strikes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mutual distrust

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

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

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

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

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

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

Turkiye refrains from military action

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

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

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

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

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

Alarm spreads

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

“We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

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Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight have left more than one million people in the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk without heating and water supplies, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister says.

Oleksiy Kuleba added that work was continuing to restore services following the large-scale attack, which damaged infrastructure across the southeast.

Electricity supplies were also disrupted for thousands more people in neighbouring Zaporizhzhia, state grid operator Ukrenergo said late on Wednesday. It has since been restored, according to the energy ministry.

Russia has recently intensified attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, aimed at paralysing power supplies during a harsh winter.

“Repair work continues in Dnipropetrovsk region to restore heat and water supply for more than one million subscribers,” Kuleba said in a statement on Telegram.

Hospitals, water facilities and other critical services were operating on backup systems, the energy ministry said, while residents were urged to limit electricity use to avoid further strain on the grid.

“Ukraine’s energy system is under enemy attacks every day, and energy workers are operating in extremely difficult conditions to provide people with light and heat,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram, adding that deteriorating weather conditions were compounding pressure on critical infrastructure.

Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, described the attacks as a “deliberate terror against the civilian population and an attempt to create a humanitarian catastrophe”.

DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy provider, is living in permanent crisis mode because of Russian attacks on the grid, its chief executive told the BBC last month, with most of Ukraine suffering from lengthy power cuts during winter.

Maxim Timchenko, CEO of DTEK, which provides power for 5.6 million Ukrainians, said the intensity of strikes had been so frequent “we just don’t have time to recover”.

As the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, Timchenko said Russia had repeatedly targeted DTEK’s energy grid with “waves of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles” and his company had found it difficult to cope.

The attacks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said European allies have not given him sound guarantees that they will protect his country in the event of new Russian aggression.

Following talks in Paris on Tuesday, the UK and France signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops in Ukraine if a peace deal is reached – a move Moscow warned would make foreign forces a “legitimate target”.

Zelensky also said he believes Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine could be brought to an end in the first half of 2026. Speaking at the opening of Cyprus’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, he said negotiations with European partners and the United States had entered a new stage and stressed that the EU should play a central role in any settlement.

England find themselves on the wrong side of another controversial Snicko decision after Jake Weatherald is given not out despite there appearing to be a murmur on the Snicko technology, as the ball passes the bat – with Weatherald on 16 and Australia 33-0, chasing 160 to win the fifth and final Ashes Test in Sydney.

FOLLOW LIVE: The Ashes fifth Test – day five

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UN Security Council to meet on Maduro’s abduction as Trump insists US in control of Venezuela.

The Israeli military continues to demolish structures in northern Gaza while also blocking the entry of aid.

The Israeli army has launched more attacks into parts of Gaza outside its direct military control, despite the ceasefire deal mediated by the United States in October.

At least three Palestinians were killed on Sunday in separate Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

They included a 15-year-old boy, a fisherman, and a third man shot dead east of Khan Younis.

In the central part of the besieged enclave, Israeli fire injured several people east of the Bureij refugee camp.

In Gaza City to the north, Israeli forces continued to demolish homes and civilian infrastructure within the mostly destroyed Tuffah neighbourhood.

The Israeli army confirmed it was destroying more infrastructure in northern Gaza, but claimed that the target was “terrorist infrastructure above and below ground”, including tunnels in Beit Lahiya.

Israeli drones also dropped explosives on several homes in eastern Gaza City. The Shujayea and Zeitoun neighbourhoods of Gaza City, which have also been extensively attacked during more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war, were hit with artillery shelling.

At least 71,386 Palestinians have been killed and 171,264 others injured since the start of the war in October 2023, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health. At least 420 people have been killed since the ceasefire was signed less than three months ago.

The Israeli military continues to block a large amount of the international humanitarian aid amassing at the border with Gaza, while maintaining that there is no shortage of aid despite testimonies by the United Nations and others working on the ground.

It has also moved to ban several prominent international aid groups from operating in Gaza, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council.

CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said its president, Nicolás Maduro, had been captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington — an extraordinary nighttime operation announced by President Trump on social media hours after the attack.

Multiple explosions rang out and low-flying aircraft swept through Caracas, the capital, as Maduro’s government immediately accused the United States of attacking civilian and military installations. The Venezuelan government called it an “imperialist attack” and urged citizens to take to the streets.

It was not immediately clear who was running the country, and Maduro’s whereabouts were not immediately known. Trump announced the developments on Truth Social shortly after 4:30 a.m. ET. Under Venezuelan law the vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, would take power. There was no confirmation that had happened, though she did issue a statement after the strike.

“We do not know the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores,” Rodriguez said. “We demand proof of life.”

Maduro, Trump said, “has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country. This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement. Details to follow.” He set a news conference for later Saturday morning.

The legal implications of the strike under U.S. law were not immediately clear. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted on X that he had spoken with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who briefed him on the strike. Rubio told Lee that Maduro “has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States.”

The White House did not immediately respond to queries on where Maduro and his wife were being flown to. Maduro was indicted in March 2020 on “narco-terrorism” conspiracy charges in the Southern District of New York.

Maduro last appeared on state television Friday while meeting with a delegation of Chinese officials in Caracas.

The explosions in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, early on the third day of 2026 — at least seven blasts — sent people rushing into the streets, while others took to social media to report hearing and seeing the explosions. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties on either side. The attack itself lasted less than 30 minutes and it was unclear if more actions lay ahead, though Trump said in his post that the strikes were carried out “successfully.”

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ban on U.S. commercial flights in Venezuelan airspace because of “ongoing military activity” ahead of the explosions.

The strike came after the Trump administration spent months escalating pressure on Maduro. The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels — the first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September.

For months, Trump had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land following months of attacks on boats accused of carrying drugs. Maduro has decried the U.S. military operations as a thinly veiled effort to oust him from power.

Some streets in Caracas fill up

Armed individuals and uniformed members of a civilian militia took to the streets of a Caracas neighborhood long considered a stronghold of the ruling party. But in other areas of the city, the streets remained empty hours after the attack. Parts of the city remained without power, but vehicles moved freely.

Video obtained from Caracas and an unidentified coastal city showed tracers and smoke clouding the landscape sky as repeated muted explosions illuminated the night sky. Other footage showed an urban landscape with cars passing on a highway as blasts illuminated the hills behind them. Unintelligible conversation could be heard in the background. The videos were verified by The Associated Press.

Smoke could be seen rising from the hangar of a military base in Caracas, while another military installation in the capital was without power.

“The whole ground shook. This is horrible. We heard explosions and planes,” said Carmen Hidalgo, a 21-year-old office worker, her voice trembling. She was walking briskly with two relatives, returning from a birthday party. “We felt like the air was hitting us.”

Venezuela’s government responded to the attack with a call to action. “People to the streets!” it said in a statement. “The Bolivarian Government calls on all social and political forces in the country to activate mobilization plans and repudiate this imperialist attack.”

The statement added that Maduro had “ordered all national defense plans to be implemented” and declared “a state of external disturbance.” That state of emergency gives him the power to suspend people’s rights and expand the role of the armed forces.

The website of the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, a post that has been closed since 2019, issued a warning to American citizens in the country, saying it was “aware of reports of explosions in and around Caracas.”

“U.S. citizens in Venezuela should shelter in place,” the warning said.

Reaction emerges slowly

Inquiries to the Pentagon and U.S. Southern Command since Trump’s social media post went unanswered. The FAA warned all commercial and private U.S. pilots that the airspace over Venezuela and the small island nation of Curacao, just off the coast of the country to the north, was off limits “due to safety-of-flight risks associated with ongoing military activity.”

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted his potential concerns, reflecting a view from the right flank in the Congress. “I look forward to learning what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force,” Lee said on X.

It was not clear if the U.S. Congress had been officially notified of the strikes.

The Armed Services committees in both houses of Congress, which have jurisdiction over military matters, have not been notified by the administration of any actions, according to a person familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Lawmakers from both political parties in Congress have raised deep reservations and flat out objections to the U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling on boats near the Venezuelan coast and the Congress has not specifically approved an authorization for the use of military force for such operations in the region.

Regional reaction was not immediately forthcoming in the early hours of Saturday. Cuba, however, a supporter of the Maduro government and a longtime adversary of the United States, called for the international community to respond to what president Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez called “the criminal attack.” “Our zone of peace is being brutally assaulted,” he said on X. Iran’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the strikes.

President Javier Milei of Argentina praised the claim by his close ally, Trump, that Maduro had been captured with a political slogan he often deploys to celebrate right-wing advances: “Long live freedom, dammit!”

The U.S. military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

They followed a major buildup of American forces in the waters off South America, including the arrival in November of the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier, which added thousands more troops to what was already the largest military presence in the region in generations.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the U.S. and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Cano and Toropin write for the Associated Press. Toropin and AP journalist Lisa Mascaro reported from Washington.

US president says he would back attacks if Tehran rebuilds nuclear or missile programmes.

Iran has promised to respond harshly to any aggression after United States President Donald Trump threatened further military action, should Tehran attempt to rebuild its nuclear programme or missile capabilities.

President Masoud Pezeshkian issued the warning on X on Tuesday, a day after Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Florida estate, where he firmly leaned into the Israeli regional narrative yet again.

The US had not previously said it would target Iran’s missile capabilities, which has long been an Israeli aspiration, focusing instead on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear activities are for civilian purposes only, and neither US intelligence nor the UN’s nuclear watchdog found any evidence of atomic weapons production before the June attacks by the US and Israel.

Iran has ruled out negotiating over its missile programme.

The leaders’ comments raise the spectre of renewed conflict just months after a devastating 12-day war in June that killed more than 1,100 Iranians and left 28 in Israel dead.

Pezeshkian said the response of Iran to any aggression would be “severe and regret-inducing”. His defiant message came hours after Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort that Washington could carry out another major assault on Iran.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said, standing alongside Netanyahu. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”

The US president said he would support strikes on Iran’s nuclear programme “immediately” and on its missile facilities if Tehran continues developing long-range weapons.

Israeli officials have expressed concern in recent weeks that Iran is quietly rebuilding its ballistic missile stockpile, which was significantly depleted during the June conflict.

“If the Americans do not reach an agreement with the Iranians that halts their ballistic missile program, it may be necessary to confront Tehran,” an Israeli official told Ynet this week.

Pezeshkian recently described the standoff as a “full-scale war” with the US, Israel and Europe that is “more complicated and more difficult” than Iran’s bloody conflict with Iraq in the 1980s, which left more than one million dead.

The June war saw Israel launch nearly 360 strikes across 27 Iranian provinces over 12 days, according to conflict monitoring group ACLED, targeting military installations, nuclear facilities and government buildings.

The assault destroyed an estimated 1,000 Iranian ballistic missiles and killed more than 30 senior military commanders and at least 11 nuclear scientists.

Iran fired more than 500 missiles at Israel during the conflict, with approximately 36 landing in populated areas. While Trump claimed Iranian nuclear capabilities were “completely obliterated” by the strikes, experts disputed that, saying Tehran may have hidden stockpiles of enriched uranium and could resume production within months.

Despite the losses, Iranian officials insist the country is now better prepared for confrontation. In a recent interview, Pezeshkian said Iran’s military forces are “stronger in terms of equipment and manpower” than before the ceasefire.

The war failed to trigger the internal unrest it is suspected that Netanyahu had hoped for. No significant protests materialised, and daily life in Tehran largely continued despite the bombardment.

Israeli attacks, violating a ceasefire agreement, are reported across Gaza, as Palestinian misery compounded by rains.

Israeli forces have carried out strikes across the Gaza Strip as they continue with their near-daily violations of the ceasefire agreement, with Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave continuing apace and displaced Palestinians enduring the destruction of their few remaining possessions in flooding brought about by heavy winter rains.

Israeli air strikes on Tuesday targeted locations north of Rafah and east of Khan Younis, the Maghazi camp in central Gaza and Beit Lahiya in the north of the Strip, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported.

Reporting from Gaza City, Khoudary said artillery shelling had been reported in the territory’s southern and central regions, while there had also been an attack in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Shujayea, striking close to the tent of a displaced family.

She said the latest attacks, in violation of the United States-brokered ceasefire that came into force in October, numbering nearly 1,000 now, were coming at a time of immense hardship for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, as heavy rains and strong winds had ravaged their makeshift camps, destroying the few possessions they had left.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Sunday that Israel had committed 969 ceasefire violations since it came into effect on October 10, resulting in the deaths of 418 civilians and injuries to more than 1,100.

“Palestinians are still very traumatised and anxious,” Khoudary said. “The situation on the ground continues to deteriorate as the rain continues.”

Calls to allow supplies in

Aid groups have repeatedly called for Israeli authorities to lift restrictions to allow more supplies, including shelter equipment, into the territory, where displaced families have been trying to stay dry in flimsy, battered tents that offer scant protection from the elements after months of use.

“Families here are helpless while the Israeli authorities continue to restrict all kinds of shelter into the Gaza Strip,” Khoudary said.

Officials have warned that the severe conditions also bring new dangers, with the threat of disease and illness as overwhelmed and damaged sewage systems contaminate floodwaters, as well as the risk that buildings could collapse amid heavy rain and wind.

At least two people have been killed by damaged structures falling amid the severe weather in recent days.

‘We are still suffering’

In a displacement camp east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, heavy rain in recent days has left tents submerged in muddy water, destroying the few possessions that the families had taken with them from their homes.

Inside the tents, an Al Jazeera team found essential items like pillows, mattresses and bedcovers soaked in muddy water.

“The tent has been flooded,” said Mohammed al-Louh, a resident.

“I took my family out, but I couldn’t even get a blanket, a mattress or a bag of flour. I have no way to sleep with my children or keep them warm.”

Another man, Haitham Arafat, said he had lost his son and daughter as well as his home to Israel’s genocidal war, and was still suffering amid the severe conditions.

“I fled to this place. Does this mean the war is over?” he said.

“No, we are still suffering. We haven’t slept for two days because of the heavy rain.”

Reporting from the camp, Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili said the winter storms had brought a new “chapter of suffering” for Palestinians who had been plunged into a humanitarian crisis by Israel’s war.

“What was meant to be a temporary shelter for them has turned into a flooded trap,” he said.

The Saudi-led coalition carried out a targeted strike at Yemen’s Mukalla port, accusing foreign-backed vessels of delivering weapons to southern separatists.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has carried out a “limited military operation” targeting what it described as foreign military support at Mukalla port, days after warning the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) group against taking military action in Hadramout province.

Coalition air forces carried out the military operation early on Tuesday, targeting unloaded weapons and vehicles, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki said two ships entered Mukalla port on Saturday and Sunday without coalition authorisation, disabled their tracking systems, and unloaded large quantities of weapons and combat vehicles “to support” the STC.

The ‍Saudi-backed head of Yemen’s presidential council, Rashad ⁠al Alimi, ​said on ‍Tuesday after the air strike that all forces of the United ‍Arab ⁠Emirates must leave Yemen within 24 hours.

“Given the danger and escalation posed by these weapons … the coalition air forces carried out a limited military operation this morning targeting weapons and combat vehicles that had been unloaded from the two ships at the port of al-Mukalla,” SPA reported.

Two sources told Reuters news agency that the strike specifically targeted the dock where the cargo had been unloaded. The coalition said there were no casualties or collateral damage and emphasised that the operation was conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law.

The strike comes amid heightened tensions following an offensive earlier this month by the STC against Yemeni government troops backed by the coalition.

Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman Al Saud posted on X that the STC troops should “peacefully hand over” two regional governorates to the government. Meanwhile, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for “restraint and continued diplomacy, with a view to reaching a lasting solution”.

A divided Yemen

The STC was initially part of the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthis, but the group later pursued self-rule in southern Yemen. Since 2022, the STC, which has previously received assistance from the United Arab Emirates, has controlled southern territories outside Houthi areas under a Saudi-backed power-sharing arrangement.

In recent weeks, however, the STC has swept through swaths of the country, expelling other government forces and their allies.

Speaking alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump threatens to ‘knock’ down Iran’s attempts to rebuild nuclear capabilities.

United States President Donald Trump suggested that Washington would consider further military action against Iran if Tehran rebuilds its nuclear programme or missile capacity.

Speaking in Florida on Monday, Trump did not rule out a follow-up attack after the June air strikes that damaged three Iranian nuclear facilities.

“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump told reporters. “We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that’s not happening.”

Trump issued his threat as he welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump said that the US and Israel have been “extremely victorious” against their enemies, referring to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the strikes against Iran in June.

When asked whether the US would back an Israeli attack against Iran targeting Tehran’s missile programme, Trump said, “If they will continue with the missiles, yes; the nuclear, fast. Okay, one will be yes, absolutely. The other is: We’ll do it immediately.”

Another round of strikes against Iran would likely stir internal opposition in the US, including from segments of Trump’s own base of support.

Trump has repeatedly said that the June strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.

With the nuclear issue address, according to Trump, Israeli officials and their US allies have been drumming up concern about Iran’s missiles.

Tehran fired hundreds of missiles at Israel in June in response to the unprovoked Israeli attack that killed the country’s top generals, several nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians.

Senator Lindsey Graham, an Iran hawk who is close to Trump, visited Israel this month and repeated the talking points about the dangers of Iran’s long-range missiles, warning that Iran is producing them “in very high numbers”.

“We cannot allow Iran to produce ballistic missiles because they could overwhelm the Iron Dome,” he told The Jerusalem Post, referring to Israel’s air defence system. “It’s a major threat.”

Iran has ruled out negotiating over its missile programme, which is at the core of its defence strategy.

On Monday, Trumps said Iran should “make a deal” with the US.

“If they want to make a deal, that’s much smarter,” Trump said. “You know, they could have made a deal the last time before we went through a big attack on them, and they decided not to make the deal. They wish they made that deal.”

The prospect of returning to war in the Middle East comes weeks after the Trump administration released a National Security Strategy calling for shifting foreign policy resources away from the region and focusing on the Western Hemisphere.

In June, Iran responded to the US strikes with a missile attack against a US base in Qatar, which did not result in American casualties. Trump announced a ceasefire to end the war shortly after the Iranian response.

But advocates warn that another episode of attacking Iran may escalate into a longer, broader war.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president at the Quincy Institute, a US think tank that promotes diplomacy, told Al Jazeera last week that the Iranian response would be “much harsher” if the country is attacked again.

“The Iranians understand that unless they strike back hard and dispel the view that Iran is a country that you can bomb every six months – unless they do that – Iran will become a country that Israel will bomb every six months,” Parsi said.

Iranians are further squeezed every day amid a tanking economy, an energy crisis, water bankruptcy and lethal pollution.

Several protests have erupted in downtown Tehran after business owners closed down their shops in reaction to a free-falling national currency, and no improvement appears in sight amid multiple ongoing crises.

Shopkeepers near two major tech and mobile phone shopping centres in the capital’s Jomhouri area closed their businesses and chanted slogans on Sunday, before more incidents were recorded on Monday afternoon, this time with other people appearing to participate.

Videos circulating on social media showed that there were more gatherings in the same area, as well as other nearby neighbourhoods in downtown Tehran. “Don’t be afraid, we are together,” demonstrators chanted.

There was a heavy deployment of anti-riot personnel in full gear on the streets, with multiple videos showing that tear gas was deployed and people were forced to disperse.

Many shops were closed down by owners in and around Tehran’s Grand Bazaar as well, with some footage showing business owners asking others to do the same.

State media outlets also acknowledged the protests, but quickly reacted to emphasise that the shopkeepers are only concerned about economic conditions and have no qualms with the theocratic establishment that has been ruling the country since a 1979 revolution that ousted the United States-backed shah of Iran.

The government’s IRNA news agency claimed that vendors selling mobile phones were disgruntled after their businesses were threatened by the unchecked depreciation of the Iranian currency, the rial.

The rial registered yet another all-time record low of over 1.42 million per US dollar on Monday before regaining some ground.

But the currency is not the only problem. For years, Iran has also been dealing with an exacerbating energy crisis, which has periodically contributed to deadly air pollution that claims tens of thousands of lives each year.

Most dams feeding Tehran and a large number of major cities across Iran continue to remain at near-empty levels amid a water crisis. Iran also has one of the most closed-off internet landscapes in the world.

The continuing decline of purchasing power for 90 million Iranians comes amid increasing pressure from the US, Israel and their European allies over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel and the US attacked Iran in June during a 12-day war that killed more than 1,000 people, including civilians, dozens of top-ranking military and intelligence commanders, and nuclear scientists.

The attacks also significantly damaged or destroyed most of Iran’s nuclear facilities, which were under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The watchdog has since been denied entry to the bombed sites, with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight as the West applies more pressure.

Iran last saw nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023, with many thousands pouring into streets across the country after the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for alleged non-compliance with strict Islamic laws regarding headscarves.

Hundreds of people were killed, over 20,000 people were arrested, and several people were executed in connection with the protests before they subsided. Authorities blamed foreign influence and “rioters” trying to destabilise the country, as they did with previous rounds of protests.

In parliament on Sunday to defend the controversial budget bill his administration has presented, President Masoud Pezeshkian painted a grim picture of the situation.

His highly contractionary budget bill proposes a 20 percent increase in wages while inflation stands at around 50 percent, consistently one of the highest in the world over the past several years. Taxes are slated to increase by 62 percent.

“They tell me you’re taxing too much, and they’re saying you must increase wages,” Pezeshkian told lawmakers. “Well, somebody tell me, where do I get the money from?”

The recent strikes by the United States on alleged ISIL (ISIS) targets in northwest Nigeria have been presented in Washington as a decisive counter-terror response. For the supporters of the administration of US President Donald Trump, the unprecedented operation signalled his country’s renewed resolve in confronting terrorism. It is also making good on Trump’s pledge to take action on what he claims is a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria.

But beneath the spectacle of military action lies a sobering reality: Bombing campaigns of this nature are unlikely to improve Nigeria’s security or help stabilise the conflict-racked country. On the contrary, the strikes risk misrepresenting the conflict and distracting from the deeper structural crisis that is driving violence.

The first problem with the strikes is their lack of strategic logic. The initial strikes were launched in Sokoto in northwest Nigeria, a region that has experienced intense turmoil over the past decade. But this violence is not primarily driven by an ideological insurgency linked to ISIL, and no known ISIL-linked groups are operating in the region. Instead, security concerns in this region are rooted in banditry, the collapse of rural economies, and competition for land. Armed groups here are fragmented and motivated largely by profit.

The Christmas Day strikes appear to have focused on a relatively new ideological armed group called Lakurawa, though its profile and any connection to ISIL are yet to be fully established.

The ideological armed groups with the strongest presence in northern Nigeria are Boko Haram and the ISIL-affiliate in West Africa Province (ISWAP). The centre of these groups’ activity remains hundreds of kilometres from Sokoto, in the northeast of Nigeria – the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa – where insurgency has a long history. This begs the question: Why strike the northwest first? The logic is unclear.

Equally concerning is the uncertainty surrounding casualties. So far, we have no authoritative figures. Some social media accounts claim there were no human casualties, suggesting the bombs fell on empty targets. Security analyst Brant Philip posted on his social media platform X: “According to a private source familiar with the US operation against the Islamic State in Nigeria, several strikes were launched, but most of the individuals and groups targeted were missed, and the actual damage inflicted remains mostly unknown.”

Nigerian news platform Arise TV reported on X that locals confirmed the incident caused widespread panic; according to its correspondent, at least one of the attacks happened in a district that had not suffered from violence before. They also noted that the full impact of the attack, including whether there were civilian casualties, is yet to be determined.

Other social media accounts have circulated images alleging civilian casualties, though these claims remain unverified. In a context where information warfare operates alongside armed conflict, speculation often travels faster than facts. The lack of transparent data on casualties from the US government risks deepening mistrust among communities already wary of foreign military involvement.

Symbolism also matters. The attack took place on Christmas Day, a detail that carries emotive and political significance. For many Muslims in northern Nigeria, the timing risks being interpreted as an act of supporting a broader narrative of a Western “crusade” against the Muslim community.

Even more sensitive is the location of the strikes: Sokoto. Historically, it is the spiritual seat of the 19th-century Sokoto Caliphate, a centre of Islamic authority and expansion revered by Nigerian Muslims. Bombing such a symbolic centre risks inflaming anti-US sentiment, deepening religious suspicion, and giving hardline propagandists fertile ground to exploit. Rather than weakening alleged ISIL influence, the strikes could inadvertently energise recruitment and amplify grievance narratives.

If air strikes cannot solve Nigeria’s security crisis, what can?

The answer lies not in foreign military intervention. Nigeria’s conflicts are symptoms of deeper governance failures: Weakened security, corruption, and the absence of the state in rural communities. In the northwest, where banditry thrives, residents often negotiate with armed groups not because they sympathise with them, but because the state is largely absent to provide them with security and basic services. In the northeast, where Boko Haram emerged, years of government neglect, heavy-handed security tactics, and economic exclusion created fertile ground for insurgency.

The most sustainable security response must therefore be multi-layered. It requires investment in community-based policing, dialogue, and pathways for deradicalisation. It demands a state presence that protects rather than punishes. It means prioritising intelligence gathering, strengthening local authorities, and restoring trust between citizens and government institutions.

The US strikes may generate headlines and satisfy a domestic audience, but on the ground in Nigeria, they risk doing little more than empowering hardline messaging and deepening resentment.

Nigerians do not need the US to bomb their country into security and stability. They need autochthonous reform: Localised long-term support to rebuild trust, restore livelihoods, and strengthen state institutions. Anything less is a distraction.

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

“More to come”: Those are the words of United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after his country carried out a wave of air strikes against ISIL (ISIS) in northwestern Nigeria.

Hegseth said the aim is to stop the group’s killing of what he called “innocent Christians”.

Back in November, President Donald Trump warned the US would take action against the group if the Nigerian government continued to allow what he claimed was the targeting of Christians.

Many say Trump was pressured by his right-wing Christian base in the US to carry out the recent attacks in Nigeria. But what could be the fallout on the African country with a highly complex religious makeup?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Malik Samuel – Senior researcher at Good Governance Africa

Ebenezer Obadare – Senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations

David Otto – Deputy director of counterterrorism training at the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism

As Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley seeks to become the state’s next attorney general, a dominant issue in the campaign has been his approach to the state’s three-strikes law, with his two Republican opponents seeking to cast him as being soft on crime.

Cooley defends his policy of generally not pursuing life sentences for relatively minor offenses, saying that justice requires that the punishment should fit the crime. His approach has won widespread support during three successful election campaigns for district attorney but has also drawn fire from critics who say his policy fails to adequately protect society from repeat offenders.

One of the clearest examples of the risks involved is the case of Gilton Beltrand Pitre, a convicted rapist who in 2007 went on to kill a homeless teenage girl whose body was dumped in a Silver Lake alley.

Pitre was found guilty of her murder last month and details of his criminal history were laid out in a court record filed by prosecutors last week.

Two years before the murder, Pitre had been eligible for prosecution under the state’s “three-strikes” law when he was charged with a felony for selling $5 worth of marijuana to an undercover police officer. His two strikes included a 1994 residential burglary and a 1996 rape.

Under the law, prosecutors could have sought a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. Instead, Pitre was allowed to plead guilty to a drug crime in exchange for a 32-month prison sentence, court records show.

Alyssa Gomez, 15, was killed four days after Pitre was released from prison. Prosecutors say Pitre visited the Olive Motel on Sunset Boulevard with the teenage runaway, who had been living on the streets since she was 12.

Her lifeless body, wrapped in a bedspread from the motel, was discovered the next morning in an alley behind a restaurant. Prosecutors said Pitre had sex with the girl and then strangled her.

Pitre, 38, was scheduled to be sentenced for the girl’s murder on Thursday but the hearing was postponed until July 14.

Head Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael A. Yglecias defended the office’s handling of the 2005 drug case. He said the 32-month prison sentence was appropriate given the relatively minor nature of that crime.

Yglecias noted that Pitre’s rape conviction was at the time the only violent crime in his background. Prosecutors, he said, consider not just the office’s policy when they decide how to pursue a case but also whether a judge would probably impose a potential life sentence for such a crime.

“The overriding feature in this case was that it was a sale of $5 of marijuana,” he said. “That’s pretty much what dictated the outcome.”

A district attorney’s spokeswoman said Cooley declined to comment on Pitre’s case. But his campaign strategist, Kevin Spillane, said that Los Angeles County is among the state’s top three counties when it comes to convictions for three-strikes cases.

“The reality is that the D.A.’s office is aggressive about pursuing three-strikes cases,” Spillane said. “Tens of thousands of criminals go through the D.A.’s office. It’s always easy to find someone who recommits.”

Mike Reynolds, who helped draft the 1994 three-strikes law after the murder of his 18-year-old daughter, blamed Cooley’s policy for the decision not to seek a longer sentence for Pitre.

Although district attorneys around the state are typically cautious about seeking possible life sentences for eligible third-strikers accused of relatively minor crimes, Reynolds said Cooley’s policy goes too far. He said Pitre’s rape conviction provided compelling evidence that he was a danger to society.

“You’re literally playing Russian roulette politically with every one of these guys that you let out,” said Reynolds, who has endorsed state Sen. Tom Harman of Huntington Beach in the June 8 primary race with Cooley and former law school dean John Eastman.

Under the three-strikes law, a judge can sentence an offender to 25 years to life in prison even for a nonviolent felony, such as petty theft or drug possession, as long as the offender’s criminal history includes at least two violent or serious crimes.

It is unclear from the court file whether the prosecutor who oversaw Pitre’s 2005 plea bargain realized he was eligible for a three-strikes sentence. Deputy Dist. Atty. Marlene Sanchez did not return calls seeking comment.

Under Cooley’s policy, prosecutors can seek permission from supervisors to pursue a third-strike sentence even for a minor felony. Yglecias said that was not done in Pitre’s case and that such requests are usually granted when offenders have lengthier criminal records.

“While the three-strikes law gives us a great tool … the present crime has to have the most weight,” Yglecias said. “If not, then we would be talking about the other extreme. Why is the D.A.’s office seeking 25 years to life against a guy who stole a slice of pizza? … There has to be a balance.”

Pitre’s strikes began with the burglary of his mother’s home, when he stole a television set that he sold for $40 to support a cocaine habit, according to a sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors last week in the murder case. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

Two years later, in 1996, Pitre attacked his roommate and began strangling her with the cord from some Venetian blinds, according to a memo.

Pitre told the victim he was going to rape and kill her and that he had killed before, the memo said. He took her to a bathtub that he had filled with water and said she could choose whether she wanted to be choked or drowned. Then he raped and sodomized her.

After the attack, Pitre told the victim he planned to kill her so he would not have to go to jail. The victim dissuaded him by feigning a romantic interest and reminding him she had a young daughter, the memo said.

Pitre pleaded no contest to rape and was sentenced to three years in prison.

In the murder case, the district attorney’s office highlighted details about the rape to argue in court papers that Pitre is a “violent, predatory recidivist who falls squarely within the spirit of the three-strikes law.”

jack.leonard@latimes.com

richard.winton@latimes.com

Dec. 26 (UPI) — The Thai military advanced on Cambodia’s Banteay Meanchey Province on Friday morning after carrying out air strikes as the two nations continue negotiating a possible cease-fire.

Thai tanks, armored vehicles and infantry advanced into Chouk Chey Village in the O’Chrov District of Banteay Meanchey Province, which is located in northwestern Cambodia and along its border with Thailand, the Khmer Times reported.

Thai F-16 fighter jets dropped about 40 bombs onto the area from 6:08 a.m. local time to 7:15 before the Thai military’s ground forces advanced into it.

The air strikes were done “in the most ruthless and inhumane manner” as they destroyed public infrastructure, civilians’ homes and private property, Cambodian Defense Ministry spokeswoman Lt. Gen. Maly Socheata said.

“The brutal actions above are indiscriminate attacks by the Thai military,” Socheata said.

She called the attacks a “serious violation of international humanitarian law” and said the Cambodian military continues to perform its duties to defend the nation’s territories.

“We will protect our dignity with courage and unwavering resolve, at any cost, and without succumbing to coercion or intimidation in any form,” Socheata said.

Thai Air Force officials denied attacking civilians and their homes, and told the BBC that they struck a “fortified military position” after civilians evacuated the area.

Friday’s military actions were intended to give Thailand control of the village of Nong Chan.

Meanwhile, respective Cambodian and Thai negotiators continue discussing a potential cease-fire while meeting at a border checkpoint for a third day and are scheduled to meet again on Saturday.

Fighting between the two nations resumed earlier in December despite agreeing to a cease-fire in July amid border disputes dating back to the early 20th century.

At least 41 have died and about a million more are displaced since the fighting resumed this month along the 500-mile border separating the two nations.

The hostilities started in May when a Cambodian soldier was killed during a clash between the opposing forces and escalated when the Cambodian military fired rockets into Thailand on July 24.

Chinese and U.S. officials each have tried to mediate a lasting peace in the matter.

Dec. 26 (UPI) — Nigerian President Bola Tinubu gave the U.S. government the “go-ahead” to carry out airstrikes on ISIS targets, Nigeria’s foreign minister said Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the strikes Thursday, calling them retaliation against “ISIS terrorist scum” for violence on “primarily, innocent Christians.”

Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar told Al Jazeera the country cooperated with the U.S. Defense Department on the “fight against terrorism” in the northwestern region.

Citing local news sources, the news outlet said at least one missile landed in the village of Jabo in Sokoto state. Residents told Al Jazeera there were no casualties in the village.

“The bomb fell and burst into many pieces. There were two big pieces of debris. One of them was carried by two people,” resident Abdulrahman Mainasara said.

Resident Ismail Umar told the outlet the village hadn’t received any armed attacks from ISIS in more than two years.

Tuggar said the Nigerian government provided intelligence to the U.S. government, and he spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the phone twice before the strikes. He added that Tinubu was also involved in the decision-making process.

“Now that the U.S. is cooperating, we would do it jointly, and we would ensure, just as the [Nigerian] president emphasized yesterday before he gave the go-ahead, that it must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other,” Tuggar said in an appearance on Channels Television‘s Sunrise Daily program.

Tuggar and other officials, though, took issue with Trump’s rhetoric saying that ISIS violence targets only Christians in Nigeria.

“We are a multi-religious country, and we are working with partners like the U.S. to fight terrorism and safeguard the lives and properties of Nigerians,” Tuggar said.

Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, the director of the non-profit organization Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, said suggestions that ISIS is primarily targeting people based on religion could incite ethnic and religious tensions in Nigeria.

“Muslims are being killed and harassed every day by the same criminals,” Rafsanjani said, according to the local news outlet Leadership. “This conversation should be about human life, not religion or geography.”

Drone attacks hit fuel market in city that serves as headquarters for RSF’s alternative government.

Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group says the country’s army struck a fuel market in the city of Nyala, the RSF’s administrative capital, as part of an intensified aerial campaign against its positions in South Darfur.

For three consecutive days ending Thursday, military drones and warplanes pounded strategic RSF sites across Nyala, including the international airport, military positions and training facilities.

The strike on the fuel market triggered a huge blaze as barrels of fuel exploded, according to footage circulated on social media, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the air.

Youssef Idris Youssef, who heads the RSF’s civil administration in South Darfur, accused the army of deliberately targeting civilians. He described the attack as part of “a systematic policy” to punish Darfur residents for not resisting the RSF presence in their communities.

The Sudanese military has not issued any statement regarding the strikes.

Casualties were reported among both civilians and RSF members involved in the fuel trade.

In the aftermath, RSF intelligence services conducted mass arrests near the targeted site and Nyala’s main market, detaining civilians and military personnel on accusations of providing coordinates to the army, according to local sources.

Nyala holds particular strategic importance as the seat of the RSF’s parallel government, known as TASIS, which the group declared in July. Led by RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, the alternative administration has been widely condemned as possibly fracturing Sudan, but controls significant territory across Darfur.

The city was struck by the army in October when it targeted the RSF and Nyala airport, which has been reportedly used by the RSF as a logistics hub for its forces.

Fighting continues across Darfur

Fighting has raged across Darfur since the RSF captured el-Fasher in October, an offensive marked by atrocities documented by rights groups.

The United States has said the RSF has committed genocide in Darfur.

This week, the RSF announced it had seized the Abu Qumra region in North Darfur and claimed advances towards Um Buru, though joint forces allied with the army disputed RSF assertions that they had also taken the town of Karnoi.

The attack on Nyala came just two days after Sudan’s prime minister, Kamil Idris, presented a peace proposal to the United Nations Security Council calling for RSF withdrawal from captured areas, disarmament in camps, and eventual elections.

The RSF rejected the plan, with spokesman Alaa el-Din Naqd telling Sudanese outlet Radio Dabanga it amounted to “wishful thinking”.

Sudan’s de facto leader, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was in Ankara for talks on Thursday with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at which Erdogan expressed his support for peace efforts and his opposition to dividing Sudan.

Hours earlier, a senior official in Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council ruled out any negotiations, declaring there could be “no truce and no negotiation with an occupier”.

The war, which erupted in April 2023, has killed more than 100,000 people and displaced nearly 14 million, in what the UN describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Since the RSF seized el-Fasher – the last major army stronghold in Darfur – the conflict has shifted to Central Kordofan, splitting Sudan between territories controlled by the military and the RSF.

Four members of the advocacy group Palestine Action have pledged this week to continue their hunger strike amid grave medical warnings and the hospitalisations of their fellow protesters.

The group’s members are being held in five prisons in the United Kingdom over alleged involvement in break-ins at a facility of the UK’s subsidiary of the Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems in Bristol and a Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire. They are protesting for better conditions in prison, rights to a fair trial, and for the UK to change a July policy listing the movement as a “terror” group.

Palestine Action denies charges of “violent disorder” and others against the eight detainees. Relatives and loved ones told Al Jazeera of the members’ deteriorating health amid the hunger strikes, which have led to repeated hospital admissions. Lawyers representing the detainees have revealed plans to sue the government.

The case has brought international attention to the UK’s treatment of groups standing in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Thousands of people have rallied in support of Palestine Action every week.

Hunger strikes have been used throughout history as an extreme, non-violent way of seeking justice. Their effectiveness often lies in the moral weight they place upon those in power.

Historical records trace hunger strikes back to ancient India and Ireland, where people would fast at the doorstep of an offender to publicly shame them. However, they have also proved powerful as political statements in the present day.

Here are some of the most famous hunger strikes in recent world history:

Irish Republican Movement hunger strikes

Some of the most significant hunger strikes in the 20th century occurred during the Irish revolutionary period, or the Troubles. The first wave was the 1920 Cork hunger strike, during the Irish War of Independence. Some 65 people suspected of being Republicans had been held without proper trial proceedings at the Cork County Gaol.

They began a hunger strike, demanding their release and asking to be treated as political prisoners rather than criminals. They were joined by Terence MacSwiney, the lord mayor of Cork, whose profile brought significant international attention to the independence cause. The British government attempted to break up the movement by transferring the prisoners to other locations, but their fasts continued. At least three prisoners died, including MacSwiney, after 74 days.

Later on, towards the end of the conflict and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, imprisoned Irish Republicans protested against their internment and the withdrawal of political prisoner status that stripped them of certain rights: the right to wear civilian clothes, or to not be forced into labour.

They began the “dirty protest” in 1980, refusing to have a bath and covering walls in excrement. In 1981, scores of people refused to eat. The most prominent among them was Bobby Sands, an IRA member who was elected as a representative to the British Parliament while he was still in jail. Sands eventually starved to death, along with nine others, during that period, leading to widespread criticism of the Margaret Thatcher administration.

India’s Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was later popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, used hunger strikes as a tool of protest against the British colonial rulers several times. His fasts, referred to as Satyagraha, meaning holding on to truth in Hindi, were considered by the politician and activist not only as a political act but also a spiritual one.

Gandhi’s strikes sometimes lasted for days or weeks, during which he largely sipped water, sometimes with some lime juice. They achieved mixed results – sometimes, the British policy changed, but at other times, there were no improvements. Gandhi, however, philosophised in his many writings that the act was not a coercive one for him, but rather an attempt at personal atonement and to educate the public.

One of Gandhi’s most significant hunger strikes was in February 1943, after British authorities placed him under house arrest in Pune for starting the Quit India Movement back in August 1942. Gandhi protested against the mass arrests of Congress leaders and demanded the release of prisoners by refusing food for 21 days. It intensified public support for independence and prompted unrest around the country, as workers stayed away from work and people poured out into the streets in protest.

Another popular figure who used hunger strikes to protest against British rule in colonial India was Jatindra Nath Das, better known as Jatin Das. A member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, Das refused food while in detention for 63 days starting from August 1929, in protest against the poor treatment of political prisoners. He died at the age of 24, and his funeral attracted more than 500,000 mourners.

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons

Palestinians held, often without trial, in Israeli jails have long used hunger strikes as a form of protest. One of the most well-known figures is Khader Adnan, whose shocking death in May 2023 after an 86-day hunger strike drew global attention to the appalling treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government.

Adnan, who was 45 when he starved to death at the Ayalon Prison, leaving behind nine children, had repeatedly been targeted by Israeli authorities since the early 2000s. The baker from the occupied West Bank had once been part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group as a spokesperson, although his wife later stated publicly that he had left the group and that he had never been involved in armed operations.

However, Adnan was arrested and held without trial multiple times, with some estimates stating that he spent a cumulative eight years in Israeli prisons. Adnan would often go on hunger strike during those detentions, protesting against what he said was usually a humiliating arrest and a detention without basis. In 2012, thousands in Gaza and the West Bank rallied in a non-partisan show of support after he went 66 days without food, the longest such strike in Palestinian history at the time. He was released days after the mass protests.

In February 2023, Adnan was once again arrested. He immediately began a hunger strike, refusing to eat, drink, or receive medical care. He was held for months, even as medical experts warned the Israeli government that he had lost significant muscle mass and had reached a point where eating would cause more damage than good. On the morning of May 2, Adnan was found dead in his cell, making him the first Palestinian prisoner to die in a hunger strike in three decades. Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti described his death as an “assassination” by the Israeli government.

Hunger strikes at Guantanamo

Following the 2002 opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of the United States in Cuba, where hundreds of “terror” suspects were held prisoners, often with no formal charges, they used hunger strikes in waves to protest against their detention. The camp is notorious for its inhumane conditions and prisoner torture. There were 15 detainees left by January 2025.

The secret nature of the prison prevented news of earlier hunger strikes from emerging. However, in 2005, US media reported mass hunger strikes by scores of detainees – at least 200 prisoners, or a third of the camp’s population.

Officials forcefully fed those whose health had severely deteriorated through nasal tubes. Others were cuffed daily, restrained, and force-fed. One detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene, later wrote that he went without a real meal for two years, but that he was forcefully fed twice a day: he was strapped down in a restraining chair that inmates called the “torture chair”, and a tube was inserted in his nose and another in his stomach. His lawyer also told reporters that his face was usually masked, and that when one side of his nose was broken one time, they stuck the tube in the other side, his lawyer said. Sometimes, the food got into his lungs.

Hunger strikes would continue intermittently through the years at Guantanamo. In 2013, another big wave of strikes began, with at least 106 of the remaining 166 detainees participating by July. Authorities force-fed 45 people at the time. One striker, Jihad Ahmed Mustafa Dhiab, filed for an injunction against the government to stop officials from force-feeding him, but a court in Washington, DC rejected his lawsuit.

Protests against apartheid South Africa

Black and Indian political prisoners held for years on Robben Island protested against their brutal conditions by going on a collective hunger strike in July 1966. The detainees, including Nelson Mandela, had been facing reduced food rations and were forced to work in a lime quarry, despite not being criminals. They were also angry at attempts to separate them along racial lines.

In his 1994 biography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote that prison authorities began serving bigger rations, even accompanying the food with more vegetables and hunks of meat to try to break the strike. Prison wardens smiled as the prisoners rejected the food, he wrote, and the men were driven especially hard at the quarry. Many would collapse under the intensity of the work and the hunger, but the strikes continued.

A crucial plot twist began when prison wardens, whom Mandela and other political prisoners had taken extra care to befriend, began hunger strikes of their own, demanding better living conditions and food for themselves. Authorities were forced to immediately settle with the prison guards and, a day later, negotiate with the prisoners. The strike lasted about seven days.

Later, in May 2017, South Africans, including the then Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was imprisoned in a different facility during apartheid, supported hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners by participating in a collective one-day fast. At the time, late Robben Island veteran Sunny “King” Singh wrote in the South African paper Sunday Tribune that hunger strikes in the prison never lasted more than a week before things changed, and compared it with the protracted situation of Palestinian strikers.

“We were beaten by our captors but never experienced the type of abuse and torture that some of the Palestinian prisoners complain of,” he wrote. “It was rare that we were put in solitary confinement, but this seems commonplace in Israeli jails.”

Jordan’s military said the attacks ‘neutralised arms and drug traffickers’ and destroyed their laboratories and factories.

Jordan’s military has launched strikes on drug and weapons smugglers in the country’s northern border regions with Syria, targeting sites used as “launch points” by trafficking groups into Jordanian territory, according to reports.

The Jordan News Agency, Petra, said the strikes on Wednesday “neutralised a number of arms and drug traffickers who organise weapons and narcotics smuggling operations along the northern border of the Kingdom”.

Jordan’s armed forces destroyed “factories and workshops” used by the trafficking groups, Petra reports, adding that the attacks were carried out based on “precise intelligence” and in coordination with regional partners.

The Jordanian military did not name the partner countries involved in the strikes but warned that it would “continue to counter any threats with force at the appropriate time and place”, Petra said.

Syrian state broadcaster Al-Ikhbariah TV reported on its Telegram channel that the Jordanian army had carried out air strikes on locations in the southern and eastern countryside of Syria’s Suwayda governorate.

A resident of Syria’s Suwayda border region told the AFP news agency that the bombardment “was extremely intense and targeted farms and smuggling routes”, while the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said jets and helicopters had reportedly taken part in the raid.

The observatory said photos taken at the scene of the attacks showed destruction at an abandoned military barracks of the former al-Assad regime in Suwayda.

There were no initial reports of casualties from the Jordanian attacks and no official comment from authorities in Damascus.

A farm believed to have been used for storing drugs was among the targets, according to the Zaman Al Wasl online news site, which also reported that similar Jordanian attacks had been carried out previously in a bid to stem the flow of captagon – an addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant.

Before the removal of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, captagon had become the regime’s largest export and key source of funding amid the country’s years of grinding civil war.

Produced in vast quantities in Syria, the synthetic drug flooded the region, particularly the Gulf states, prompting neighbouring countries to announce seizures and call on both Lebanon and Damascus to ramp up efforts to combat the trade.

Although Damascus denied any involvement in the drug trade, analysts estimated that production and smuggling of captagon brought in billions of dollars for al-Assad, his associates and allies as they looked for an economic lifeline amid the civil war, which was fought between 2011 and the regime’s toppling last year.