united states

United Nations refugee agency says forced displacement likely to increase as US and Israel continue deadly strikes across Iran.

More than three million people have been displaced in Iran since the United States and Israel launched a war against the country late last month, the United Nations says, as concerns mount over a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday that as many as 3.2 million people – representing between 600,000 and one million Iranian households – have been forcibly displaced since the war began on February 28.

“Most of them are reportedly fleeing from Tehran and other major urban areas towards the north of the country and rural areas to seek safety,” UNHCR official Ayaki Ito said in a statement.

“This figure is likely to continue rising as hostilities persist, marking a worrying escalation in humanitarian needs.”

The US and Israeli militaries have continued to bombard Iran despite mounting international condemnation and calls for de-escalation.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in US-Israeli attacks across the country to date, according to the latest figures from Iranian officials.

While the US and Israel have said they are targeting Iranian leaders as well as military and nuclear infrastructure, Iran says thousands of civilian sites, such as schools and hospitals, have been attacked.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian told Al Jazeera on Thursday that medical teams have been responding to a growing number of casualties as strikes on urban areas have intensified in recent days.

“Most of these people are civilians,” Jafarian said, adding that more than 30 hospitals and health facilities have been damaged due to the attacks.

On Thursday, explosions were heard in several parts of the capital, Tehran, and other Iranian cities as the strikes continued.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said rescuers were digging through mounds of rubble as several multistorey apartment buildings were heavily damaged in recent attacks on a hard-hit eastern neighbourhood of Tehran.

“We saw bodies taken out [of the rubble] … and the situation was far beyond what I can call disastrous,” Asadi said.

Iran has responded to the US-Israeli assault by launching a barrage of missiles and drones at US bases and other sites in countries across the wider Middle East region.

It has also shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a critical Gulf waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil transits, raising serious concerns of disruptions to global energy supplies.

Despite United States President Donald Trump’s repeated declarations of victory in the US-Israeli war on Iran, Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and US military assets in the region have continued, upending global financial and energy markets.

“We’ve had two decades to study defeats of the US military to our immediate east and west. We’ve incorporated lessons accordingly,” Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X on March 1, the day after US and Israeli strikes on Tehran killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials.

“Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war,” he wrote.

According to analysts, Iran has made use of “asymmetric” warfare tactics while striking the US and Israel. So, are Tehran’s war tactics working?

Here’s what we know:

What is ‘asymmetric’ warfare?

When the balance of capabilities is unequal in a conflict – as it is in relation to weapons in this one – the weaker party can turn to unconventional methods of warfare, John Phillips, a British safety, security and risk adviser and a former military chief instructor, told Al Jazeera.

This is known as “asymmetric” warfare.

This can include the use of guerrilla tactics, terrorism, cyberattacks, use of proxies and other indirect tools, Phillips said, in order “to offset conventional inferiority, avoid the enemy’s strengths, and exploit vulnerabilities in political will, logistics, and legal or ethical constraints”.

“Iran is conventionally weaker than the US and Israel, but relatively strong compared to many neighbours,” he said.

“What makes Iran distinctive is not that it uses these methods at all, but that they sit at the centre of its grand strategy rather than at its margins.”

Why is Iran using asymmetric warfare?

In the ongoing war between Iran and the US-Israel, Washington and Tel Aviv have been using expensive missiles and drones to attack Iran and to intercept missiles Iran has fired back. The Patriot and THAAD defence systems, for example, which launch interceptors to take out incoming drones and missiles, can cost millions of dollars for each missile they fire. This compares with the $20,000-$35,000 cost of each Iranian Shahed drone.

As a result, the US has reportedly spent $2bn a day in its war on Iran and there are fears it could run out of interceptor missiles altogether if the war goes on for more than a few weeks.

It is therefore in Iran’s interests to focus on holding out against strikes and protecting its own weapons supplies while it does so, military experts say.

However, Phillips explained that precision strikes and sabotage by Israel and the US have demonstrated that Iran is not able to fully shield its missile, drone and nuclear‑related assets, while sanctions and domestic pressures have limited its capacity to sustain a very high‑tempo confrontation.

“As a result, Iran’s asymmetric approach is best understood as an effective ‘survival and leverage’ mechanism that produces a chronic, costly ‘shadow war’, rather than a path to decisive regional hegemony or victory,” he said.

Iran began using asymmetric warfare techniques following the 1979 Iranian revolution, which overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

“Instead of trying to match high‑end aircraft, precision munitions, or blue‑water fleets, [Iran] has built a ‘forward deterrence’ posture that operates in the grey zone between war and peace,” Phillips said.

“This is backed by large inventories of ballistic and cruise missiles, mass‑produced drones [often handed to proxies], cyber-operations, and a posture of underground, dispersed and hardened facilities that make preemption difficult and preserve some retaliatory capability.”

What asymmetric tactics has Iran been using?

Enemy depletion tactics

Since US-Israeli strikes on Iran began on February 28, Tehran has launched a wave of ballistic missiles targeting Israel and US military bases across the Gulf region.

Using a mix of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, as well as drone swarms through this defence system, Iran aims to deplete Israeli and US interceptor stockpiles.

Economic warfare

Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz through which about 20 percent of global oil and gas supplies are shipped. Linking the Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, the strait is the only waterway to the open ocean available to Gulf oil producers.

On Thursday, Iran attacked fuel tankers in Iraqi waters. Instability in and around the Strait of Hormuz drove Brent crude oil prices past $100 a barrel last week, with wild swings ongoing, prompting fears of a global energy crisis.

Iran has also targeted civilian infrastructure like airports and desalination plants which are crucial for water supply in the region, and it has launched drones targeting oil depots.

War on global finance

Meanwhile, on Wednesday this week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened to attack “economic centres and banks” with links to United States and Israeli entities in the Gulf region after what it claimed was an attack on an Iranian bank, with the war in its 12th day.

Since then, many banks like Citibank and HSBC in Qatar, have begun shutting, further threatening global financial stability.

Top technology companies such as Google, Microsoft, Palantir, IBM, Nvidia and Oracle, as well as the listed offices and infrastructure for cloud-based services, are also located in several Israeli cities and in some Gulf countries, which Iran has also threatened to attack.

Use of proxies

Iran has aimed to keep the much more powerful US military and its allies off balance through proxies in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Hezbollah in Lebanon, for example, has fired missiles and drones into northern Israel since March 2 as part of Iran’s retaliatory strikes.

“At the core of this [asymmetric] approach is a network of proxies and partners – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, groups in Syria, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen – which receive weapons, training, funding and ideological guidance from Iran,” Phillips said.

These actors allow Tehran to threaten Israeli and US forces, as well as regional shipping lanes, on multiple fronts, “often with a degree of deniability and at a fraction of the cost of deploying its own regular forces”, Phillips noted.

‘Mosaic’ defence system

Iran has organised its defensive structure into multiple regional and semi-independent layers instead of concentrating power in a single command chain that could be paralysed by a decapitation strike. This concept is most closely associated with the formation of the parallel military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), particularly under former commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, who led the force from 2007 to 2019.

The doctrine has two central aims: to make Iran’s command system difficult to dismantle by force, and to make the battlefield itself harder to resolve quickly by turning Iran into a layered arena of regular defence, irregular warfare, local mobilisation and long-term attrition.

What damage have these tactics done to the US and Israel?

Iran’s asymmetrical playbook has made the war more expensive for the US. It has been forced to spend money on replacing stockpiles of expensive missiles like Tomahawks and defensive systems such as Patriot and THAAD interceptors.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the first 100 hours alone of Operation Epic Fury – the codename for the US-Israeli assault on Iran – cost the US approximately $3.7bn, mostly unbudgeted. Israel, already reeling from the economic strain of its prolonged wars in Gaza and Lebanon, faces mounting domestic pressure as daily sirens force millions into bunkers.

While the Pentagon has not yet announced an official estimate for the cost of the war, late last week, two congressional sources told US broadcaster MS NOW that the war is costing the United States an estimated $1bn a day.

A day later, Politico reported that US Republicans on Capitol Hill privately fear the Pentagon is spending close to $2bn a day on the war.

Meanwhile, officials from President Donald Trump’s administration estimated during a congressional briefing this week that the first six days of the war on Iran had cost the US at least $11.3bn, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

Reporting from Washington, DC, following the publication of the CSIS analysis last week, Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan said the Pentagon had put together a $50bn supplemental budget request in order to replace Tomahawk and Patriot missiles and THAAD interceptors already used in the first week of the war, along with other equipment that had been damaged or worn out so far.

Are Iran’s tactics working?

To a certain extent, they are.

According to a report by The Soufan Center, the “pattern of Iranian counterattacks suggests a layered operational approach designed to generate pressure on Gulf states, create regional disruption on land, sea, and air, while simultaneously attempting to exhaust US and allied defensive resources”.

“Tehran appears to be fighting a war of endurance: prolong the conflict, expand the economic battlefield, make the costs increasingly prohibitive, ration advanced capabilities, and impose steady human and financial costs on its adversaries. All with the hope that political tolerance erodes faster in Jerusalem and Washington than in Tehran,” the report noted.

This may be working. Questions about the cost of the war are already causing a political headache for the Trump administration in Washington.

Congress’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference last week that President Donald Trump is “plunging America into another endless conflict in the Middle East” and “spending billions of dollars to bomb Iran”.

“But they can’t find a dime to make it more affordable for the American people to go see a doctor when they need one,” he said. “Can’t find a dime to make it easier for Americans who are working hard to purchase their first home. And they can’t find a dime to lower the grocery bills of the American people.”

Trump won the presidency in 2024 largely on the back of a promise to handle the rising cost of living and he faces mid-term elections this year. It is likely that the cost of the war will not play well with voters, analysts say.

In Israel, opposition politician Yair Golan has also criticised his government’s economic management of the war.

In a post on X on Sunday, he wrote: “The war with Iran has been planned for months. The fact that the Israeli government has not prepared an orderly economic plan to support citizens during the war period is a disgrace.

“The serving and working public should not be the one footing the bill for the war out of its own pocket while billions of shekels go to the evading and non-working sector,” he said, adding that the opposition will soon replace the government.

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that at a fraction of the cost – and despite a significant technological gap – Iran has demonstrated an ability to hold the global economy at risk, to pressure Washington into “blinking first”.

“A steady stream of inexpensive drones and limited missile strikes can disrupt the thriving economies of Israel and the Gulf, sending shockwaves through energy markets and ultimately translating into higher prices at American gas stations,” he said.

Phillips, the British safety, security and risk adviser, said the strategy has worked in important but limited ways.

“It has helped the Islamic republic survive intense sanctions, clandestine campaigns and periodic strikes while maintaining a credible ability to hit US bases, Israeli territory and Gulf infrastructure, which in turn raises the political and military cost of any attempt at regime-change war,” he said.

“Iran’s reach – stretching from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq and Yemen – allows it to shape crises, quickly raise the stakes of local conflicts, and force adversaries to devote substantial resources to missile defence, counter‑UAV systems, naval protection and regional coalition management,” he noted.

“However, there are clear constraints and growing problems. Key proxies such as Hezbollah and various militias have suffered leadership and infrastructure losses; the network has become more fragmented and sometimes less controllable, increasing the risk of unwanted escalation even as its coherence as an instrument of policy erodes,” he added.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi shows the aftermath of US-Israeli airstrikes on a residential neighbourhood in Iran, where rescue teams have been searching for survivors among the rubble.

The war in the Middle East is exposing how dependent the world is on a handful of strategic chokepoints.

The Strait of Hormuz – a narrow waterway in the Gulf – is closed.

The longer this goes on, the faster the global energy map could be reshaped.

From Europe to Asia, countries are facing mounting supply risks and the threat of an inflation shock.

If the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran drags on, alternatives will be hard to find.

But, Russia is shaping up to be a major beneficiary, with soaring prices filling Moscow’s coffers despite Western sanctions.

Lawmakers express concerns as Trump officials project $50bn more may be needed for Iran war funding.

Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration have estimated during a congressional briefing this week that the first six days of the war on Iran had cost the United States at least $11.3bn, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

That figure, from a closed-door briefing for senators on Tuesday, did not include the entire cost of the war, but was provided to lawmakers as they have clamoured for more information about the cost.

Several congressional aides have said they expect the White House to soon submit a request to Congress for additional funding for the war. Some officials have said the request could be for $50bn, while others have said that estimate seems low.

The administration has not provided a public assessment of the cost of the conflict or a clear idea of its expected duration. Trump said during a trip to Kentucky on Wednesday that “we won” the war but that the US would stay in the fight to finish the job.

The $11.3bn figure was first reported on Wednesday by The New York Times.

The human cost

The US-Israeli war on Iran has so far killed about 2,000 people, mostly Iranians and Lebanese, as the conflict has spread across the Middle East, with Iranian retaliatory strikes on neighbouring countries hosting US assets, sending energy prices soaring.

The United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) says the “intensifying conflict” has killed or wounded 1,100 children, creating a “catastrophic” situation for millions of children across the Middle East.

About 800,000 people have already been displaced in Lebanon by relentless Israeli bombardment.

Administration officials also have told lawmakers that $5.6bn of munitions were used during the first two days of strikes.

Members of Congress, who may soon have to approve additional funding for the war, have expressed concern that the conflict will deplete US military stocks at a time when the defence industry was already struggling to keep up with demand.

Democratic lawmakers have demanded public testimony under oath from administration officials about the Republican president’s plans for the war, including how long it might last and what his plans are for Iran once the fighting has stopped.

Trump on Wednesday said the war with Iran may end “soon” because there is “practically nothing left” for the US military to bomb. He did not provide any evidence for that claim.

The UN Security Council has passed a resolution put forward by Gulf Cooperation Council members calling on Iran to halt its attacks on Gulf countries. The measure was adopted with 13 votes in favour and two abstentions, while no member states voted against it.

‘Supercell’ thunderstorms hit Illinois and Indiana, after eight people killed by tornadoes in US Midwest last week.

Two people have been killed in tornadoes in the Midwest region of the United States amid a spate of extreme weather, according to authorities.

At least four tornadoes touched down as intense “supercell” thunderstorms swept across northern Illinois and northwestern Indiana on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

“Supercells” are the rarest form of thunderstorms. They are known to be particularly devastating for their prolonged durations and their “high propensity to produce severe weather, including damaging winds, very large hail, and sometimes weak to violent tornadoes”, according to the NWS.

In Indiana, local officials said an elderly couple had been killed when a tornado hit their home in the town of Lake Village.

Several residents in the wider Newton County were rescued by emergency responders, as the storm knocked down at least 70 utility poles and left some roads impassable.

In a video posted to social media late Tuesday, Sheriff Shannon Cothran warned people about trying to access the damaged areas.

“Please do not come here. Do not try to help right now,” Cothran said, standing in front of the couple’s destroyed home.

Parts of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio remained on tornado watch into the afternoon.

About 40km (25 miles) east of Lake Village, another tornado touched down in Kankakee County, Illinois, late Tuesday.

Officials said the tornado caused extensive damage as it travelled across the suburb of Aroma Park. At least nine people were injured, but no deaths were reported, according to local officials.

Cassidy Sinwelski, 23, told The Associated Press that the storm hit Kankakee harder than expected.

She and her husband took shelter in their home’s bathroom.

“We went into the bathroom, got a piece of plywood, and within minutes, I closed my eyes, the lights flickered, and we just — there was nothing,” Sinwelski said.

Then came loud rumbles and the sound of shattering glass.

“I just kept crying out for God, because I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.

The latest round of extreme weather comes after eight people were killed by tornadoes in the US states of Michigan and Oklahoma last week.

Motorists around the globe are already feeling the impact of the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, with fuel prices sharply rising since the war began.

In the US, a gallon of regular petrol that averaged $2.94 in February now costs $3.58, marking a 20 percent increase, according to data from AAA Fuel Prices, a retail fuel price tracker from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

While each US state sets its own petrol prices, several states have surpassed $4 per gallon, with California exceeding $5 per gallon, the highest level it has been in more than two years.

Which countries have the sharpest petrol price increases?

According to data analysed from Global Petrol Prices, a data platform that tracks and publishes retail energy prices across approximately 150 countries, at least 85 countries have reported increases in petrol prices following the initial attacks on Iran by the US and Israel on February 28. Some nations announce price changes only at the end of each month, so higher prices are expected for many others in April.

Vietnam recorded the highest petrol price increase of nearly 50 percent, rising from $0.75 per litre of 95-octane on February 23 to $1.13 on March 9. Laos follows with a 33 percent increase, then Cambodia at 19 percent, Australia at 18 percent, and the US at 17 percent.

The table below shows the countries that have increased petrol prices at the pumps.

Asian countries pay the biggest price

Asia is disproportionately dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for the delivery of its oil and gas, which has been effectively closed since the start of the war. The strait joins the Gulf – also referred to as the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Gulf – to the Gulf of Oman and is the only passage for the region’s oil producers to the open ocean.

Japan and South Korea are among the most vulnerable, importing 95 percent and 70 percent of their oil from the Gulf, respectively.

Both East Asian nations have enacted emergency measures to stabilise their energy markets. On March 8, Japan instructed its oil reserve sites to prepare for a potential release of strategic reserves. The next day, South Korea introduced a maximum price cap on petrol and diesel for the first time in 30 years.

In South Asia, the impact of the war is more severe than in East Asia because countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh have much thinner financial buffers and smaller strategic reserves.

In an attempt to conserve energy, Bangladesh‘s government has ordered all public and private universities to close immediately. In Pakistan, government offices will now operate a four-day workweek, while schools have closed, and a 50 percent work-from-home policy has been enacted to save fuel.

In Europe, the Group of Seven finance ministers convened an emergency meeting to discuss rising prices, with French President Emmanuel Macron raising the possibility of releasing 20-30 percent of emergency strategic reserves to ease the pressure on consumers.

How high oil costs drive up the price of food

Oil prices and food prices move in lockstep, with energy prices affecting every stage of the food supply chain, from the fertilisers used in the fields to the trucks that carry food from field to supermarket shelf.

Rising oil prices also directly affect shipping and the cost of transport.

“The lifeblood of the global economy is transport,” economist David McWilliams told Al Jazeera. “It’s getting stuff from A to B – it’s a logistics problem, a supply chain problem, and ultimately transportation is the energy of the global economy.”

Fears of stagflation – increasing inflation and rising unemployment, which major oil shocks have historically summoned – are rising. Economists point to the crises of 1973, 1978 and 2008 as evidence that every significant spike in oil prices has been followed, in some form, by global recession.

In lower-income countries, where populations spend a far greater share of their income on food and import large quantities of grain and fertiliser, rising oil prices could rapidly translate into food shortages.

What products are made from oil and gas?

Oil and gas are used for far more than just fuel. They are raw materials for thousands of everyday products.

Plastics, including water bottles, food packaging, phone casings and medical syringes, are all derived from crude oil.

Crude oil is also the hidden ingredient in synthetic fabrics such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which are used to make everything from sportswear to carpets. It also underpins the cosmetics industry, as it is used to make products such as petroleum jelly (Vaseline), lipsticks and concealers.

Household items also rely on oil-based ingredients, with laundry detergents, dishwashing liquids, and paints all derived from petroleum products.

The global food supply is essentially built on natural gas in the form of fertilisers, used to enhance crop yields and ensure that food production can meet demand.

For years, Iran’s leaders believed time was on their side.

After the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tehran effectively adopted what later came to be described as a “strategic patience” approach. Rather than immediately counter-escalating, Iran chose to endure economic pressure while waiting to see whether diplomacy could be revived.

The logic behind the strategy was simple: eventually, Washington would recognise that confrontation with Iran was against its own interests.

Today, that assumption lies shattered.

The collapse of diplomacy and the outbreak of war have forced Iran’s leadership to confront a painful reality: their belief that the US would ultimately act rationally may have been a profound miscalculation.

If Iran survives the current conflict, the lessons Iranian leaders draw from this moment may motivate them to pursue a nuclear deterrent.

The strategy of waiting

After the first Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA and launched its “maximum pressure” campaign in 2018, Tehran initially avoided major counter-escalation. For nearly a year, it largely remained within the deal’s limits, hoping the other signatories, particularly Europeans, could preserve the agreement and deliver on the promised economic benefits despite US sanctions.

When that failed, Tehran began gradually increasing its nuclear activities by expanding enrichment and reducing compliance step by step while still avoiding a decisive break.

The pace accelerated after Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament passed a law mandating a significant increase in nuclear activities, in the wake of the assassination of top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. The shift was reinforced further by the 2021 election of conservative President Ebrahim Raisi.

The ultimate goal was to rebuild negotiating leverage, as Tehran believed that broader geopolitical and regional trends were gradually shifting in its favour. From its perspective, China’s rise, Russia’s growing assertiveness, and widening fractures within the Western alliance suggested that Washington’s ability to isolate Iran indefinitely might weaken over time.

At the same time, Iran pursued a strategy of reducing tensions with its neighbours, seeking improved relations with Gulf states that had previously supported the US “maximum pressure” campaign. By the early 2020s, many Gulf Cooperation Council countries had begun prioritising engagement and de-escalation with Iran, culminating in moves such as the 2023 Saudi-Iran rapprochement brokered by China.

Against this backdrop, even as tensions rose, Tehran continued to pursue diplomacy. Years of negotiations with the Biden administration aimed at restoring the JCPOA ultimately produced no agreement. Subsequent diplomatic efforts under Trump’s second presidency also collapsed.

Underlying this approach was a fundamental assumption: that the US ultimately preferred stability to war. Iranian officials believed Washington would eventually conclude that diplomacy, rather than endless pressure or a major war, was the most realistic and least costly path forward.

The joint US-Israeli assault on Iran has now exposed how deeply flawed that assumption was.

The return of deterrence

While Tehran based its strategy on mistaken beliefs about the rationality of US foreign policy, Washington, too, is misreading the situation.

For years, advocates of the maximum pressure campaign argued that sustained economic and military pressure would eventually fracture Iran internally. Some predicted that war would trigger widespread unrest and even the collapse of the regime.

So far, none of those predictions has materialised.

Despite the enormous strain on Iranian society, there have been no signs of regime disintegration. Instead, Iran’s political base — and in many cases broader segments of society — has rallied in the face of external attack.

Furthermore, Iran spent years reinforcing its deterrence capabilities. This involved expanding and diversifying its ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone programmes and developing multiple delivery systems designed to penetrate sophisticated air defences. Iranian planners also drew lessons from the direct exchanges with Israel in 2024 and the June 2025 war, improving targeting accuracy and coordination across different weapons systems.

The focus shifted towards preparing for a prolonged war of attrition: firing fewer but more precise strikes over time while attempting to degrade enemy radar and air defence systems.

We now see the results of this work. Iran has been able to inflict significant damage on its adversaries. Retaliatory attacks have killed seven Americans and 11 Israelis, placing a growing strain on US and Israeli missile defence systems, as interceptors are steadily depleted.

Iranian missile and drone strikes have hit targets across the region, including high-value military infrastructure such as radar installations. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent global energy markets into turmoil.

Apart from the immense cost of war, the US decision to launch the attack on Iran may have another unintended consequence: a radical shift in Iranian strategy.

For decades, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei maintained a longstanding religious prohibition on nuclear weapons. His assassination on the first day of the war may now motivate the new civilian and military leadership of the country to rethink its nuclear strategy.

There may now be fewer ideological reservations about pursuing nuclear weapons. The logic is simple: if diplomacy cannot deliver sanctions relief or permanently remove the threat of war, nuclear deterrence may appear to be the only viable alternative.

Iran’s actions in this conflict suggest that many leaders now see patience and diplomacy as strategic mistakes. These include the unprecedented scale of Iranian missile and drone attacks across the region, the targeting of US partners and critical infrastructure, and political decisions at home that signal a harder line, most notably the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader.

The choice of Khamenei’s son breaks a longstanding taboo in a system founded on the rejection of hereditary rule and reflects a leadership increasingly prepared to abandon previous restraints.

If a more zero-sum logic of deterrence takes hold across the region, replacing dialogue as the organising principle of security, the Middle East may enter a far more dangerous era in which nuclear weapons are viewed as the ultimate form of deterrence and nuclear proliferation can no longer be stopped.

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

Video shared online shows the destruction caused to buildings and vehicles in Iran’s capital after a reported strike near Mehrabad international airport.

Star NBA players like LeBron James take to social media to praise the Miami player’s incredible scoring achievement.

Miami Heat centre Bam Adebayo’s 83-point performance against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday – the second-highest scoring game in NBA history – was a historic statistical line no one saw coming.

The Heat star shot 20-43 from the floor and was 7-22 from beyond the three-point line. Thirty-six of his 83 points came from the free-throw line (36 of 43).

Entering the game, Adebayo was averaging just 18.9 points per night this season, placing him outside the top 40 scorers in the league.

Now, the 28-year-old only trails the legendary Wilt Chamberlain for most points scored in a single NBA game after he passed the late Kobe Bryant’s 81-point masterpiece against the Toronto Raptors, set in 2006.

Post-game, Adebayo spoke of the significance of passing Bryant, who he idolised growing up.

“To be 83 and passing [Bryant], in my mind, it’s like, what would he say to me? Because I’ve always wanted to have a conversation with him,” Adebayo said. “He’ll probably say, ‘Go do it again.’

“Just a surreal moment being in the company with somebody that you idolised growing up.”

Here is some reaction to the Miami big man’s incredible scoring feat from some of the biggest names in the NBA:

“BAM BAM BAM ,” wrote LeBron James, the NBA’s all-time career leading scorer, on X.

“Bro, what?” said Jalen Brunson in disbelief.

Former Miami Heat legend Dwayne Wade wrote: “83 for Cap”

Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant, who was asked about Adebayo’s achievement in a post-match news conference on Tuesday, said:

“I couldn’t believe it when I was hearing about it in real time. He got 30 in the first quarter … Congratulations to Bam. I know how much work he puts in.

“I looked at the statsheet, and it’s pretty crazy, 40 shots, 40 free throws, 20 threes, that takes a lot of stamina man, that takes a lot of energy to not only go out there to put those shots up, but also make them to set the record to surpass Kobe [Bryant] as the second-highest scorer in the history of the game,” Durant added.

Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi also says Qatar and Oman cannot act as mediators while under attack.

Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs has called for a de-escalation in hostilities across the Middle East and urged Iran and the US to return to the negotiation table for a mediated solution.

Speaking to Al Jazeera in an exclusive interview, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi said that Iran’s attacks on its regional neighbours bring “benefit for no one”.

Iran has responded to a nearly two-week-long bombardment campaign from the United States and Israel by firing missiles and drones at its neighbours in the Gulf region and beyond, causing casualties, damaging critical infrastructure and severely disrupting the region’s energy-driven economy.

Al-Khulaifi said Qatar remains “extremely worried” about the wider range of attacks, including against civilian infrastructure.

“It’s unfortunate where we are standing right now,” the minister said.

“We also believe that there is no pathway to a sustainable and long-lasting solution other than returning to the negotiation table,” he told Al Jazeera.

Qatar condemns in the “strongest terms, the unjustified and outrageous attacks on the state of Qatar that directly impact its own sovereignty”, he said.

Doha will continue to take “every possible and legal measure to defend and practise its exercise of self-defence against this aggression”, he added.

Al-Khulaifi said the conflict demands a “global solution” to ensure that the Gulf’s energy supply chain keeps moving through the Strait of Hormuz, where global traffic has been severely disrupted by the conflict.

Ensuring freedom of movement through the waterway is “very critical,” he noted.

It is notable, Al-Khulaifi pointed out, that Iran has targeted countries such as Qatar and Oman, which had previously served as regional mediators and tried to “build bridges between Iran and the West”.

Neither country can play that role as long as the attacks continue, he said.

“We will not be able to fulfil that role under attack, and that’s something the Iranians need to understand.”

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani tried to convey those points during a phone call with Tehran several days ago, the foreign minister said, when he urged Iran to cease attacks on its neighbours.

“The regional countries are not an enemy of Iran, and the Iranians are not understanding that idea,” Al-Khulaifi told Al Jazeera.

Doha also remains in contact with officials in the US and has encouraged US President Donald Trump to cease hostilities, he said.

“Our line of communication is always open with our colleagues in the United States, and we keep encouraging and supporting the pathway of peace and resolving conflicts through peaceful means.

“We really hope that the parties can find that pathway, end military operations, and return to the negotiation table.”

A group of Democrats in the United States Senate is demanding public hearings on the country’s war against Iran after receiving a series of classified briefings from officials in President Donald Trump’s administration.

Lawmakers say the White House has not clearly explained why the US entered the conflict, what its goals are, or how long it may last.

Republicans currently hold a narrow, 53-47 Senate majority, which gives them the power to control what legislation comes to the floor for debate.

Some Democrats have expressed frustration after the latest closed-door briefing. Trump has not ruled out sending US ground ⁠troops into Iran.

“I just came from a two-hour classified briefing on the war,” Senator Chris Murphy from the state of Connecticut said on Tuesday. “It confirmed to me that the strategy is totally incoherent.

“I think this is pretty simple: if the president did what the Constitution requires and came to Congress to seek authorisation for this war, he wouldn’t get it – because the American people would demand that their members of Congress vote no,” he added.

Here is what we know:

What has happened so far?

Since the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have held several closed-door meetings to brief Congress members on the military campaign and its progress.

Because the meetings are classified, lawmakers are restricted in what they can publicly disclose about the information they received.

What are Democrats saying?

Several Democratic senators have said they left the briefings frustrated, arguing that the administration had not provided clear answers about the war’s objectives, timeline or the long-term strategy guiding their approach to the conflict.

Earlier this week, six Democratic senators also called for an investigation into a strike on a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. Reports indicate the attack, which investigators say involved US forces, killed at least 170 people, most of them children.

“There seems to be no endgame,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said. “The president, almost in a single breath, says it’s almost done, and at the same time, it’s just begun. So this is kind of contradictory.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts raised concerns about the cost of war.

“The one part that seems clear is that while there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their health care, there’s a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran,” Warren said on Tuesday.

“The one thing Congress has the power to do is to stop actions like this through the power of the purse,” she added.

Others seem worried that a ground deployment could take place.

“We seem to be on a path toward deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives here,” Blumenthal, of Connecticut, told reporters after Tuesday’s classified briefing.

“The American people deserve to know much more than this administration has told them about the cost of the war, the danger to our sons and daughters in uniform and the potential for ⁠further escalation and widening of this war,” he added.

What are Republicans saying?

Republicans, who have slim majorities in both houses of Congress, have almost unanimously backed Trump’s campaign against Iran, with only a handful expressing doubt about the war.

Some Republican leaders say the strikes are necessary to curb Iran’s military capabilities, missile programme and regional influence.

They have also argued that the operation is limited in scope and designed to weaken Iran’s ability to threaten US forces and allies in the region.

Republican Representative Brian Mast of Florida, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, last week publicly thanked Trump for taking action against Iran, saying the president is using his constitutional authority to defend the US against the “imminent threat” posed by Tehran.

But some Republican members of Congress have voiced concerns.

Representative Nancy Mace from South Carolina said she did “not want to send South Carolina’s sons and daughters into war with Iran”, in a post on X.

Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, accused the Trump administration of changing its narrative and rationale for the war on a daily basis.

“We keep hearing new reasons for war with Iran—none convincing,” he wrote on X. “‘Free the oppressed’ sounds noble, but where does it end? We’ve been told for decades Iran is weeks from a nuke. War should be a last resort, not our first move. A war of choice is not my choice.”

Why does the debate matter?

The dispute has revived a long-running debate in Washington, DC, about the limits of presidential war powers.

Under the US Constitution, Congress has the authority to declare war, but modern presidents have frequently launched military operations without formal congressional approval, often citing national security or emergency threats.

The law allows the president to deploy US forces for up to 60 days without congressional authorisation, followed by a 30-day withdrawal period if Congress does not approve the action.

Some lawmakers and legal experts say the war on Iran highlights the need for stronger congressional oversight of military action.

“In the 1970s, we adopted something called the War Powers Resolution that gives the president limited ability to do this,” said David Schultz, a professor in the political science and legal departments at Hamline University.

“And so, either you could argue that what the president is doing violates the Constitution by… not [being] a formally declared war; or b, it exceeds his authority, either as commander-in-chief or under the War Powers Act,” he added.

“And therefore, you could argue that domestically, his actions are illegal and unconstitutional,” Schutlz said.

The Trump administration has argued that the February 28 strikes were justified as a response to an “imminent threat”, a rationale often used by presidents to justify military action without prior congressional approval.

However, US intelligence agencies had themselves said before the start of the war that they had no evidence of an imminent Iranian threat to the US or its facilities across the Middle East.

A new report has expressed alarm at what it describes as backsliding press freedoms across the Americas, with the United States seeing the steepest decline.

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) released its latest press freedom index on Tuesday, ranking last year as the lowest point for freedom of expression since the report began in 2020.

Researchers found that the Americas have experienced a “dramatic deterioration” in unrestricted speech, according to the report.

“This is one of the worst years for journalism in the region, marked by murders, arbitrary arrests, exile, and rampant impunity in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela,” the report said.

It added that enhanced restrictions on free speech have occurred in countries of various ideological persuasions, whether right-wing or left-wing.

The US, however, was singled out as an area of “alarming decline”. In a ranking of 23 countries across the hemisphere, the US dropped from fourth place to 11th, indicating that journalists operate with increased restrictions.

Changes under President Donald Trump, who returned to office last year, were cited as a primary factor.

“Even though journalistic practice in the United States remains protected by the Constitution and laws, last year’s events saw the erosion of safeguards,” the report explained.

Trump, it said, had contributed to the “stigmatisation of critical journalism”. The report also pointed to developments like cuts to public media funding and the closure of Voice of America, a government-funded broadcaster, as detriments to the free press.

In total, the report tallied 170 attacks against journalists in the US last year, and it cited interactions with federal immigration agents as an area of concern.

The report also noted that Nicaragua and Venezuela continue to rank as “without freedom of expression”.

In Venezuela’s case, for instance, it cited the closure of more than 400 radio stations and the detention of 25 journalists in the wake of the controversial 2024 presidential election.

On a scale of 100, the report ranked press freedom in the country at 7.02. It remains in last place on the report’s list of 23 countries.

El Salvador also dropped in the index’s latest evaluation, now in 21st position on the press freedom list, just ahead of Nicaragua and Venezuela.

In an accompanying statement, Sergio Arauz, the president of the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), denounced what he called the “escalating repression” under the government of President Nayib Bukele.

Arauz noted that 50 Salvadoran journalists had been pushed into exile in the last year amid a campaign of harassment by the government.

“There are no possibilities of practicing journalism fully without facing consequences when there is an Executive branch with virtually unlimited powers and no effective legal oversight,” said Arauz.

Since 2022, Bukele and his government have placed the country under a state of emergency that suspended key civil liberties and granted wide latitude to state security forces, in the name of addressing crime.

Tuesday’s report pointed to the state of emergency as a factor in undermining free speech, and also cited El Salvador’s new Foreign Agents Law, which gives the government the power to dissolve organisations that receive funding from abroad.

El Salvador is one of eight nations categorised in the index as “high restriction”, along with Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Haiti and Cuba.

The Dominican Republic, Chile, Canada and Brazil were ranked among the highest for protecting press freedoms.