Iranian fans in Tehran watched their team secure a 0-0 draw against Belgium at the World Cup in Los Angeles, keeping hope alive for an unprecedented chance at the second round. Iran competes under strict US travel restrictions, which forced them to fly back to Mexico within hours of the draw, rather than remaining overnight for recovery.
Published On 22 Jun 202622 Jun 2026
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However, after Iran’s statement, US Central Command (Centcom) spokesperson Tim Hawkins said “traffic continues to flow”. He said US forces were “monitoring the situation to ensure this remains the case”, adding that “Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz”.
Iranian deputy foreign minister says Iran ‘ready to move forward’ on diplomacy with US, but war must end on all fronts.
Published On 20 Jun 202620 Jun 2026
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WASHINGTON — The White House pushed back Thursday against growing bipartisan criticism of a negotiated settlement to the war with Iran, arguing its concessions to the Islamic Republic were contingent on its conduct and essential to securing peace.
The administration’s defensive posture came as details of the framework agreement, known as a memorandum of understanding, were finally shared with the public, revealing a raft of compromises with Tehran long opposed by Republicans.
Vice President JD Vance, who helped negotiate the deal, told reporters Thursday that the deal was structured to reward Iran for good behavior. But the text of the agreement suggests otherwise.
The Trump administration agreed to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets that were frozen and restricted by the United States “upon the implementation” of the memorandum — before any further actions are taken or additional negotiations begin. The president will issue sanctions waivers on Iranian oil, allowing Tehran to resume trading its most valuable export and breaking with decades of policy. And to facilitate that trade, boosting Tehran’s revenues, Trump agreed to immediately end a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Still more concessions were offered to the Iranians, including a commitment by the U.S. administration to establish a fund of “at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic” — in effect providing reparations for the war Trump started.
“All required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America,” the memorandum reads.
Taken together, the document reads as a stunning reversal of U.S. policy toward Iran after decades of concern across administrations in Washington — including throughout Trump’s two terms — that the Islamic Republic represents the nation’s greatest security threats as the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.
Criticism from Republican senators, in particular, has been sharp and swift.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the $300-billion fund “would make Iran’s payoff under President Obama’s 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison.” And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) accused the Trump administration of giving Iran money it would use to kill Americans.
“History demonstrates that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is an exceptionally bad idea, and I think, unfortunately, the president is receiving some really bad advice on this deal,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to see us send a penny to the ayatollah. And I hope that we don’t.”
The Obama-era deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, included structured sanctions relief for Iran in exchange for concrete and verifiable steps by Tehran to dismantle much of its nuclear program — a framework that Republicans broadly criticized at the time.
By contrast, Trump’s agreement commits the United States to pursuing economic relief for Iran while providing no clarity about the future of Iran’s nuclear program — the very issue Trump cited as the rationale for launching the war.
The memorandum includes a pledge by Iran to never purchase or construct nuclear weapons — a vow the Islamic Republic has made multiple times before, including by signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in a religious edict issued by the late supreme leader and in the Obama-era nuclear accord.
Vice President JD Vance speaks to reporters at the White House on June 18, 2026.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)
Detailed negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program — including whether Tehran could continue domestic uranium enrichment, at what level, and under what monitoring regime — were left for another day.
For more than a decade, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran sought a threshold nuclear capability, securing the strategic advantages of a nuclear power without incurring the costs of openly pursuing a bomb.
The agreement does include a commitment by Iran to do its “best” to bring commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital international waterway, back to prewar levels. But critics of the president said he had to make deep, historic concessions just to secure a status quo ante upended by the war he started. And in the document, Tehran agreed to refrain from imposing a toll on ships transiting the strait for only a 60-day period.
“Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, told reporters this week.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, Kennedy’s Republican counterpart from Louisiana, called the deal “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades” that would have President Reagan “rolling over in his grave.”
“Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal,” Cassidy said.
“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive,” he added. “Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.”
Despite mounting criticism, Trump put his signature to the memorandum on Wednesday night while attending a dinner with the French president in Versailles, a palace infamous for hosting a treaty signing that disgraced Germany at the end of the First World War.
He defended the agreement while in Europe and suggested further concessions might be forthcoming, including recognition of Iran’s claimed right to enrich uranium and a new willingness to tolerate its continued ballistic missile development — another program that Trump had vowed to eliminate as a central war aim.
“He took America to war — killing 13 soldiers, thousands of Iranian civilians and costing taxpayers $60 billion — to get rid of Iran’s missile program. And now that he’s lost the war, he pretends like it’s no big deal,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.
“Just unforgivable,” he added. “What a charlatan.”
Under the MOU, an initial 60-day negotiation period, which can be extended, will begin once the preliminary agreement is signed.
Published On 17 Jun 202617 Jun 2026
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has said that the signing of a memorandum of understanding in Switzerland, expected to take place on Friday, could take place in the presence of President Masoud Pezeshkian and Donald Trump.
Previously, Iran had said that Washington and Tehran would be represented by Vice President JD Vance and Parliament Speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, respectively.
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On Wednesday, ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters that Iran’s plans “for the Swiss summit have not changed”.
“Regarding the manner of signing the memorandum of understanding, one of the ideas is for it to be done by the presidents of the two countries, which is currently being considered,” he added.
Speaking at the G7 summit in France earlier, Trump said he expected the agreement with Iran to be signed “shortly” without specifying the exact date.
“The deal we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed shortly, tomorrow [Thursday], maybe the next day [Friday],” Trump told a news conference after previous announcements that it would be signed on Friday in Switzerland.
In a statement, Baghaei added that maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will be restored to normal within a defined timeframe, while insisting that outside powers will have no role in the process and that managing that process would be handled by Iran alone.
“This is our own task, and we alone will do it, and there will be no need for participation or intervention from other parties,” he stated.
“Iran and Oman will cooperate to develop a mechanism for managing the Strait of Hormuz, and we will exchange views with other countries in the region wherever necessary.
He said that Iran and the US agreed to “negotiate a final agreement within 60 days”, adding that the naval blockade “must end within 30 days.
A senior US official, briefing reporters on Wednesday, said the MOU establishes a new “minimum” threshold for downblending Iran’s stock of highly enriched uranium and contains measures aimed at safeguarding Lebanon’s “territorial integrity” following Israel’s latest strikes on Hezbollah inside the country.
In exchange, Washington would move to waive, though not fully lift, some of its broad sanctions on Iran once the agreement is signed.
The US-drafted text also guarantees toll-free transit through the Strait of Hormuz for a period of just 60 days, and leaves open the possibility that transit fees could be imposed later, the official added on condition of anonymity.
The US-Iran memorandum of understanding expected to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday could allow for the establishment of a $300bn investment fund for Iran, as part of a broader settlement to end the war that triggered a global energy crisis and upended markets worldwide.
US Vice President JD Vance told CBS News on Monday that the incentives would be connected to Iran’s “performance” in adhering to the deal, which was digitally signed by both sides on Sunday.
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The scale of the financial incentives grabbed the headlines due to US President Donald Trump’s longstanding criticism of a 2015 nuclear accord that he claimed delivered economic benefits to Tehran.
In a bid to manage perceptions around this politically sensitive issue, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to claim that “the story that the US is paying Iran 300 million Dollars is Fake News,” while Vance told CBS News that the money would not be a US payout in exchange for Iran’s enriched uranium.
“When people say that billions of dollars of assets will be released, that’s not true,” the vice president told the CBS Morning programme. “What is true is that Iran will have a much better and much more prosperous future if they meet the obligations they make in this agreement.”
Vance said the deal “fundamentally extends a hand to Iran and says, ‘Look, if you guys are willing to honour your obligations, if you’re willing to allow real inspections of your nuclear programme, then we will welcome you back into the world economy.’
“That’s the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast coalition, so long as they honour their end of the obligation,” Vance told CBS. He also claimed that while US money would not be injected, economic opportunities could arise once Iran repositions itself in the global economy.
The New York Times quoted sources saying the fund would not come from governments but be created for companies eager to invest in Iran.
Muhanad Seloom, a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said the setup was a no-lose solution for Washington. “If Iran reforms, the administration owns the peace; if it doesn’t, the US loses nothing and the Gulf carries the risk,” he told Al Jazeera.
Seloom said the idea of an investment fund was built precisely to escape the optics of releasing Iran’s frozen funds. While the exact amount of Iran’s frozen assets is unclear, official Iranian reports and experts have set the total amount at more than $100bn.
Iran’s economy has been crippled due to years of sanctions imposed on the country by the United States and other nations following the Islamic revolution in 1979, and then amplified over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programmes. These measures have restricted Tehran’s ability to access its own assets, such as revenues from oil sales, which have been frozen in foreign banks.
Tehran was granted sanctions relief in the wake of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama, but Trump tore it up in 2018 during his first term. The 2015 deal had put limits on Iran’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran’s state-affiliated Mehr News agency reported on Sunday that the 14-point draft memorandum of understanding provided for the release of $24bn in frozen Iranian assets.
Pressed by CBS News on the possibility of releasing frozen funds, Vance said the $24bn figure “just doesn’t appear anywhere in any of the texts that we’ve talked about with the Iranians”.
“What we have said is that we’re willing to talk about unfreezing assets, but a much, much bigger deal is unsanctioning their economy – so long as they make the long-term commitments on the nuclear programme,” the vice president added.
For Iran, where the war inflicted an estimated $29bn damage and the population is struggling with the highest inflation rate since 1942, the investment fund may constitute a much-needed lifeline.
But the optics will not be as favourable, raising a “dignity problem”, Seloom said. “Tehran reads this as supervised, conditional money rather than sovereign relief,” the analyst told Al Jazeera.
One of the US’s main declared objectives has been to assuage concerns surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, including a stockpile of more than 440kg (970lbs) of enriched uranium.
The memorandum extends an existing ceasefire arrangement for another 60 days, during which the two sides are expected to hold further negotiations on issues including the disposal of the enriched uranium.
Vance said Tehran had agreed to surrender its stockpile, undergo regular inspections and refrain from producing or buying nuclear weapons, but the full text of the memorandum of understanding has yet to be disclosed.
The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which has been subject to competing blockades by the US and Iran, has also been a point of contention. Trump suggested an agreement to reopen the waterway had been reached when he announced a deal on Sunday with the words: “Let the oil flow!”
Speaking to CNBC, however, Vance acknowledged that not all sticking points surrounding the passageway had been resolved. “Well, our expectation is that the strait is gonna be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re gonna figure out in these technical negotiations,” he said.
Israel’s ongoing aggression on Lebanon is also expected to create friction, as Iran has insisted any ceasefire deal must include the allied nation. Israel has so far rejected any arrangement that would limit its ability to strike what it says are Hezbollah targets. Defence Minister Israel Katz on Friday said the military would continue operating in Lebanon regardless of any agreement with Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the memorandum of understanding would reap economic benefits for Iran but stressed that Tehran would not rely on those benefits for all of its needs.
“We have a history of broken promises, non-compliance, and the tearing up of agreements,” Araghchi said on Monday, according to Press TV. He said discussions about the lifting of US sanctions and Iran’s nuclear programme would be held during a 60-day period of negotiations following the official signature on Friday.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, has yet to comment. Some Iranian observers objected to the timing of the announcement, which coincided with Trump’s birthday. Referring to the assassination of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the beginning of the US-Iran war, conservative journalist Parisa Nasr wrote on X: “Was giving a birthday gift to the killer of the martyred Leader also one of the unwritten conditions of the deal?”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had approved the deal so that “America’s genuine commitment to respecting the rights of the Iranian nation could be tested in practice.”
Speaking at the G7 summit in France on Tuesday, Trump described the deal with Iran as “fair”, “good”, and under which Iran “can’t have a nuclear weapon” or “they get blown up.”
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is also attending the summit, said the Iran-US agreement will result in positive outcomes for the region.
“This is a very important deal, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but with this momentum – if we continue like that, Mr President – I think we can achieve and do great things in the region,” Sheikh Tamim said.
US Democratic lawmakers welcomed a deal to halt the war with Iran but stressed that its terms must be made public. Senator Gregory Meeks said “any final agreement must be durable, enforceable, transparent” and more than “vague announcements or political spin”.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday said he was “pleased” about the deal but also “somewhat concerned that Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming”.
Seloom, at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said the different narratives underlined that the two sides were “not really talking to each other”. “They’re talking past each other, to domestic audiences,” he said. “Each side has to sell this as a victory it cannot sell honestly.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump said Sunday that the United States and Iran have reached a framework agreement to end the war in the Middle East, a breakthrough in months of negotiations aimed at ending the conflict.
The deal, described by diplomats as a memorandum of understanding, commits Tehran to forgo the development or acquisition of nuclear weapons in exchange for helping reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the paced release of its assets frozen overseas, upon the signing of the deal Friday in Switzerland.
Trump said he has also authorized “the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade” on Iranian imports.
“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” Trump wrote in a social media post Sunday evening. It was the president’s 80th birthday.
The full details of the agreement have not been released. Many details — including how Tehran would give up, destroy or dilute its fissile material, or whether Iran would continue treating the international strait as its sovereign waters — will continue to be negotiated in the coming days.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Sunday that mediators are planning to hold a series of meetings this week to “lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony.”
“We would like to thank the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran for their commitment to finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict,” Sharif wrote in a post on X.
The Associated Press reported that negotiations on outstanding issues like Iran’s nuclear program would continue over the next 60 days, according to two senior Pakistani officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that the White House is “still figuring out the logistics” on whether he or Trump will attend the signing ceremony.
“What we know is that we have a lot of work to do, but a very big win for the American people tonight,” Vance said.”We are just going to keep on working at it, keep on driving energy prices down, keep on ensuring that region of the world is less than a basket case and finally, and most importantly, celebrate, that we can say with confidence Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television but said Iran would not start implementing it until it was signed on Friday. He said the deal followed over 14 hours of talks in Tehran with a representative from Qatar, another mediator.
Iranian state TV showed a banner asserting: “US was forced to sign an agreement to end the war.”
Iran’s commitment to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons would simply repeat a vow Iran has made several times before, including in its signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its nuclear deal brokered with international powers under the Obama administration over 10 years ago.
Iran has 972 pounds of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Under the 2015 international agreement with Iran abandoned by the first Trump administration, Iran’s uranium enrichment was capped at less than 4%, monitored by IAEA inspectors.
The vagueness of the new agreement, the demand for further negotiations to flesh out its details, and the pacing of sanctions relief for Iran are all likely to draw criticism of the president, who launched his political career in 2015 by attacking President Obama’s newly signed nuclear deal as a historically bad agreement.
That deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, followed two years of painstaking negotiations that were predicated on a similar, yet more detailed framework, called the JCPOA.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a Sunday morning interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the the difference between the JCPOA and how the Trump administration is handling negotiations is the “threat of military force.”
“The huge difference is we did this from a position of strength,” Hegseth said. “That military might will stay as long as necessary.”
And, as in 2015, Israeli leadership across the political aisle remains deeply skeptical of the agreement, pronouncing they will not be bound by a deal to which they are not a party.
In a phone interview with the New York Times on Sunday afternoon, Trump called Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, a “very difficult guy.”
“To be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours,” Trump said.
Since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran that started the war Feb. 28, there have been 3,468 confirmed deaths in Iran, according to independent monitors. In addition, 13 U.S. service members have been killed, and the Israeli war with Hezbollah has killed 2,679 in Lebanon as well as 23 Israelis, including eight civilians.
The US president’s comments come as Iran says an exact date has not been decided, but it “will not be tomorrow”.
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Four activists from Palestine Action jailed by a British court over protest raid on Israeli arms firm in UK.
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June 12 (UPI) — Iran said it had yet to make a final decision on an agreement with the United States to end the war, despite U.S. President Donald Trump saying it was a done deal that could be signed as early as this weekend.
Speaking on Thursday night, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Tehran was reviewing a proposal brokered by Qatar and Pakistan but dismissed reports agreement had been reached as “speculation,” adding that “nothing has been finalized.”
“So far, Iran has not reached a final conclusion on the agreement. Whenever we reach a conclusion that the text of the [memorandum of] understanding is in the interest of the Iranian nation, we will announce it.
“The status of negotiations was clear to us from the beginning and a major part of the text had been finalized, but the Americans kept changing their positions,” said Baqaei who stressed Iran would never retreat from or compromise “on what it defines as its red lines.”
Baqaei’s comments came hours after Trump called off planned large-scale strikes against Iran, including Kharg Island, from which 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports are shipped, saying the Iranian leadership, and other regional powers, had approved “final points” of a deal to end the war.
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings against Iran this evening,” Trump said Thursday afternoon.
Trump later said the deal was “subject to finalization of documents, which should get done, over the next few days” and that there would “probably” be a signing ceremony, with Europe the most likely location.
The status of the Strait of Hormuz was also in contention with an announcement by U.S. Central Command that the key shipping route was not controlled by Iran and was “open for transit” to all vessels not in breach of the U.S. blockade of Iran, contradicted by Baqaei.
“The Strait of Hormuz remains closed due to illegal U.S. actions,” he said.
Trump has stated an agreement to end the fighting was imminent on multiple occasions since a cease-fire, originally for two weeks, came into force on April 28.
The deal being negotiated is a memorandum of understanding extending the cease-fire for 60 days to allow larger negotiations on the main issues, including Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and its nuclear program.
Oil prices reacted strongly to the developments overnight with both Brent crude, the international benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate, falling sharply in the global market. The Brent contract for August delivery was down $3.83 a barrel at $86.54 in mid-morning trade in London on Friday while American crude for July delivery was changing hands at $83.88 a barrel, down $3.83.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Trump threatened Thursday to launch major strikes on Iran and seize control of its oil industry as escalating attacks between the countries pushed the Middle East closer to the resumption of a full-scale war.
Trump said in a social media post that the U.S. would hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and would “assume total control” of Iran’s oil and gas industries, including the vital Kharg Island oil terminal, in the “not too distant future.”
The American leader’s latest threats came as efforts to negotiate an end to the war appeared stuck. Trump has voiced his frustration with the stalled negotiations, warning earlier in the week that Tehran would “pay the price” for taking too long to reach a deal.
Iran’s monthslong stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted global energy supplies, driven up fuel prices and made food and other basics more expensive well beyond the region.
The U.S. and Iran traded strikes for a second straight day Thursday after reaching a tenuous ceasefire more than a month ago. While the strikes have increased tensions in the region, they have been more limited compared to the early weeks of the war and negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are ongoing.
Trump’s threats on Thursday, while stark, represented his latest verbal escalation in the Iran war. In April, he warned Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if it didn’t agree to his terms, before extending a ceasefire.
Kharg Island — located on the other side of the Persian Gulf from U.S. bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — is the beating heart of Iran’s oil industry, through which 90% of its exports pass. It is important because Iran’s coastline is mostly too shallow for tanker ships to dock.
It was unclear how serious Trump was about his threat to seize it.
“My preference has always been to take Kharg Island,” Trump said in an interview Thursday on Fox News. “I don’t know that America has the stomach for it to be honest.”
American troops would be vulnerable on Kharg Island because of its close proximity — about 21 miles — to the Iranian mainland, from which missiles, drones and artillery could be fired.
Trump indicated in the interview that he remains averse to sending U.S. forces into Iran. “We could walk in there tomorrow. We could take soldiers — I don’t want to have boots on the ground. But if I wanted to we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the place.”
Trump compared his threat to take over Iran’s oil industry to how the U.S. assumed control of Venezuela’s oil sector after capturing then-president Nicolás Maduro in January.
American strikes on Iran that lasted into Thursday morning appeared more intense and widespread than the day before.
Tehran released little information on the extent of the damage and said it fired back at Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, as it had the previous day.
It was the third time this week that back-and-forth strikes have rattled the Middle East. The first involved attacks between Iran and Israel, followed by the two rounds of fire between the U.S. and Iran, which hit countries in the region that host American bases.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that the U.S. attacks had “effectively rendered the ceasefire … meaningless,” without saying it was abandoning it.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post that the U.S. would extract funds from frozen Iranian accounts to offset the costs of damage to American allies as well as any tolls Iran imposes on ships seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Beyond the deadlock over the strait, the two sides also remain at odds over Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran insists is peaceful but which the U.S. and Israel fear could be used to build an atomic weapon due to its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. The U.S. and Israel said a major reason they went to war on Feb. 28 was to ensure that Iran would never be able to do that.
Iran has insisted that any deal to end the war must also end fighting in Lebanon between its ally Hezbollah and Israel. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears intent on pursuing his goal of destroying the militant group.
Central Command said its latest round of airstrikes came “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression” and targeted “Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites.” It did not elaborate on the damage done by the strikes, which it said ended just before sunrise Thursday in Iran.
Explosions from the strikes echoed around Iran’s capital, as well as the port city of Bandar Abbas and other southern areas along the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard later said sites hit included a manufacturing complex, a military barracks and a local Guard base outside of Tehran.
Kuwait closed its airspace for several hours because of the attack, but did not elaborate on any damage. Jordan said it intercepted 20 Iranian missiles fired toward an area that is home to a base hosting U.S. troops, though no one was hurt.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said an 11-year-old girl was hurt and cars and homes were damaged by debris from interceptions responding to the Iranian attack.
Meanwhile, Israel warned residents in the country’s north to seek shelter after the detection of suspected incoming fire from Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the Iran-allied Hezbollah militant group.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said Thursday that it struck a Guinea-Bissau-flagged tanker attempting to evade the American blockade on Iranian ports. It said the M/T Jalveer was transporting Iranian oil when it was disabled late Wednesday after its crew failed to obey U.S. orders.
It’s the ninth merchant vessel the U.S. military says it disabled to enforce the blockade.
Three Indian sailors were killed when American forces struck the Palau-flagged M/T Settebello on Tuesday, India’s minister overseeing ports and shipping said Thursday on X.
U.S. Central Command said American forces issued warnings before firing on the ship, which it accused of trying to evade the blockade.
The leader of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, condemned the attack.
Gambrell and Madhani write for the Associated Press. Madhani reported from Washington. AP writers Will Weissert, Collin Binkley, Michelle L. Price and Konstantin Toropin in Washington; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Victoria Eastwood in Cairo and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Ga., contributed to this report.
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
Explosions hit Qeshm Island, ports along Strait of Hormuz after Trump threatens to hit Iran ‘very hard’.
Published On 10 Jun 202610 Jun 2026
The United States has launched fresh strikes against “multiple targets” in Iran at President Donald Trump’s direction, in a fresh escalation that prompted Tehran to declare the Strait of Hormuz closed to “all types of vessels”.
The US military said the strikes late on Wednesday were “in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression”, as Iranian state media reported explosions on Qeshm Island and in the cities of Bandar Abbas and Sirik along the Strait of Hormuz.
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Blasts also hit the southern city of Kargan, wounding at least two people.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused the US of “repeated violations” of their April ceasefire, and said the Strait of Hormuz was “closed until further notice”.
It said all traffic in the vital waterway, including oil tankers and commercial vessels, would be affected, and firmly rejected the US’s previous claims that it had helped ships pass through the strait.
The IRGC subsequently added that “two oil tankers attempting to illegally pass through the strait were hit”.
The escalation comes a day after the US and Iran exchanged tit-for-tat strikes over the downing of a US Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz.
Earlier, Trump said the US would hit Iran “very hard”.
“We’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal. But they keep stringing us along. They keep playing us for suckers because you know what? They dealt with some very stupid presidents. I have to say that I’m embarrassed to say it,” he told reporters at the White House.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian slammed Trump’s threat in a post on X.
“Critical infrastructures are the lifeblood of the people. Threats to target them – from transportation networks to the electricity and water industries – are not a show of strength but a sign of desperation in the face of a nation’s will,” he wrote.
“Iran, relying on the knowledge and capabilities of its specialists, national unity, and solidarity, will stand firm against any pressure or threat,” he added.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the toll from Israeli attacks on the country since March 2 has reached 3,666 dead.
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Escalation comes after Israel attacked Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, killing at least two people and wounding 20.
Published On 8 Jun 20268 Jun 2026
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Iran and Israel exchanged threats after Tehran launched missiles towards Israel in response to Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs. Israel vowed to deepen attacks on Lebanon, while Iran warned of further action if the strikes continue.
Published On 8 Jun 20268 Jun 2026
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Iranian state TV broadcast scenes of celebration in Tehran as missiles flew overhead en route to Israel. Iran says the launch was retaliation for Israel’s earlier attack in Beirut, and other US-Israeli ceasefire breaches.
Published On 7 Jun 20267 Jun 2026
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Israel strikes Lebanon despite ceasefire, while Hezbollah rejects deal as death toll tops 3,500.
Published On 5 Jun 20265 Jun 2026
Israel has continued to carry out deadly strikes across Lebanon despite the announcement of a new US-brokered ceasefire agreement reached by Lebanese and Israeli officials in Washington, DC.
The violence has pushed the number of casualties higher, with Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reporting that at least 3,526 people have been killed and 10,733 wounded in Israeli attacks since March 2.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem has dismissed the ceasefire as a “farce”, warning that northern Israel will remain a target as long as Israeli forces continue bombing Lebanon, raising more doubts about the prospects for a lasting truce.
Here is what we know:
PARIS — Acclaimed Iranian-French cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, a prominent advocate for women’s rights, has died at 56, the French presidency said Thursday.
“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure of French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” the French presidency said in a statement.
President Emmanuel Macron and his wife “pay tribute to a remarkable artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable,” the statement said.
News broadcaster BFM TV and other French media reported Satrapi has “died of sadness” a little over a year after the death of her husband, Swedish film producer and actor Mattias Ripa, according to a statement from people close to the artist.
The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which she was a member, expressed its deep sadness in a social media statement, paying tribute to “a passionate advocate for cinema and film education” who earlier this year created a foundation to help international students come to Paris to study film.
Satrapi is best-known for her monochrome autobiographical comic book and film “Persepolis,” a coming-of-age tale set against the Islamic Revolution in her native Iran.
“Persepolis” won the Film Critics Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival in 2007 and the César Award for adapted screenplay in 2008, in addition to being nominated for animated feature at the 2008 Oscars.
The film, which details her life in Tehran as the willful daughter of intellectual Marxists, is a reminder that Iranians are just like everyone else, Satrapi told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview in Cannes.
“What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories,” she said.
Iranian authorities at the time protested the movie’s inclusion at Cannes, sending a letter to the French Embassy in Tehran.
Satrapi was born on Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, but her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria, in 1983 to finish her studies because of the extremism in their country following the 1979 Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.
But Satrapi, who found Austria hostile and who desperately missed her parents, returned to Iran in 1989 to attend Tehran University, where she earned a degree in visual communications.
By the time she graduated, Satrapi decided she finally was ready to leave Iran and accept the opportunities her parents had been so desperate to give her a decade before. In 1994 she moved to France. She studied in Strasbourg and later moved to Paris.
Her graphic novels also include “Broderies” (“Embroideries”) and “Poulet aux prunes” (“Chicken with plums”), which also was adapted into a film. As a filmmaker, she has directed several works including “La Bande des Jotas” (“The Gang of Jotas”) and “Radioactive” (“Madame Curie”), a biography about the Polish physicist Marie Curie.
Satrapi in 2023 coordinated the book “Femme, vie, liberté” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) together with a group of artists and academics to illustrate the revolts that occurred in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 at the hands of the so-called “morality police.” The work denounces the repression and lack of human rights that Iranian society, especially women, suffers at the hands of the Iranian regime, the foundation said.
Satrapi was elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2024. She also was offered France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor, that same year but declined it, arguing France was not doing enough to support Iranian people fighting for democracy.
“Supporting the women’s revolution in Iran cannot be reduced to photos or speeches,” she wrote in a January 2025 letter to French authorities. “When people are fighting for democracy, we should support them.”
In 2024, Satrapi won the Princess of Asturias Foundation award in Spain for communication and humanities. The organization said she was “an essential voice in the defense of human rights and freedom.” The judges described her as “a symbol of civic engagement led by women.”
Satrapi’s husband, Ripa, died in April 2025 at 53. On her Instagram page, only one message was left in a series of posts: “Because I have lost the love of my life.”
The US military says it carried out ‘self-defence’ strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island after Iran earlier launched missiles and drones at US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Despite the exchange, the US says the US-Iran ceasefire remains in effect.
Published On 3 Jun 20263 Jun 2026
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US President Donald Trump reportedly lashed out at Israeli PM Netanyahu during a phone call over Israel’s threat to strike Beirut’s suburbs.
Published On 3 Jun 20263 Jun 2026
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The US and Iran have agreed in principle to a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, in exchange for Tehran’s commitment to dispose of its highly enriched uranium, a US official said, according to a report by The New York Times on Sunday.
The official said that the agreement has not yet been signed and remains subject to final approval by US President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, a process that could take several days, noting that the method for disposing of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is still being negotiated.
The proposed deal does not address Iran’s missile stockpile nor include a moratorium on uranium enrichment, the official said, adding that these issues are expected to be handled in future rounds of talks.
According to a Fox News report on Sunday, the official suggested that the US could consider “significant accommodations” on sanctions relief if Iran agrees to make similar concessions regarding its enriched uranium stockpile.
READ: Iran ready to reassure world it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, president says
“Our plan is to deal with all of their stockpile of the enriched material,” the official said, adding that Washington sees Tehran making “serious accommodations” not previously seen in earlier negotiations, according to the report.
The official also rejected the idea of any “tolling” mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz, saying such an arrangement would not be acceptable and had not been proposed by either side, the report noted.
According to a separate CBS News report, the official said the administration views the emerging agreement as stronger than the 2015 nuclear deal reached under former US President Barack Obama, which allowed uranium enrichment up to certain levels.
As part of the agreement, the US would lift its blockade on vessels entering and leaving Iranian ports. The official said the US Central Command and Gulf partners would coordinate to ensure safe passage, stressing this should not be viewed as a toll system.
The official also said US Vice President JD Vance, Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have been involved in the talks, adding that Washington is seeking to include all regional allies in the process, the report added.
READ: Trump says Iran talks ‘constructive’ but blockade will remain until final deal is reached
Israel pushes deeper into Lebanon just days after Israel's prime minister ordered 70 percent of Gaza to be occupied.
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