. There are expectations that such strikes could continue – and possibly intensify – in the coming hours or days,” he told Al Jazeera.
“That prospect of escalation is not something many ordinary Iranians welcome. At the same time, Iranian officials are issuing strong warnings, suggesting they could respond with capabilities that have not previously been used against Israel or the United States.”
Perhaps the most significant shift in the immediate aftermath is Iran’s pivot from religious legitimacy to survivalist nationalism.
Aware that the death of the supreme leader might sever the spiritual bond with parts of the population, surviving officials are reframing the war not as a defence of the clergy, but as a defence of Iran’s territorial integrity.
Larijani, a conservative heavyweight and key figure in the transition, issued a stark warning that Israel’s ultimate goal is the “partition” of Iran. By raising the spectre of Iran being broken into ethnic statelets, the leadership aims to rally secular Iranians and the opposition against a common external enemy.
This strategy complicates the US hope for a popular uprising.
Saleh al-Mutairi, a political sociologist, notes that the government’s declaration of 40 days of mourning creates a “funeral trap” for the opposition. The streets will likely be filled with millions of mourners, creating a human shield for the government and making it logistically and morally difficult for antigovernment protests to gain momentum in the short term.
If Iran survives the initial shock, the nation that emerges will likely be fundamentally different: less calculated and probably more violent.
For years, Khamenei championed a doctrine of “strategic patience”, often absorbing blows to avoid all-out war.
Hassan Ahmadian, a professor at the University of Tehran, says the era died with the supreme leader.
“Iran learned a hard lesson from the June 2025 war: Restraint is interpreted as weakness,” Ahmadian told Al Jazeera Arabic. The new calculus in Tehran is likely to be a “scorched earth” policy.
“The decision has been made. If attacked, Iran will burn everything,” Ahmadian added, suggesting that the response will be broader and more painful than anything seen in previous escalations.”
This risks a scenario where field commanders, freed from the political caution of the clerical leadership, lash out with greater ferocity. The assassination has humiliated the security establishment, exposing what Liqaa Maki, a senior researcher at Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, calls a catastrophic intelligence failure.
“The believer is not bitten from the same hole twice, yet Iran has been bitten twice,” Maki said, referring to the pattern of US strikes. This “total exposure” is likely to drive the surviving leadership underground, turning Iran into a hyper-security state that views any internal dissent as foreign collaboration, he said.
While the “head” of Iran has been removed, the “body” – armed with one of the largest missile arsenals in the Middle East – remains, Maki said.
US President Donald Trump says Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes. Israeli officials cite “growing signs” he’s dead. Iranian state media deny the claim, saying Khamenei remains in command. At least 201 reported killed as Iran retaliates.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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The TWZ Newsletter
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. has used LUCAS kamikaze drones for the first time in combat, U.S. Central Command acknowledged on Saturday. The drones, based on the Iranian Shahed-136, were launched from the ground by Task Force Scorpion Strike (TFSS). The task force was set up in December “to flip the script on Iran,” a U.S. official told us at the time. The launch of LUCAS drones marks a rare instance when the U.S. adopted Iran’s drone playbook and used it against them.
Today’s strikes were part of Operation Epic Fury, an attack the U.S. launched along with Israel on targets across Iran. You can read more about that in our initial story here.
The War Zone has advocated for the procurement of this exact class of drone by the American military.
CENTCOM’s Task Force Scorpion Strike – for the first time in history – is using one-way attack drones in combat during Operation Epic Fury. These low-cost drones, modeled after Iran’s Shahed drones, are now delivering American-made retribution. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/VYdjiECKDT
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 28, 2026
The LUCAS drones are designed to be a far less expensive strike weapon than missiles, which not only cost more, but are far more difficult and time-consuming to produce.
“Costing approximately $35,000 per platform, LUCAS is a low-cost, scalable system that provides cutting-edge capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional long-range U.S. systems that can deliver similar effects,” Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson, told TWZ back in December. “The drone system has an extensive range and the ability to operate beyond line of sight, providing significant capability across CENTCOM’s vast operating area.”
In addition, the LUCAS design includes features that allow for “autonomous coordination, making them suitable for swarm tactics and network-centric strikes,” a U.S. official told us. As we have explained in detail in the past, the swarming capabilities combined with some of the drones being equipped with Starlink terminals, means extremely advanced cooperative tactics and dynamic targeting are possible, all while keeping humans in the loop.
The LUCAS drones have “an extensive range and are designed to operate autonomously,” CENTCOM said in a press release announcing the creation of Task Force Scorpion Strike. “They can be launched with different mechanisms to include catapults, rocket-assisted takeoff, and mobile ground and vehicle systems.”
Though the LUCAS drones fired against Iran were ground-launched, U.S. Navy personnel in the Middle East test-fired one from the Independence class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) USS Santa Barbara. This came two weeks after the U.S. military announced the formation of Task Force Scorpion Strike.
“Bravo Zulu. U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East are advancing warfighting capability in new ways, bringing more striking power from the sea and setting conditions for using innovation as a deterrent.” – Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM Commander https://t.co/TgQ4WLbph3 pic.twitter.com/WUiAVojTht
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) December 18, 2025
Overall, the LUCAS drone’s core design was based directly on the Shahed-136, a U.S. official told us.
“The U.S. military got hold of an Iranian Shahed,” according to the U.S. official in December. “We took a look and reverse-engineered it. We are working with a number of U.S. companies in the innovation space.”
“The LUCAS drone is the product of that [reverse-engineering] effort,” the official added. “It pretty much follows the Shahed design.”
As we have explained for years, the Shahed was based on an Israel concept, which also has roots in a German concept. So it is a complicated lineage for sure.
The LUCAS was designed by SpektreWorks. Its website provides basic specifications for a related target drone design called the FLM 136, which has a stated maximum range of 444 miles and can stay aloft for up to six hours. Its total payload capacity, not counting fuel, is 40 pounds, and it cruises at a speed of around 74 knots (with a dash speed of up to 105 knots). Whether these details reflect the capabilities of the operationalized LUCAS design is unclear.
In contrast, the baseline Shahed-136, which is powered by a small 50-horsepower internal combustion engine, has a top speed of around 100 knots (185 kilometers per hour) and a maximum range of approximately 1,242 miles (2,000 kilometers) while carrying an 88-pound (40-kilogram) warhead, according to the U.S. Army’s Operational Environment Data Integration Network (ODIN) training portal. It was designed to strike static targets based on targeting data programmed in before launch.
Iran has shown additional versions over the years. The Shahed-238 has new guidance systems, with radar and electro-optical/infrared guidance and jet power. Earlier Shahed versions primarily employed a combination of inertial and GPS navigation to hit fixed targets.
از موشک کروز ابرفراصوت فتاح2 و پهباد شاهد 147 با حضور رهبر انقلاب رونمایی شد
Russia also now produces a still-expanding array of variants and derivatives of this design, referred to locally as the Geran. Iran and Russia have both been notably working to integrate more dynamic targeting capabilities into their respective versions of the drone.
The use of the LUCAS comes as Iran has launched its Shahed-136 drones against targets across the Middle East and highlights the limitations of air defenses. Even IDF’s multi-tier integrated air defense system, the most advanced one on Earth, and U.S. ground- and sea-based air defense systems around the Middle East do not offer complete protection against these and other weapons.
Iran used Shahed-136s to successfully strike the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Manama, Bahrain.
You can see a video of another Shahed attack in Bahrain below.
It is unclear how many of these drones the U.S. used, what targets they hit or the effect of any strikes. A U.S. official declined comment. Regardless, this is the first war where the U.S. is actively using long-range one-way attack drones and it just so happens to be against the same country that the design, and its modern operating concept, was lifted from.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com
The United States and Israel have launched strikes on Iran despite ongoing talks between Washington and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Iran responded to Saturday’s attacks with missile and air strikes across the region, including in Israel, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.
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Israeli officials said their strikes targeted Iran’s military and nuclear-related infrastructure, while airspace across Israel was closed and emergency measures imposed. Several other countries in the region also announced the closure of their airspace.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said Washington has begun a “major combat operation” in Iran, aimed at “eliminating threats from the Iranian regime”.
“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” he said.
The strikes came just two days after high-stakes US–Iran nuclear negotiations in Geneva, mediated by Oman, ended without a breakthrough. The US-Israel attack marks the most serious escalation since the brief but intense June 2025 war.
Here is a timeline of the events, including attacks and diplomatic overtures leading up to Saturday’s strikes by the US and Israel, and Iran’s fierce response.
June 13, 2025 — Israel launches major air strikes against Iranian nuclear and military facilities, amid ongoing talks between the US and Tehran. Iran responds within hours with large-scale missile and drone attacks on Israeli cities.
June 22 – The US strikes Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, with Trump claiming the attacks degraded Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iranian officials said their programme was set back but not destroyed.
June 23 – In retaliation, Iran fires missiles towards Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, housing US soldiers. The missiles are intercepted, and no casualties are reported.
June 24 – After 12 days of fighting, a US-brokered ceasefire takes effect between Iran and Israel, ending all hostilities. Iran says at least 610 of its citizens were killed in the war, while Israel claimed 28 were killed on its side.
July 2 – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signs legislation halting cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), barring its inspectors from accessing Iran’s nuclear facilities unless specifically authorised by the country’s Supreme National Security Council.
July 22 – Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, says Tehran will not give up its uranium enrichment programme, despite a temporary halt due to “serious and severe” damages.
August 12 – Iranian police arrest as many as 21,000 people related to the 12-day war with Israel, according to state media.
August 22 – Iran agrees to resume nuclear talks later in the month with the United Kingdom, France and Germany, despite the threat of revived sanctions.
August 28 – The three European countries trigger a mechanism reinstating the United Nations’ sanctions on the Islamic republic for the first time in a decade.
November 1 – Oman urges both the US and Iran to go back to the negotiating table as Iran reiterates it will not stop enriching uranium.
November 7 – Trump says Iran has requested that Washington remove its crippling sanctions on Tehran, and that he is willing to talk about the issue.
December 28 – Protests break out in major cities, including Tehran, over soaring prices after the rial plunges against the US dollar.
January 8, 2026 – The internet is shut down across Iran following the outbreak of antigovernment protests, which have now spread beyond cities. The blackout lasts for more than two weeks.
January 13 – Trump tells Iranians to “keep protesting” , claiming that “help is on the way”, and that the US may be preparing for military intervention against Tehran. The US begins to bolster its military presence off Iran.
February 6 – Iran and the US begin indirect nuclear negotiations in Geneva, mediated by Oman, with the aim of reaching a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme.
February 17 – High-level US–Iran nuclear talks resume in Geneva, again with Omani mediation.
February 22 – Oman confirms another round of discussions in Geneva, describing a “positive push” but admits that significant differences remain.
February 26 – A third round of nuclear talks concludes in Geneva, with mediator Oman saying “significant progress” was made and more discussions would be held the following week in Vienna.
February 27 – Oman’s foreign minister says Iran has agreed to degrade its current stockpiles of nuclear material to “the lowest level possible” — effectively to unrefined levels. US President Donald Trump says he prefers diplomacy but warns that “all options” remain available if diplomacy fails.
February 28 – Israel launches coordinated strikes on Iranian targets, including sites in and around Tehran. Iran retaliates by launching air and missile strikes across the region, including Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait.
Video shows plumes of smoke rising after Iran targeted a United States military base in Bahrain, following Israel–US attacks across Iran. Two missiles were intercepted over Qatar and explosions were reportedly heard in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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Air force plane transporting cash veers off runway and into busy road; crowds scramble for scattered banknotes in the wreckage.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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At least 20 people have been killed and more than 30 injured after a Bolivian Air Force Hercules transport plane, carrying a cargo of newly printed banknotes, crashed onto a busy highway while attempting to land in bad weather near the capital, La Paz.
The military plane was attempting to land on Friday evening at El Alto International Airport when it skidded off the runway and ploughed into a nearby road, local authorities said.
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“There are about 20, maybe a few more,” Police Colonel Rene Tambo, head of the police homicide division in El Alto, said of the number of people killed.
Defence Minister Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 “landed and veered off the runway” and came to a stop in a field.
Firefighters responding to the crash successfully extinguished a fire that broke out, the minister said, noting that the cause of the crash remains under investigation.
“A heavy hailstorm” was falling and “there was lightning” when the plane went down, Cristina Choque, a 60-year-old vendor whose car was struck by plane wreckage, told the AFP news agency.
Footage shared on social media showed chaotic scenes as crowds gathered at the crash site.
Some people appeared to collect banknotes scattered among debris from the aircraft, the wrecked vehicles and the bodies of victims.
Authorities used water hoses and tear gas to push back onlookers and looters.
The Ministry of Defence, in a statement, said later that “the money transported in the crashed aircraft has no official serial number… therefore it has no legal or purchasing power”.
The ministry also warned that the “collection, possession, or use” of the money “constitutes a crime”.
Bolivian Air Force General Sergio Lora said that two of the six crew members of the aircraft were still unaccounted for.
The central bank was expected to brief reporters later on Friday regarding the stricken plane’s cargo.
Bolivia’s La Paz, situated at an altitude of 3,650 metres (11,975 feet) and surrounded by Andean mountain peaks, is the highest administrative capital in the world.
Pakistan says it has targeted Taliban forces in Afghanistan’s Kabul and border regions; UN chief says civilians also impacted.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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These are the key developments from day 1,465 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 28 Feb 202628 Feb 2026
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Here is where things stand on Saturday, February 28:
Oman’s Foreign Minister says most recent indirect talks between US, Iran ‘really advanced, substantially’ and diplomacy must be allowed do its work.
Iran agreed during indirect talks with the United States never to stockpile enriched uranium, said Oman’s top diplomat, who described the development as a major breakthrough.
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi also said on Friday that he believed all issues in a deal between Iran and the US could be resolved “amicably and comprehensively” within a few months.
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“A peace deal is within our reach … if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there,” Al Busaidi said in an interview with CBS News in Washington, DC, after Oman brokered the third round of indirect talks between the US and Iran in Geneva on Thursday.
“If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing [on] a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before,” Al Busaidi said.
“The single most important achievement, I believe, is the agreement that Iran will never ever have nuclear material that will create a bomb,” he said.
“Now we are talking about zero stockpiling, and that is very, very important because if you cannot stockpile material that is enriched, then there is no way that you can actually create a bomb,” he added.
There would also be “full and comprehensive verification by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]”, he said, referring to the UN’s nuclear watchdog.
Oman’s top diplomat also said Iran would degrade its current stockpiles of nuclear material to “the lowest level possible” so that it is “converted into fuel, and that fuel will be irreversible”.
“This is something completely new. It really makes the enrichment argument less relevant, because now we are talking about zero stockpiling,” Al Busaidi said.
Regarding recent US demands regarding Iran’s missile programme, Al Busaidi said: “I believe Iran is open to discuss everything”.
Asked if he thought enough ground was covered in the most recent talks in Geneva to hold off a US attack on Iran, the minister said, “I hope so.”
“We have really advanced substantially, and I think, obviously, there remains various details to be ironed out, and this is why we need a little bit more time to really try and accomplish the ultimate goal of having a comprehensive package of the deal,” he said.
“But the big picture is that a deal is in our hands,” he added.
The foreign minister’s comment followed after he met earlier on Friday with US Vice President JD Vance and as US President Donald Trump continued to sabre-rattle while at the same time declaring he favoured a diplomatic solution with Tehran.
Trump said on Friday that he was not happy with the recent talks that concluded in Geneva.
“We’re not exactly happy with the way they’re negotiating,” Trump told reporters in Washington, adding that Iran “should make a deal”.
“They’d be smart if they made a deal,” he said.
Trump later said that he would prefer it if the US did not have to use military force, “but sometimes you have to do it”.
The US and Iranian sides are expected to meet again on Monday in Vienna, Austria, for more indirect negotiations.
“My sister told me that she was in the car when the plane crashed. The plane’s tire fell on the car, and my sister was injured because the impact of the tire hit her on the head, so we rushed her to the hospital,” one relative told the Reuters news agency.
Cape Town, South Africa – Two ominous letters are spray-painted on a wall at the entrance to Tafelsig, a township in Mitchells Plain on the outskirts of Cape Town: HL – the insignia of the Hard Livings gang, which has threatened communities there for five decades.
It’s a February day soon after the president’s state of the nation address, in which Cyril Ramaphosa boldly announced he’d be deploying the army to communities across South Africa to tackle the growing crisis of crime, drugs and gangs. But in Tafelsig, which will likely be part of the new military operation, most people seem unbothered by the news.
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Mitchells Plain is on the Cape Flats – a series of densely populated, impoverished townships about 30km (19 miles) southeast of the wealthy city centre where the president made his speech. While the city boasts hordes of tourists and some of the most expensive real estate on the continent, the Cape Flats accounts for the highest rate of gang-related killings in the country.
“When it was at its worst, [there was a shooting] almost every day,” said Michael Jacobs, the chairperson of a local community police forum.
“Whether it’s day or whether it’s night, they’re shooting somewhere on the Cape Flats,” he added on a drive through the settlement of run-down houses and corrugated iron shacks.
Around him, residents made their way to a home-grown tuck shop, known as a spaza, or sat on street corners while toddlers ran about.
“How is this conducive to raising children?” he asked, recounting the horrors of life in Mitchells Plain.
In the past week, four people, including a nine-month-old, had been shot and killed in a drug den in Athlone, about 17km (10 miles) away.
A beloved Muslim cleric who is rumoured to have angered a gang leader over a personal dispute was also shot dead on the first day of Ramadan as he was leaving the Salaamudien Mosque on a nearby street.
As Jacobs spoke, reports of other shootings filtered through on the many crime groups he is part of on WhatsApp. A few days later, he shared with Al Jazeera a video of two schoolgirls and a taxi driver shot outside a school in Atlantis, about 40km (25 miles) north of Cape Town. One of the girls died.
Tafelsig residents now await the probable arrival of uniformed soldiers and armed vehicles in their neighbourhood, but have little hope that it will make a difference.
Despite his weariness with the violence, Jacobs is far from enthusiastic about a decision to deploy the army.
Other critics of the government’s decision said it is window dressing more than a real solution while some question the wisdom of such a drastic step in a country where the military has a history of brutality and where recent explosive allegations about police corruption at the highest levels have surfaced.
In his speech on February 12, Ramaphosa said he would deploy the army to the Western Cape, the province that includes the Cape Flats, and Gauteng, home to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, to tackle gang violence and illegal mining. On February 17, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia announced that the Eastern Cape would be added to the list and a deployment would take place in 10 days – although no soldiers have so far been deployed.
The president’s decision followed pressure from civil society groups and the Democratic Alliance (DA) party, which runs the Western Cape, to take drastic action to curb widespread gang-related violence in the three provinces.
A day before its province was added to the deployment schedule, the DA joined residents in Gqeberha, the largest city in the Eastern Cape, for a “Do Our Lives Not Matter?” protest to demand that Ramaphosa take urgent action.
In Gauteng, neighbourhoods surrounding the province’s once-lucrative abandoned mines have often been turned into battlegrounds, resulting in shootouts between police and illegal artisanal miners, known as zama zamas.
Gauteng and the Western Cape frequently appear at the top of the country’s organised crime lists while the Eastern Cape made headlines last year for a series of killings linked to extortion syndicates.
In the latest crime statistics, police announced the arrests of 15,846 suspects nationwide and the seizure of 173 firearms and 2,628 rounds of ammunition from February 16 to Sunday alone.
Gauteng took up the most space in the police’s crime highlights, which included a 16-year-old arrested in Roodepoort for possession and distribution of explosives and the seizure of counterfeit clothing and shoes worth 98 million rand ($6.1m).
Overall, South Africa has some of the world’s most violent crime with an average of 64 people killed every day, according to official statistics.
The three provinces selected for military deployments have a turbulent history with the armed forces, not least during the apartheid era when the regime used soldiers to unleash deadly crackdowns on antiapartheid activists.
“They were the enemy,” Jacobs said, recalling his own arrest in September 1987 during a student protest on the Cape Flats opposing the racist government, which was replaced in the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.
Today after three decades of democracy, poverty, unemployment and violent crime remain a major challenge in the area.
But Jacobs, like other critics of the military police, believes the new move will do little to cure the ills that he said gangs exploit to increase their influence. Children as young as eight years old are recruited into their ranks.
The Town Centre, a shopping mall that was once a hub of economic activity, has been reduced to a ghost town where the drug trade thrives despite the fact that it is right next to a police station, according to Jacobs.
For him, there is a direct link between the country’s economic decline and the flourishing of gang activity over the past decade on the Cape Flats, where working-class people have seen their livelihoods stripped away as the manufacturing sector shrank.
On an average weekday when children should be at school, he said, you see children and even women in their 60s in Mitchells Plain digging through rubbish bins to find glass, plastic or other things they can recycle and turn into income. “At least it will put something on the table.”
Social issues and not simply military intervention should be put at the heart of government anticrime efforts, analysts say.
“There’s no other way to describe it other than plugging a hole that is haemorrhaging at the moment with regards to these forms of organised crime,” said Ryan Cummings, director of analysis at Signal Risk, an Africa-focused risk management firm.
Irvin Kinnes, an associate professor with the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Criminology, pointed out that constitutionally the army is limited in the duties its members may perform among the civilian population. Their role will be largely to support police, who will retain control of all operations.
He fears the government has not learned lessons from previous army deployments in South Africa’s democratic era.
The army was dispatched to the Western Cape in 2019 during a previous spike in gang violence and was again sent in to help with the enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions the following year.
“It’s a very dangerous thing to bring the army because there’s an impatience with the fact that the police are not doing their job. And so they come in with that mentality and want to beat up everybody and break people’s bones,” Kinnes said.
“We saw what happened in COVID. They killed people as the army. It’s not as if the police don’t kill people, but the point is, you don’t need the army to do that.”
To the government’s detractors, summoning the army is nothing more than an attempt at political heroics before local elections due to be held this year or in early 2027.
Kinnes pointed out that, according to police statistics, crime has been decreasing without the help of the army.
“It’s very much political. It’s to show that the political leaders have kind of heard the public. But the call for the army hasn’t come from the community. It’s come from politicians,” he said.
Ramaphosa, who has yet to reveal details of the military deployment, has defended his decision. On Monday in his weekly newsletter, the president sought to separate the South African armed forces from their troubling past, listing several operations that benefitted communities, such as disaster relief efforts and law enforcement operations at the border.
He made it clear that the army’s role would merely be a supporting one “with clear rules of engagement and for specific time-limited objectives”.
Its presence may free up officers to focus on police work and would take place alongside other measures, such as strengthening antigang units and illegal mining teams, he said.
“Given our history, where the apartheid state sent the army into townships to violently suppress opposition, it is important that we do not deploy the [military] inside the country to deal with domestic threats without good reason,” Ramaphosa wrote.
Cummings said it was clear the president’s hand was forced amid an unrelenting wave of violence. “The rhetoric of the president up until now suggests that this was a directive that he was not necessarily too keen on implementing.”
On the ground, soldiers appear equally reluctant about their pending engagement.
Ntsiki Shongo is a soldier who was deployed in 2019 and during the COVID-19 pandemic. He told Al Jazeera, using a pseudonym, that any operation involving the police was almost certainly doomed.
“We [in the army] become so negative when we are working with them [the police] because always we don’t get what we need,” he said.
“We know how easy it is to get these gangsters, to get these drug lords, but unfortunately, the police, they are not cooperating with us because some of them are in cooperation with these criminals,” he charged. “Maybe they are scared for their lives because they are staying in the same areas with them.”
Shongo referred to an ongoing commission investigating police corruption that has implicated senior government officials and led to the suspension of national Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
“So this operation, … is it going to be a success? I don’t know. It all depends on the police,” he said, adding that he and his fellow soldiers long for the day the government lets the military solve the problem on its own.
“Even when we are just sitting having lunch as soldiers, we talk about the police. We pray that one day the state can say, ‘Let’s take the military inside the country and clean out all these weapons, all these guns, all these gangsters,’” he said.
“The military is ready, and they want to prove a point because we’ve been hungry for these things.”
US Justice Department accuses former Air Force officer Gerald Brown of training Chinese military pilots.
A former United States Air Force officer and “elite fighter pilot” has been arrested and accused of betraying his country for illegally providing training to Chinese military pilots.
The US Department of Justice said ex-Air Force Major Gerald Brown, once known by his pilot’s call sign “Runner”, was arrested on Wednesday in Indiana and charged with a criminal complaint for providing and conspiring to provide defence services to Chinese pilots without authorisation.
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Brown, 65, a former F-35 Lightning II instructor pilot with decades of experience in the Air Force, “allegedly betrayed his country by training Chinese pilots to fight against those he swore to protect”, Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director at the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, said in a statement.
“The Chinese government continues to exploit the expertise of current and former members of the US armed forces to modernise China’s military capabilities. This arrest serves as a warning,” Rozhavsky said.
US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro for the District of Columbia said Brown “and anyone conspiring against our Nation” will be held accountable for their actions.
According to the Justice Department, Brown served in the US Air Force for 24 years, had led combat missions and was responsible for commanding “sensitive units”, including those involved in nuclear weapons delivery systems.
After leaving the US military in 1996, Brown worked as a commercial cargo pilot before working as a defence contractor training US pilots to fly F-35 and A-10 warplanes.
Brown is alleged to have travelled to China in December 2023 to begin his work training Chinese pilots, and he remained in the country until returning to the US in early February 2026.
His contract to train Chinese pilots was negotiated by Stephen Su Bin, a Chinese national who in 2016 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to hack a defence contractor in the US to steal military secrets for China, according to the Justice Department.
The department said Brown faces charges similar to those levelled against former US Marine Corps pilot Daniel Duggan, who was arrested in Australia in 2022 and is currently fighting his extradition back to the US, where he faces prosecution for violating the US Arms Export Control Act for providing pilot training to the Chinese armed forces.
Duggan appeared in an Australian court in October 2025 to appeal against his extradition, which was approved in December 2024 by Australia’s then Attorney General Mark Dreyfus.
Duggan, 57, a naturalised Australian citizen, was arrested by Australian police in 2022 shortly after returning from China, where he had lived since 2014.
According to the Reuters news agency. Duggan’s lawyer, Christopher Parkin, told the court that his client’s extradition to the US was “uncharted territory” for Australia.
He argued that his client’s conduct was not an offence in Australia at the time or when the US requested extradition, and so did not meet the requirement for dual criminality in Australia’s extradition treaty with the US.
The governments of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US published a notice in 2024 warning current and former members of their armed forces that China was seeking to recruit them and other NATO military personnel in order to harness Western military expertise and bolster its own capabilities.
“The insight the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] gains from Western military talent threatens the safety of the targeted recruits, their fellow service members, and US and allied security,” the notice stated.
“Those providing unauthorized training or expertise services to a foreign military can face civil and criminal penalties,” it added.
Colonel Jang Do-young (L), public affairs director of South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Colonel Ryan Donald (R), public affairs director of U.S. Forces Korea, pose for a photo during a press briefing on the 2026 Freedom Shield military exercise at the Defense Ministry in Seoul on Wednesday. Pool Photo by Jung Yeon-je/EPA
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (UPI) — The United States and South Korea will kick off a major joint military exercise next month, both countries announced Wednesday, as they prepare for the transfer of wartime operational control from Washington to Seoul.
The annual springtime Freedom Shield exercise will take place March 9 to 19 and will incorporate “realistic threats, including lessons learned from recent conflicts … to further strengthen the Alliance’s readiness and capabilities through combined, joint, all-domain operations,” the militaries said in a joint statement.
“This exercise will also serve as an opportunity to support ongoing preparations for a conditions-based wartime operational transition, consistent with alliance agreement,” the statement added.
South Korea is looking to complete the handover of wartime command from the United States before President Lee Jae Myung’s five-year term ends in 2030.
The exercise will feature computer simulation-based command post exercises as well as “Warrior Shield” field training, the allies said.
Freedom Shield comes as the Lee administration attempts to improve frayed relations with Pyongyang, which frequently condemns the allies’ joint drills as rehearsals for an invasion.
Local media have reported that Seoul is proposing scaling down field training during this year’s exercise — a move that Washington has allegedly resisted.
At the summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises in August, half of the 40 planned field training exercises were rescheduled to later in the year.
“Complex combined exercises often require additional coordination, looking at the scale and sequencing of these events,” Col. Ryan Donald, public affairs director of U.S. Forces Korea, said at a press conference Wednesday. “The important thing to remember is Freedom Shield and Warrior Shield will go on this March as a major defensive-oriented exercise.”
In addition to U.S. and South Korean forces, personnel from other member countries of the United Nations Command will join the exercise, while the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission will observe to monitor compliance with the Armistice Agreement.
“You’ll see U.S., South Korean and United Nations Command member states participating in tough, realistic, demanding training — and that is the real measure of the alliance,” Donald said.
Col. Jang Do-young, public affairs director of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the press conference that field training exercises were still being coordinated.
He added that March’s Freedom Shield will not include scenarios directly related to a North Korean nuclear attack, but would include training for “deterrence of nuclear threats.”
Last week, a South Korean lawmaker said that Pyongyang is planning to hold a large-scale military parade to show off its latest weapons at the conclusion of the ongoing Workers’ Party Ninth Congress.
China’s Commerce Ministry says the move against Japanese firms will prevent the remilitarisation of Japan.
Japan has strongly protested China’s move to restrict the export of “dual-use” items to 20 Japanese business entities that Beijing says could be used for military purposes, in the latest twist in a months-long diplomatic row between the two countries.
Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Sato Kei said at a news conference that the move by China’s Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday was “deplorable” and would “not be tolerated” by Tokyo.
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Companies affected by China’s export ban on dual-use items, or items that can be used for civilian or military purposes, include Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ shipbuilding group, aerospace and marine machinery subsidiaries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Japan’s National Defense Academy, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Beijing said restricting the export of dual-use items to the Japanese firms was necessary to “safeguard national security and interests and fulfil international obligations such as non-proliferation”, adding that the companies were involved in “enhancing Japan’s military strength”.
China’s Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday that it would also add another 20 entities to its export restrictions watchlist, including Japanese automaker Subaru, petroleum company ENEOS Corporation, and Mitsubishi Materials Corporation.
Chinese exporters must submit a risk assessment report for each company to ensure “dual-use items will not be used for any purpose that would enhance Japan’s military strength”, according to a statement on the Commerce Ministry’s website.
China has imposed similar restrictions on the US and Taiwan as a form of political protest, particularly over Washington’s ongoing unofficial support for the self-governed island. Beijing claims democratic Taiwan as its territory and has not ruled out using force for “reunification”.
Tokyo and Beijing have a historically acrimonious relationship, but diplomatic ties took a turn for the worse in November, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told legislators that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, which could necessitate military action.
Japan has had a pacifist constitution which restricts its use of force, but an attack on Taiwan could legally allow Tokyo to activate its army, the Self-Defence Forces, Takaichi said.
Takaichi’s remarks were some of the most explicit regarding whether Japan could become involved in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and have been accompanied by a push to expand Japan’s military capability.
Beijing reacted with fury to Takaichi’s remarks, discouraging Chinese citizens from visiting Japan, leading to a major drop in tourism revenue from Chinese visitors.
In January, Beijing also imposed Japanese export restrictions on rare earths like gallium, germanium, graphite and rare earth magnets that could be used for defence purposes, according to the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank.
The CSIS said at the time that “these retaliatory measures underscore rising tensions between Beijing and Tokyo and serve as a pointed warning from China to countries that take explicit positions on cross-strait relations”.
Tokyo does not have official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but several of its outlying islands, including Okinawa, are geographically closer to Taiwan than mainland Japan. Taiwan is also enormously popular with the Japanese public.
The White House’s comment comes days after a senior Trump aide said Iran is one week away from having material for nuclear bomb.
The White House has insisted that last year’s strikes against Iran destroyed the country’s nuclear programme despite a recent claim by a senior US official that Tehran is a week away from having bombmaking material.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that the June 2025 attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, was an “overwhelmingly successful mission”.
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The attack “did, in fact, obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities“, Leavitt said.
But just this weekend, President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff suggested that Iran is close to having enough material to build a nuclear weapon.
“They’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material,” Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday.
Since last June’s strikes, Trump has repeatedly hailed the attack, arguing that it eliminated Iran’s nuclear programme and led to “peace” in the Middle East. Operation Midnight Hammer came towards the end of a 12-day war Israel initiated with Iran that month.
But eight months later, US and Iranian officials are once again holding talks to reach a nuclear deal and avert another war.
On Tuesday, Leavitt said the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme had been “verified” by Trump and the United Nations’ watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“That does not mean that Iran may never try again to establish a nuclear programme that could directly threaten the United States and our allies abroad, and that’s what the president wants to ensure can never happen again,” she added.
Last year, after the US attack, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran could resume uranium enrichment “in a matter of months”.
But the UN agency’s inspectors have not been able to assess Iran’s nuclear sites since the US strikes.
The Pentagon’s public assessment was that the Iranian nuclear programme was set back by one to two years.
There has been no official confirmation of the US claims that Iran has restarted nuclear enrichment after the attack.
After a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US in December, Trump renewed his threats to attack Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear or missile programme.
Tensions have spiralled since then, with the US amassing military assets near Iran.
Still, Tehran and Washington are set to hold the third round of negotiations this year to push for a nuclear deal.
Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has said it would agree to minimal uranium enrichment under strict IAEA supervision in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.
But Trump has repeatedly stressed that it is seeking zero enrichment.
Enrichment is the process of isolating and concentrating a rare variant, or isotope, of uranium that can produce nuclear fission.
At low levels, enriched uranium can power electric plants. If enriched to approximately 90 percent, it can be used for nuclear weapons.
Before the June 2025 war, Iran was enriching uranium at 60 percent purity.
Tehran had been escalating its nuclear programme since 2018, when Trump, during his first term, nixed a multilateral agreement that capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent. He instead started piling up sanctions on the Iranian economy, as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign.
The White House on Tuesday suggested the military option against Iran remains on the table.
“President Trump’s first option is always diplomacy. But as he has shown, he is willing to use the lethal force of the United States military if necessary,” Leavitt said.
Last week, American diplomats and their Iranian counterparts sat down in Geneva for yet another round of talks mediated by Oman. The outcome seemed unclear. While the Iranians said “good progress” had been made, the Americans claimed there was “a little progress”. Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump threatened once again to strike Iran.
In recent weeks, there has been a heavy US military build-up in the Middle East in preparation for what many observers see as an imminent attack. In this context, it may be apt to question whether the current negotiations are not simply a tactic to buy time to better prepare for the inevitable.
In the face of US military might, some have suggested that Iran’s only option is negotiating an agreement with the US, however unfair it may be. While Iranian military capabilities stand no chance against an army with the world’s biggest budget, accepting capitulation through a debilitating deal that may be broken again by Washington may not necessarily be Tehran’s only choice.
There is another way in which Iran can stand up to US bullying and win.
The ongoing US-Iran talks cannot be viewed in isolation. For Iran, any diplomatic engagement with the US is overshadowed by the legacy of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Signed by the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the European Union and Iran in 2015, the agreement provided sanctions relief in exchange for full transparency of the Iranian nuclear programme. Tehran accepted the deal even though it had some unfair provisions, including some US sanctions remaining in place.
Nevertheless, it fulfilled its obligations – a fact that was repeatedly verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In return, however, the US as a signatory did not uphold its end of the deal. In 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA and reimposed maximum pressure sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.
It was a stark reminder that American promises are nonbinding. As a leader who has shown no regard for the interests of American allies in pursuit of an “America first” policy, Trump could hardly be expected to respect the interests of American adversaries.
However, even if a Democratic president had been in the White House, there would not have been any guarantee that the JCPOA would have remained in place. In the US’s polarised political climate, an American president’s signature is only valid until the next election.
For the US, negotiations can also be little more than a facade intended to lull adversaries into a false sense of security. Last year, just as US and Iranian representatives were scheduled to meet in Oman for another round of talks, Israel, a key American ally, launched a massive military campaign against Iran.
While the US denied direct involvement, it acknowledged having received prior notice. Given the close ties between the two countries, this prior knowledge strongly implied that the US had given Israel tacit approval for the air attacks.
Today, Iran is engaging in negotiations with the US again, and it is being pressured to accept an even more unfair deal. Should it back down and submit to US demands, then Trump – who preys on perceived weakness – would simply move the goalpost. Demands would shift from Iran’s nuclear programme today to its ballistic missiles tomorrow and regime change the day after.
The special US relationship with Israel means that Washington is fundamentally hostile to an Iranian government that sees the Israeli state as an enemy. Consequently, Trump’s goal is not to reach a durable agreement but to ensure that Iran can never fully comply with his demands, thereby justifying a permanent campaign of maximum pressure and hostility.
In this context and given its recent experience, it would be foolish for Iran to rely on US promises and negotiated agreements.
The current US-Iran standoff is a high-stakes game in which an all-out war is a likely outcome. While the US could achieve an initial victory through overwhelming military superiority, it could also get bogged down fighting a protracted counterinsurgency in Iran’s mountainous terrain.
Conversely, while Iran could eventually repel an American invasion – just as its Afghan neighbours did – the country would be reduced to rubble in the process.
That does not mean Iran should back down. The Greenland crisis and the China-US trade war have demonstrated that Trump’s propensity for sabre-rattling is tempered by his aversion to losses. Even though the EU and China are far more powerful than Iran, a clear show of resolve could compel Trump to retreat.
And Tehran does not have to be alone in its defiance. In its neighbourhood, there are other big players who recognise that another disastrous war led by the US is not in their interests. Iran can and should leverage the regional desire for stability.
For years, Iran pursued a policy of confrontation in the region until it realised that carving out a sphere of influence was actually exacerbating its security dilemma. This recognition ultimately led to the historic normalisation of relations with Saudi Arabia in 2023 – a breakthrough facilitated by China, Oman and Iraq – which in turn set in motion a broader detente with other Arab countries.
Three years later, that decision is yielding dividends. Notably, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkiye and Qatar are lobbying Trump to exercise restraint. Building on this neighbourly diplomacy and investing in developing regional stability and a security architecture could help stave off another major US war in the region.
The most important path to peace – and the only means of countering American gunboat diplomacy – does not lie in matching American military might, a contest Iran is destined to lose, but in establishing good relations with its neighbours and accepting regional stability as part of its national security.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The incident in Isfahan province follows crash of fighter jet in Hamadan province less than a week ago.
Published On 24 Feb 202624 Feb 2026
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Tehran, Iran – Two military pilots and two merchants have been killed after an army helicopter crashed into a fruit market in central Iran.
The crash on Tuesday morning occurred in Dorcheh, a town in Isfahan province, where the army has a major airbase, according to state media, which said the cause was likely a technical fault in the aircraft.
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Footage broadcast by state media from the scene of the crash showed the wreckage and emergency responders putting out the fire.
The Army Aviation Training Centre, in a statement, identified the killed soldiers as Colonel Hamed Sarvazad, the pilot; and his co-pilot, Major Mojtaba Kiani.
Two people working at their booths in the market were also reportedly killed on the scene after the helicopter crashed and caught fire.
The army centre said the cause of the crash is under investigation. The local judiciary chief, Asadollah Jafari, said he had also opened a case and dispatched investigators.
The crash comes less than a week after an Iranian Air Force fighter jet, reportedly an old United States-built F-4 model, crashed during a late-night training mission in the western province of Hamadan.
State media reported that one of the pilots was killed, but the other survived after successfully ejecting. The cause of that crash is under investigation, but state media said it was likely caused by a technical fault, as well.
Iran has been largely unable to upgrade its ageing fleet of aircraft, both military and civilian, as a result of decades-long sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.
Iran has purchased a number of fighter and training aircraft from Russia, and has been seeking to buy advanced Su-35 jets, but they have yet to be delivered by Moscow.
The crash of the helicopter took place amid rising tensions between the US and Iran before a new round of nuclear talks, which are set to take place in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday.
Iranian officials have warned that the country will not “bow down” to US pressure as Washington bolsters its military presence in the region.
In recent weeks, the US military has amassed hundreds of advanced fighter aircraft, both in military bases and on two aircraft carrier strike groups, as it threatens to strike Iran if it fails to reach a deal on its nuclear and missile programmes.
Tehran has rejected negotiations about its missiles, but has said an agreement may be possible to ensure it will never possess a nuclear weapon.
The attack on alleged drug smugglers brings death toll of US military campaign against suspected drug boats to about 150.
Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026
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The United States military has announced another strike in the Caribbean Sea that it said targeted drug smugglers, killing three people.
The Southern Command of the US military (SOUTHCOM) shared footage of the attack on Monday, showing a small boat exploding and going up in flames after the strike.
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“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” SOUTHCOM said in a statement.
“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed.”
The attack brings the death toll from US boat strikes on boats allegedly smuggling drugs, which began last year, to about 150.
Rights advocates have said the US military campaign targeting alleged drug smugglers amounts to extrajudicial killings and risks violating international and domestic laws.
The administration of US President Donald Trump has argued that all the targeted boats were carrying drugs, but it has offered little evidence other than grainy footage of the strikes.
United Nations experts warned last year that the attacks “appear to be unlawful killings carried out by order of a Government, without judicial or legal process allowing due process of law”.
“Unprovoked attacks and killings on international waters also violate international maritime laws,” the experts added.
“We have condemned and raised concerns about these attacks at sea to the United States Government.”
The strikes started in September last year, as the US was building up its military assets in the Caribbean amid tensions with Venezuela. Since then, the attacks have expanded to also targeting boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
A separate US strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat on Friday also killed three people.
The campaign has continued even after US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro early in 2026.
Trump and other US officials have argued, without providing evidence, that each bombing saves thousands of lives from overdose deaths. But it is not clear whether the deadly campaign has significantly affected the drug trade in the region.
The latest attack comes as Mexican authorities push to curb violence by drug cartels after the killing of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader, Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, also known as “El Mencho”.
Trump has been pushing to present himself as launching a literal war on drugs across the Western Hemisphere.
“Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
The US has often accused its critics in Latin America, including Colombian President Gustavo Petro, of ties to the drug trade.
Meanwhile, in December, Trump pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in US jails after being convicted of drug trafficking.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, six frigates, three light warships, and approximately thirty fighter jets and support aircraft have entered the Middle East by order of Donald Trump who, by repeatedly touting the slogan “I have ended six/seven/eight wars,” has considered (and continues to consider) himself deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. What objective do all these tensions that the U.S. administration has generated in the region actually pursue? The weakening of Iran, or the overthrow of the incumbent government? Whatever his and his administration’s aim may be, it appears that—within the cost–benefit calculations of his trader’s mindset—he has yet to arrive at a definitive conclusion as to what kind of blow, and at what scale, could deliver the desired outcome. His recent military posturing around Iran and his increasingly threatening rhetoric against the Islamic Republic have placed him in a no-win situation whose end few can predict.
First Strike Doubt: Trump and the constellation of officials currently in the White House—who, notably, are far from unified or aligned on how to approach Iran—have reached no certainty regarding the effectiveness of a first strike against Iran or the likelihood of achieving their desired results. It is evident to all that the Islamic Republic of Iran is neither Venezuela, nor Libya, nor Syria, nor Afghanistan, nor Iraq, nor anything akin to the historical cases in which the United States has intervened militarily in the name of democracy verbally and in pursuit of its own interests operationally. This very reality has, thus far, prevented Trump from issuing the order to “open fire” on Iran up to now.
On the other side, there is no sign of the flexibility or concession sought by the United States in the behavior or rhetoric of Iranian officials—a fact acknowledged by American officials themselves. This indicates that pressure, intimidation, and threats have thus far yielded no results. The reason is clear: the Islamic Republic views any potential confrontation as an existential war and is unwilling to grant any concessions. Trump, however—who seeks to manufacture achievements out of even the smallest events and whose penchant for exaggeration is among his defining traits—perceives such circumstances as detrimental to his personal prestige and standing.
Iran’s Resilience: The experience of the Israeli attack and the hybrid war launched against Iran in June 2025, with direct assistance from the United States and indirect support from so many others, demonstrated that the instability they sought within the governing structure of the Islamic Republic and even the internal social fragmentation and rifts that had been cultivated for years through various media tools did not materialize. Despite the blows inflicted on Iran, none of the long-term strategic objectives of the United States and Israel were achieved. Likewise, the unrest and riots of January 8 and 9, despite the violence and damage they caused to the public and the state, were ultimately brought under control and culminated in a multi-million-person rally on January 12 condemning the unrest and supporting the central government of the Islamic Republic.
High costs and Persian Gulf Worries: Operationalizing a military threat would impose heavy costs on the United States and its allies. The Islamic Republic has explicitly declared that any military action against its territory, at any scale, would be regarded as all-out war, and that, consequently, the entire region—as well as U.S. interests wherever they may be—would fall within range of Iran’s retaliatory strikes. This serious warning has also prompted Persian Gulf states to mobilize their capacities to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran. The strikes on U.S. bases at Ayn al-Asad and Al-Udeid entrenched the perception that the Islamic Republic does not shy away from responding to foreign aggression, even if large segments of the world regard the attacking state as a “superpower.”
Global Energy Risks: The ignition of war in the Persian Gulf would amount to a grave threat to global energy supply routes. Roughly 30 percent of the world’s crude oil and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas are supplied by Persian Gulf countries, and 20–25 percent of global crude oil transits the Strait of Hormuz. Any aggressive action by the United States would jeopardize the security of one-fifth of the world’s fuel and profoundly affect the global economy.
Although the U.S. National Security Strategy does not place the Middle East among America’s top strategic priorities, the same document states that: “We (the United States) want to prevent an adversarial power from dominating the Middle East, its oil and gas supplies, and the chokepoints through which they pass while avoiding the forever wars”, which shows Persian Gulf oil is still of high importance for Washington.
Tilting Power Balance: In addition, heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf would endanger China’s economic interests, and any large-scale military confrontation would likely lead to a more pronounced military-security presence by Russia and China in the Gulf—tilting the balance in favor of America’s rivals.
The embers beneath the region’s ashes today could be ignited by the slightest breeze, engulfing a vast area. Israel, while likely the first target of Iran’s retaliatory response in the event of a U.S. attack, is nevertheless eager to initiate confrontation based on the calculation that a war waged with the full might of the United States could ultimately erode the very existence of the Islamic Republic or weaken it to the point of capitulation. In this context, it is not far-fetched to suggest that the disclosure of new documents and details concerning Trump’s links to the notorious Epstein case and his mysterious island may have been driven by the Mossad, as such revelations could compel the U.S. president to undertake an irrational action to divert attention elsewhere.
Today, Trump is acting more than ever in contradiction to his own professed principles—from trampling on his signature MAGA slogan and morphing it into MIGA (Make Israel Great Again), to undermining his administration’s efforts to reduce unnecessary international expenditures; from his paradoxical pride in having ended “eight wars” to the strategy of off-shore balancing the Middle East. Should a war of this magnitude and consequence erupt, no country involved—whether through direct action or geographic proximity—would be spared its consequences. Regarding these circumstances, it appears that the only desirable scenario for Trump, the region, and the world at large is the opening of a genuine dialogue, free from the shadow of threats, intimidation, and American bullying.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says that calm is being restored and that improvised cartel roadblocks are being removed.
Published On 23 Feb 202623 Feb 2026
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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has sought to assuage fears following a government raid that killed one of the country’s most-wanted drug trafficking leaders, prompting a series of violent outbursts by cartels across the country.
Speaking alongside Sheinbaum during a press conference on Monday, Security Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch said that 25 members of the National Guard had been killed in fighting with criminal groups in the state of Jalisco after the raid.
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“What is important now is to guarantee peace and security of all the population, of all of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, adding that conditions have improved and Mexico “is calm” after the Sunday raid that killed Nemesio Oseguera, also known as “El Mencho”, of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.
The killing of Mencho comes as Mexico is under growing pressure from the United States to take a more aggressive stance towards drug-trafficking groups, although the killing of top-level cartel figures in the past has had little impact on the drug trade and has often created a leadership vacuum that others violently act to fill.
The raid also set off a wave of reprisal attacks and impromptu roadblocks that have spread fear and uncertainty through Mexico, where criminal groups violently jostle for control of territory.
Garcia Harfuch said that the 25 members of the National Guard were killed in six incidents across Jalisco, adding that 30 people he described as criminal suspects were also killed in the clashes, along with four in Michoacan.
“First there was a huge gun battle, and then another, and another,” an anonymous resident of the town of Aguililla in Michoacan told the news service AFP, saying that cartel gunmen attacked a local outpost of soldiers on Sunday. “But they couldn’t advance because the soldiers stopped them.”
Defence Secretary Ricardo Trevilla said that an additional 2,500 security force members would be sent to Jalisco to reinforce the armed forces already deployed there, and Sheinbaum said that all of the more than 250 roadblocks erected across 20 states in response to the raid have been removed.
Mexican officials have sought to downplay the prospect of long-term disruptions stemming from the raid, with Sheinbaum saying that flights to and from Puerto Vallarta, located in the state of Jalisco, are expected to resume on Monday or Tuesday.
“In Puerto Vallarta, flights continue to be disrupted due to availability of flight crews. The Embassy is in close contact with airlines to monitor their plans,” the US Department of State Consular Affairs said in a social media post on Monday. “All other airports in Mexico are open, and most airports are operating normally. If you are traveling via any airport other than Guadalajara or Puerto Vallarta, we have received no indication of any security-related flight disruptions.”
The Mexican embassy to the US has shared social media posts debunking online rumours of attacks on civilians at Guadalajara airport and US tourists being held hostage.