US & Canada

The Argentinian star forward records his 901st career goal as Inter Miami beat New York City FC at Yankee Stadium.

Micael dos Santos Silva’s go-ahead goal in ‌the 74th minute lifted Inter Miami to a 3-2 comeback victory over ⁠hosts New York ⁠City FC on Sunday.

Dos Santos headed home a beautiful ball from fellow defender Noah Allen, which found its way past NYCFC keeper Matt ⁠Freese and gave Inter Miami (3-1-1, 10 points) their first Major League Soccer (MLS) win since March 7.

Lionel Messi scored his 901st career goal, and Gonzalo Lujan scored his first career MLS ⁠goal for Inter Miami, which bounced back after being eliminated from the CONCACAF Champions Cup on Wednesday following a pair of draws against Nashville, with that side advancing on the away goals tiebreaker.

NYCFC (3-1-1, 10 points) suffered their first defeat of the season and snapped ‌a three-game winning streak despite goals from Nicolas Fernandez Mercau and Agustin Ojeda.

Maxi Moralez delivered a stellar assist to Ojeda in the 59th minute to put NYCFC briefly ahead 2-1.

Moralez sent a great ball through traffic down the middle of the field to Ojeda, who was uncontested, and flipped the ball past Inter Miami goalkeeper Dayne St Clair.

But two minutes later, Inter Miami earned a free kick⁠, and Messi delivered. His shot deflected off NYCFC’s Hannes Wolf ⁠and redirected past Freese (five saves) to tie the game at 2.

Messi nearly had a multi-goal match as he came close on several chances. He hit the post in the 31st minute and the crossbar in ⁠the 42nd minute. He also had a late opportunity to pad Miami’s lead but missed wide.

German Berterame appeared to extend ⁠Miami’s lead in the 79th minute, but what would have ⁠been his first goal with his new club was nullified after he was ruled offside.

After Lujan scored in the fourth minute, NYCFC levelled the match with a fantastic free kick goal by Fernandez Mercau, who ‌lifted a high shot that bounced just under the crossbar and in, freezing St Clair in place in the 17th minute.

NYCFC used Moralez as a decoy, having him ‌approach ‌as if he would take the shot, and then Fernandez Mercau ran up and booted it.

St Clair (three saves) made a huge save late in stoppage time to preserve Inter Miami’s win.

LaGuardia shut down after Air Canada Express plane hits ground vehicle upon landing from Montreal.

An Air Canada Express regional jet coming from Montreal struck a ground vehicle on Sunday evening while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, leading to the airport’s closure.

The New York Fire Department in a statement said on Sunday that it was responding to ‌a reported incident involving a plane and a vehicle on the runway at LaGuardia airport, but did not ‌provide further ‌details.

The CRJ-900 plane ⁠struck the vehicle at a speed of about 24 miles per hour (39 kph), flight tracking website Flightradar24 said. The jet was operated by Jazz Aviation, Air Canada’s regional partner.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop for all departures to LaGuardia due to the aircraft emergency, with the airport closure in effect until 0530GMT. The probability of an extension was listed as high.

The FAA notice showed that the reason for the halt at the airport was an emergency and there was a high probability of an extension, without ⁠specifying any details.

Unverified footage on social media showed ⁠damage to the nose of the plane, ⁠as it tilted upward. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.

LaGuardia’s website showed arriving ⁠planes had been diverted to other airports or returned to their point of origin.

In a separate notice to airmen, the FAA said that ⁠the airport could be shut until 1800 GMT.

Five days after a strike destroyed a building in Tehran, Mahdi Mirzahosseini’s brothers are still searching through rubble for signs of their youngest sibling. They are holding onto hope of finding their brother who had gone to work insisting on serving customers for the Persian New Year.

Shutdown standoff forces US President Trump’s hand as airport queues spiral and security staff go unpaid.

Immigration enforcement agents will be deployed across major United States airports from Monday, President Donald Trump has announced, in an extraordinary move to ease a security crisis triggered by a prolonged political standoff in Washington.

Trump confirmed the plan in a social media post on Sunday, with his senior border official Tom Homan named to lead the effort.

This came after weeks of mounting chaos at airport security checkpoints and a day after Trump threatened the move unless Democrats backed down on a funding battle.

The crisis stems from Congress’s failure to renew funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal agency that oversees airport security.

Since February 14, tens of thousands of workers, including Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners responsible for passenger checks, have continued working without receiving paycheques.

More than 366 have since resigned, according to DHS, and unscheduled absences have more than doubled, leaving major airports struggling to cope.

“This loss significantly decreases TSA’s ability to meet passenger demand and leaves critical gaps in staffing, as each new recruit requires 4-6 MONTHS of training,” it said last week in a post on X.

Queues at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and New York’s JFK airports stretched for hours at the weekend, with New Orleans advising passengers to arrive at least three hours before departure.

Union officials say some officers have taken on second jobs, while several airports have begun collecting food and gift cards for staff who can no longer make ends meet.

Homan said agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), trained in law enforcement and immigration, not airport security, would take on supporting roles, such as monitoring exit lanes and checking identification, freeing TSA officers to focus on screening lines.

“I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine,” he acknowledged on Sunday, adding that a detailed plan for which airports and how many agents would be finalised by the end of the day.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned the situation was “going to get much worse” before it improves.

At the heart of the standoff is a bitter dispute over immigration enforcement.

Democrats have refused to pass a full DHS funding bill unless the administration agrees to reforms of ICE. Their demands hardened after federal agents fatally shot two US citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, during immigration raids in Minneapolis in January.

Democrat Senator Dick Durbin said his party had attempted nine times to pass emergency funding for DHS entities including the TSA, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Coast Guard. Republicans have blocked each attempt, insisting on a single comprehensive funding package for the entire department.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries warned bluntly that deploying “untrained ICE agents” at airports risked repeating the conduct that had already cost lives.

In an unusual intervention, billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk said he would “offer to pay” the salaries of TSA workers.

Videos show the aftermath of strikes in Iran, as search teams recover bodies from rubble. Residents are using torches to look for loved ones, as air raids appear to have knocked out power in some parts. Iran’s health ministry says more than 1,500 people have been killed during the US and Israel’s war.

Key indexes in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong tumble as Iran threatens attacks on energy infrastructure across region.

Stock markets in the Asia Pacific have fallen sharply amid US President Donald Trump’s ultimatum warning Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the annihilation of its energy infrastructure.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 and South Korea’s KOSPI plunged 4 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, in early trading on Monday.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index tumbled about 2 percent.

Australia’s ASX 200 dropped about 1.6 percent, while the NZX 50 in New Zealand dipped about 1.3 percent.

Futures on Wall Street, which are traded outside of regular market hours, saw moderate losses, with those tied to the S&P500 and the Nasdaq Composite down about 0.5 percent.

Oil prices remained volatile amid fears of further disruption to global energy supplies.

Futures for Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose more than 1.5 percent to top $114 a barrel, before easing to about $112 as of 02:00 GMT.

Trump on Saturday threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants within 48 hours if Tehran does not end its effective blockade of the strait, through which about one-fifth of global oil and natural gas exports usually transit.

Tehran has pledged to completely close the waterway, which is still being transited by a small number of Chinese, Indian and Pakistani-flagged vessels, and launch retaliatory attacks on energy and water infrastructure across the region if Trump follows through on his threat.

Based on the timing of Trump’s warning on Truth Social, the deadline for his ultimatum is set to expire at 23:44 GMT on Monday.

Trump’s threat has added to fears of a cascading global energy crisis as the US and Israel’s war on Iran approaches the one-month mark with no clear end in sight.

Oil prices have surged more than 50 percent since the start of the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on February 28.

Analysts have warned that energy prices are likely to rise significantly further if the strait remains effectively closed, with some observers predicting oil to hit $150 or even $200 a barrel.

Trump on Sunday held a phone call with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the effective closure of the strait.

The two leaders agreed that unblocking the strait is “essential to ensure stability in the global energy market”, Starmer’s office said in a statement.

Trump has provided conflicting messages about the goals of the war and how long it might last.

Hours before issuing his ultimatum on Saturday, Trump said that his administration was “very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down” military operations against Iran.

Israeli military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani last week told reporters that officials had detailed plans for at least three more weeks of war.

Residents in Indian-administered Kashmir are donating their gold possessions and cash to support Iranians impacted by the US-Israeli war. Iran’s embassy in India has acknowledged the gesture, saying their kindness ‘will never be forgotten’.

US-Israel attacks on Iran continue as Israeli forces blow up the Qasimiyah Bridge in south Lebanon.

Iranian missiles have struck the towns of Arad and Dimona near an Israeli nuclear research centre in what Iran says was a response to an Israeli attack on its Natanz nuclear facility in Isfahan province.

At least 180 people were wounded in Saturday’s attack, and hundreds of people have been evacuated from the strategic towns as the Israeli-United States war on Iran is seemingly entering a new, more lethal phase of fighting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had a “very difficult evening in the battle for our future”. There have been at least 4,564 people wounded in Israel, according to the Ministry of Health, since the start of the war on February 28.

Analysts said that while Israel has regularly waged military campaigns on Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere, it is rare for the Israeli public to feel the effects of war like it has over the past three weeks.

In Palestinian territory, including Gaza, Israeli forces have used disproportionate force against armed groups, who use rudimentary rockets to fire at Israel. Israel’s war on Gaza has been called a genocide by scholars and rights groups.

With Saturday’s high casualty count, the attacks in Arad and Dimona raise a question: Has Israel underestimated Iranian military capabilities?

What weapons is Iran using?

Defence analysts described Iran’s missile programme as the Middle East’s largest and most varied. Developed over decades, it contains ballistic and cruise missiles and is designed to give Tehran reach even despite its lack of a modern air force.

Iran has short- and medium-range missile systems and longer-range land-attack and antiship cruise missiles.

Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles have a range of roughly 150km to 800km (93 to 500 miles) and are built for nearby military targets and rapid regional strikes.

Their core systems include the Fateh variants: Zolfaghar, Qiam-1 and older Shahab-1/2 missiles. Their shorter range can be an advantage in a crisis. They can be launched in volleys, compressing warning times and making pre-emption harder.

Those medium-range systems include the Shahab-3, Emad, Ghadr-1, the Khorramshahr variants and Sejjil. They also have newer designs like Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassem.

Iran’s land-attack and antiship cruise missiles include the Soumar, Ya-Ali and the Quds variants, Hoveyzeh, Paveh and Ra’ad.

The longest reaching ballistic missiles, the Soumar, have a range of 2,000km to 2,500km (1,243 to 1,553 miles). However, it was reported that two Iranian missiles were fired late on Thursday or early on Friday on Diego Garcia, the site of a joint US-United Kingdom military base in the Indian Ocean that is 4,000km (2,485 miles) from Iran. The UK said the attack failed, and an Iranian official denied firing the missile.

Former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had previously limited Iranian missile ranges to 2,200km (1,367 miles) but removed that limit after Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in June. The US joined Israel in that war as well, carrying out one day of attacks on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities.

“Iran has also used cluster munitions in its attacks on Israel. Each kind of warhead the Iranians have also uses a cluster warhead,” Uzi Rubin, founding director of Israel’s missile defence programme and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told the US news agency Media Line.

What is a cluster munition or warhead?

Instead of a single explosive payload, a cluster warhead disperses multiple bomblets.

“The tip of the missile, instead of containing a big barrel of explosives, contains a mechanism which holds on to a lot of small bombs. And when the missile approaches the target, it opens its skin, it peels off and it spins around and the bomblets are released and released into space and fall on the ground,” Rubin told Media Line.

He added that Iranian cluster warheads may contain 20 to 30 bomblets or 70 to 80, depending on the missile.

These munitions are not new for Iran either. Iran reportedly also used cluster munitions in the 12-day war.

Amnesty International called Iran’s use of cluster munitions during that war a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law while Israel has also been accused of using cluster bombs in Lebanon.

Cluster munitions were banned in 2008 when the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted. Neither Iran nor Israel are signatories to the convention.

Why are they making an impact now?

An Israeli military spokesman said Israel’s air defence systems failed to intercept some of the Iranian missiles that hit Arad and Dimona despite being activated. He said Iran’s weaponry was not “special or unfamiliar” and an investigation was under way.

So why are these cluster munitions now making an impact? There are a few reasons.

For a ballistic missile equipped with cluster bomblets to be intercepted, it must happen before the payload opens and releases the submunitions. After the payload opens, the missile goes from a single point of attack to multiple points, making it difficult to stop.

On Thursday, The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli air force will start conserving interceptors. Military officials reportedly said at the time that Iranian cluster bombs are unlikely to cause significant harm if people have taken shelter and, therefore, may avoid shooting down some of them.

What is next?

In the next stage of the war, Iran, the US and Israel may continue to target important infrastructure.

The US and Israel struck Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on Saturday, according to the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation. This facility in central Iran is one of the country’s most important uranium enrichment sites, about 220km (135 miles) southeast of Tehran.

In response, Iran launched the attacks on Arad and Dimona, home to Israel’s main nuclear facility.

Israel previously struck fuel storage facilities in Tehran, leading to vast, toxic smoke over the Iranian capital. For its part, the US previously hit Kharg Island, Iran’s oil export hub, and threatened to do it again.

Iran has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global shipping and oil transport, and has targeted military bases and crucial energy infrastructure across Arab Gulf countries.

US President Donald Trump demanded the reopening of the strait and threatened to begin hitting energy infrastructure should Iran not comply.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 23:44 GMT on Saturday.

As the United States-Israeli war on Iran enters its fourth week, the conflict seems to have escalated beyond President Donald Trump’s control.

The Iranian government has been able to endure the killings of its top political and military leaders and has launched retaliatory attacks on Israel and Gulf countries despite weeks of air strikes.

Tehran has also been able to impose a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies pass, sending oil prices soaring. Analysts said the conflict risks unleashing a global recession. And that has put pressure on Trump, prompting his administration to allow the sale of sanctioned Russian oil to try to ease the energy crisis and pressure allies to police the strait, so far unsuccessfully.

Trump’s response in how to deal with the situation has been anything but coherent.

On Saturday, Trump upped the ante, issuing a threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. This came a day after he said the US was “winding down” its military operations in Iran.

Analysts said Trump launched the war without a clear goal and misjudged how Tehran would respond. The conflict has expanded across the Middle East.

So is Trump looking to exit the war – or escalate it?

Trump’s mixed messaging on the Iran war

Here’s a brief look at the changing statements from Washington:

Is the war winding up or widening?

While one statement from Trump signalled that the US is considering “winding down” the war on Iran, another one indicated that the conflict would widen in the coming days.

On Saturday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Washington was “very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East with respect to the Terrorist Regime of Iran”.

Trump listed the goals of the war as: completely degrading Iran’s missile capability, destroying its defence industrial base, eliminating the Iranian navy and air force, never allowing Iran to get even close to having nuclear weapons, protecting Middle Eastern allies, and guarding and policing the Strait of Hormuz.

Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have claimed repeatedly in the past few days that Iranian military capabilities have been “completely destroyed” even as Tehran continues to retaliate against Israel and strike countries in the region.

US military officials said they have carried out heavy bombardments of Iran’s coast, including with bunker buster bombs, but still have not been able to limit Tehran’s capacity to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz.

On Saturday, Trump said the US “has blown Iran off of the map” and insisted that he has “met my own goals … and weeks ahead of schedule!” He also reiterated that Iran’s “leadership is gone, their navy and air force are dead, they have absolutely no defense, and they want to make a deal”.

Iranian leaders have consistently denied reaching out to the US with a ceasefire offer.

Just an hour later, Trump returned to his Truth Social platform with a warning for Iran.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Trump wrote.

Iran has since responded by saying it will hit energy sites across the Middle East if its power facilities are targeted. It has already fired hundreds of missiles and drones on Gulf countries, targeting US assets as well as energy facilities.

Between Trump’s claims to be “winding down” operations and upping the ante later, his administration announced it is sending three more warships to the Middle East with about 2,500 additional Marines.

The US military said about 50,000 military personnel are already deployed for the war against Iran.

When will the war on Iran end?

That has been among the foremost questions posed to US officials, including Trump, since the war on Iran was launched on February 28.

The next day, Trump told the Daily Mail that “it will be four weeks or so. It’s always been about a four-week process.” A day later, Trump said at the White House: “We projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”

On March 8, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the CBS TV network’s 60 Minutes programme: “This is only just the beginning.” The next day, the US president told the same channel that he thinks “the war is very complete, pretty much.” And the US military operation was “way ahead of schedule”.

Then, on March 9, Trump said one could say the war is “both complete and just beginning”. Later the same day, the president said: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough” and promised to go further and harsher against Iran.

On March 11, Trump said: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”

Why did US and Israel launch strikes on Iran?

Responses to this question are perhaps the most telling about US posturing in the war against Iran.

On March 2, Hegseth said the attacks were aimed at ending “47 long years” of war by “the expansionist and Islamist regime in Tehran” and were launched because Iran refused to negotiate with the US.

Hours later, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, told reporters the US knew Israel was about to strike Iran, adding that the Trump administration believed the US needed to launch a pre-emptive strike before Iran’s retaliation potentially targeted US forces. “We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage,” he said.

This sparked a massive row in Washington with critics saying Israel had forced the US into war with Iran. Soon Trump rebutted his top diplomat, saying: “They [Iran] were going to attack. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. … So if anything, I might have forced Israel’s hand.”

The next day, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, concluded that Trump just had a “good feeling” that Iran would strike so Washington attacked Tehran.

The launch of the war came as Washington and Tehran were scheduled to meet for another round of talks that were started late last year. Before the war, their Omani mediator said a deal was “within reach”.

The US and Israeli assertion that Tehran was on the verge of making a nuclear bomb has not been backed up by the United Nations nuclear watchdog. Last week, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard also told Congress that Iran was not in a position to make an atomic bomb.

Some analysts said the Trump administration was convinced to go to war by Netanyahu, who has been seeking US military intervention in Iran for decades. They said Trump was buoyed by a swift US military operation in Venezuela and did not think through Iran’s strengths before going into the war. In January, the US military abducted President Nicolas Maduro in a military operation in Caracas that took two and a half hours.

What does the conflicting messaging mean for US strategy?

Analysts said the moving goalposts in the Iran war show the policy limits of the current Trump administration as well as its strategy, to some extent, of keeping off-ramps available.

Zeidon Alkinani, a Middle East analyst at the Arab Perspectives Institute, told Al Jazeera that in the earlier days of the hostilities, there appeared to be clearer targets and limited objectives.

“There now seems to be a more chaotic reaction,” he said. He described the attacks as increasingly reciprocal, suggesting strikes on oil or energy facilities could prompt further escalation.

Last week, Iran attacked energy facilities in Qatar and caused “significant damage”, knocking out  17 percent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity. Qatar produces 20 percent of global LNG supplies. Iran said the attack was in retaliation for Israeli attacks on a gas plant.

Paolo von Schirach, president of the Global Policy Institute, told Al Jazeera that Trump changes his mind “very quickly” and it is hard to predict what his next step could be in the war on Iran.

The analyst said it was unclear to him what “tools” Trump has to end the war.

“We look at his message saying the war is winding down. OK, good. Things are quiet. Maybe there is an off-ramp somehow. But now he says that if the Iranians don’t open the Strait of Hormuz, then we [the US] are going to unleash hell and what have you,” von Schirach noted.

“It is not quite clear to me what he wants and what the tools are to accomplish this.”

Von Schirach added that it would be difficult to predict whether the US could force Iran into submission, given its size and population. Using as a reference Iraq, where 150,000 American soldiers were deployed during the Second Gulf War, the analyst predicted that the US might need as many as half a million soldiers if Trump “wants to take over Iran”.

Tehran, Iran – Military and political authorities in Iran are projecting a message that “victory” is near as war with the United States and Israel continues to escalate, and air strikes and assassination attempts are reported across the country.

Massive joint US-Israeli air raids were recorded in multiple areas of the capital Tehran overnight into Sunday, and in central Iran’s Isfahan city in the morning, a day after Dezful and Andimeshk in western Khuzestan and several other cities were hit.

Israeli warplanes also conducted two separate sets of precision strikes on privately-owned residential units located in small towns in the green provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran to the north on Saturday, which appeared to be assassination attempts on officials.

Local authorities confirmed that several people were killed, but did not elaborate. Israeli and US media said a senior drone commander is believed to have been killed.

Nevertheless, top officials in Tehran said they were unyielding and focused on retaliatory attacks.

Parliament speaker and former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the fact that Iranian missiles struck Israel’s Dimona overnight shows that a “new stage of battle” has started where “Israel’s skies are defenceless”.

Majid Mousavi, aerospace commander of the IRGC, echoed the same statement about control over Israeli skies in a post on X on Saturday night, which came in response to the US and Israel declaring dominance over Iranian airspace.

“Pinpoint precision Seyed Majid, hit Dimona again,” chanted flag-waving pro-establishment supporters shown on state television broadcasts, calling on Mousavi for action.

Israel said more than 180 people were injured in Dimona, a southern city where its key nuclear facilities are also located, in addition to nearby Arad.

Ahmad-Reza Radan – Iran’s hardline police chief, who has been cited by Israeli media as being a target for assassination along with Mousavi, Ghalibaf and others – was seen briefly addressing a group of supporters in Tehran on Saturday night.

“Trump first threatened the European Union, then begged. Today, he has said he will come take Greenland if the Europeans don’t come. I want to tell the European Union that if they can’t hold on to Greenland, then send a request and we will come preserve it,” he said, followed by chants of “Alla akbar” (God is greatest).

Defence Ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik said in a statement that attacks across the region will continue “until the complete halt and surrender of the enemy”.

The taunts are in line with the state’s messaging in recent days, including a written statement attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, who was selected as the supreme leader after his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated on the first day of the war, but who has not been seen or heard.

The message said Iran’s enemies were being “defeated” and there is “particular unity” among supporters of the theocratic establishment.

Over the past week, the country’s top security official, commanders of the paramilitary Basij force of the IRGC, the government’s intelligence minister, and a number of other military and security personnel have been among those killed.

The government reports that a large number of residential buildings, hospitals, schools and other civilian facilities have also been impacted during the war, as state supporters control the city streets, squares and mosques to counter potential anti-government protests.

‘Say goodbye to electricity!’

The Iranian rhetoric quickly escalated on Sunday after US President Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum for Tehran to reopen the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key water route for global energy export, or face strikes on its power plants.

In response, Iranian politicians and armed forces said they would strike back harder against the region’s energy facilities.

The IRGC-affiliated Mehr news agency released a map with graphics that showed power plants across the region, including in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, that could be attacked if Iranian facilities are hit. An accompanying message read, “Say goodbye to electricity!”

On Saturday night, state and IRGC-affiliated media circulated a different map, showing Doha and also marking the central offices of Al Jazeera network as potential targets, and said all residents of the Qatari capital were advised to evacuate immediately.

State television quickly issued a retraction and cited unnamed sources as saying the map was not official, but no explanation was provided about who circulated the image and why.

The all-around promises of escalation, particularly around bombing electricity facilities and other critical civilian infrastructure, have created additional concerns among many Iranians about the impact on daily lives and implications on the country’s future.

“If the main power plants are bombed, it’s not going to be just a brief disruption; it could stop the flow of everything from water to gas,” a Tehran resident told Al Jazeera, asking to remain anonymous due to security concerns. “It would be foolish to just punish the population like that.”

The US-Israeli forces have also struck natural gas facilities in southern Iran and bombed fuel reserves across Tehran, but authorities said fires and damage were contained quickly without creating major disruptions.

In an Instagram post to mark Nowruz, the Persian New Year, iconic footballer and nationally respected figure Ali Daei said this year’s celebrations were different because Iran is grieving for its people killed in the war.

“Wishing for a prosperous and free Iran, away from war and bloodshed, all about welfare and calm,” he wrote, drawing the ire of a number of state media, including the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim, which criticised Daei for not specifically condemning the US and Israel.

Proclamations, warnings under blackout

Meanwhile, the internet remains cut for more than 92 million Iranians for a 23rd day, becoming the longest shutdown in the country’s history, trailed only by a 20-day blackout imposed during the killing of thousands of anti-government protesters in January.

State media outlets continue to focus on successful IRGC attacks and present Iran as a country on the brink of being recognised as a world power, as they refrain from communicating details about the US and Israeli attacks or significant damage sustained.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of the national security committee of Iran’s parliament, told the state television on Sunday that the IRGC’s overnight attacks against Israel “opened a new page in shifting the balance of power and showed the victory of the Islamic Republic in this imposed war”.

The parliamentary committee’s spokesman, Ebrahim Rezaei, stretched the same line of thinking even further, and said in a post on X that Iran should demand to become a veto-yielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as a condition for ending the war. The lawmaker did not say how or when he expected that to happen.

Iran’s government has also demanded war reparations and guarantees against future aggression, but the US and Israel have been pushing to overthrow the Islamic Republic that came to power in a 1979 revolution.

Intelligence authorities advised the Iranian population on Saturday that even being a member of foreign-based news and war footage channels on Telegram and all other social media outlets banned by the state could violate national security laws.

The Iranian judiciary said that such channels are considered “terrorist” outlets and that sending any videos of impact sites or armed state checkpoints on the streets to them could carry maximum penalties like confiscation of assets and even execution.

State security authorities have emphasised that anyone who engages in anti-establishment protests will be treated as an “enemy”.

Under the guise of preserving secularism, this law allows the exclusion of people based on their religious identity.

On Monday, the Supreme Court of Canada will begin a four-day hearing for one of the most consequential constitutional cases in the country’s recent history. At issue is Quebec’s so-called “secularism law”, known as Bill 21 – a law enacted in 2019 that prohibits certain public sector workers from wearing visible religious symbols at work.

It bars many public sector employees, including teachers, prosecutors, police officers, and judges, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs, turbans, kippahs, and other visible expressions of faith while at work.

There is much at stake in this case that raises fundamental questions about religious freedom, equality, and the limits of state power in a constitutional democracy. In addition, another significant issue is that to get the bill passed, Quebec’s government had used the “notwithstanding clause”, a unique provision in Canadian law that allows it to override fundamental rights and freedoms. No other constitutional democracy in the world has a similar blanket override of fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Quebec government claims that the law is necessary to preserve the religious neutrality of the state. Yet Bill 21 does the opposite: by forcing some individuals to choose between their profession and their religious identity, the Quebec government is not remaining neutral – it is effectively excluding people of faith from public sector employment.

The use of this extraordinary, and until recently rarely used, constitutional mechanism has turned the spotlight on Bill 21 beyond the borders of Quebec and the debate over secularism and religious freedoms. It has become a test of how far a democratic government can go in limiting fundamental rights and freedoms.

Evidence before the courts shows that Bill 21 affects religious people of many faiths, including Jewish men who wear kippahs and Sikh men and women who wear turbans; but its impact falls particularly heavily on Muslim women who wear the hijab. For many Muslim women who wear headscarves, teaching and other public service careers have effectively been closed off.

The message of exclusion that this law sends to young people is especially troubling. Generations of young people in Quebec are being told that their full participation in public life requires abandoning visible aspects of their identity.

This is why the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association launched the constitutional challenge against Bill 21. The Supreme Court of Canada must consider the implications, and possible limitations, of allowing governments to sidestep rights protections through pre-emptive use of constitutional override powers. The court’s decision will help determine whether constitutional rights in Canada remain meaningful constraints on government power, or whether they can be suspended whenever politically convenient.

These questions extend far beyond Canada. Across Europe and elsewhere, debates about secularism have increasingly centred on restrictions targeting religious expression, often impacting Muslim women in particular.

Canada often prides itself on being a model of multicultural democracy, one that accommodates diversity. Bill 21 challenges that reputation by testing whether neutrality can coexist with policies that effectively exclude people of visible faith from public service.

True secularism does not demand the erasure of religious identity. A neutral state does not require citizens to shed visible expressions of belief in order to participate fully in public life.

The Supreme Court of Canada now has the opportunity to reaffirm these principles and clarify that constitutional rights cannot be easily set aside. At a time when countries around the world are grappling with questions of belonging, pluralism, and the rights of minorities, the Canadian court’s ruling will send an important signal about whether liberal democracies are willing to uphold their commitments to freedom and equality.

We say this is not an abstract idea, but an imperative to demonstrate that commitments to freedom and equality are more than mere words.

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

Retired US Army officer Peter Mansoor explains why the US and Iran are at ‘stalemate’ and what the US needs to do to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants if Tehran fails to open the Strait of Hormuz to all vessels within 48 hours. This major escalation comes as Trump faces pressure over skyrocketing domestic energy prices due to the now three-week-long war.

Tehran responds to Trump’s threat by saying all US energy infrastructure in the region will be targeted if Iran is attacked.

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to attack Iran’s power plants if freedom of navigation is not fully restored at the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, a dramatic escalation as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues for a fourth week.

The statement on Saturday came as Trump faces increasing pressure to secure the vital waterway that Iran has promised to keep closed to “enemy ships”, leading to soaring oil prices and plunging stock markets.

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST,” Trump, who is in his Florida home for the weekend, wrote on Truth Social at 23:44 GMT.

He did not specify which plant he was referring to as the biggest.

Following Trump’s threat, the Iranian army said it would target all energy infrastructure belonging to the US in the region if Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure were attacked.

Trump’s escalatory comments came barely a day after he talked about “winding down” the war that he launched alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 28, when the US and Iran were engaged in nuclear negotiations.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump said the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East”.

Key waterway

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes through during peacetime, has virtually ground to a halt since the early days of the war.

Iran has said the Strait of Hormuz is open to all except the US and its allies, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi saying last week that he had been “approached by a number of countries” seeking safe passage for their vessels.

“This is up to our military to decide,” he told the US television network CBS, adding that a group of ships from “different countries” had been allowed to pass, without providing details.

The head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, asserted on Saturday that Iran’s ability to attack vessels on the strait had been “degraded” after US fighter jets dropped 5,000-pound (about 2,300kg) bombs on an underground Iranian coastal facility storing antiship cruise missiles and mobile launchers earlier this week.

The strike also destroyed “intelligence support sites and missile radar relays” used to monitor ship movements, Cooper said.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo said there seemed to be a “gap between what the White House appears to want in the Strait of Hormuz and what the US military says they have already accomplished”.

“It is interesting, to say at the very least, to hear Trump talking about a major escalation, given the fact that we’ve been hearing throughout the course of the day how much damage the US has done, supposedly, to Iran’s ability to target oil tankers and vessels navigating through the strait.”

Israel’s air defence system failed to stop at least two Iranian missile strikes on southern Israel, in retaliation for an attack on Iran’s Natanz nuclear site. More than 100 Israelis have been injured in Arad and Dimona, with dozens of buildings destroyed. This is what we know.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has criticised what he called the return of a colonial approach towards developing nations during a summit in Colombia.

But while Lula did not mention United States President Donald Trump in his remarks, he gestured at actions undertaken by the Trump administration, including the January 3 abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and the fuel blockade in Cuba.

“It’s not possible for someone to think that they own other countries,” Lula said, in an apparent reference to US policy.

“What are they doing with Cuba now? What did they do with Venezuela? Is that democratic?”

Lula delivered his remarks at Saturday’s summit for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which featured a high-level forum with delegates from Africa.

He told delegates that their countries had already experienced being plundered for gold, silver, diamonds and minerals.

“After taking everything we had, now they want to own the critical minerals and rare earths that we have,” Lula said, without specifying who “they” might be. “They want to colonise us again.”

The left-wing Brazilian president also criticised the ongoing war launched by the US and Israel against Iran.

He drew a parallel between that conflict, which began on February 28, and the US-led Iraq war, which began in 2003 on the pretext of eliminating “weapons of mass destruction”.

“Iran has been invaded under the pretext that Iran was building a nuclear bomb,” Lula said, before pivoting to the US campaign in Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“Where are Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons?” Lula asked. “Where are they? Who found them?”

A history of intervention

Washington’s history of intervention in Latin America goes back more than 200 years to when then-President James Monroe claimed the hemisphere as part of the US sphere of influence.

While large-scale, overt US involvement in the region mostly petered out after the Cold War, Trump has rekindled the legacy.

Since assuming office last year, Trump has launched boat strikes against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean, ordered a naval blockade on Venezuelan oil exports, and gotten involved in electoral politics in Honduras and Argentina.

Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods last year, citing the trial against the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, as a motive. The US has also shown keen interest in Brazil’s rare earth deposits.

Then, on January 3, US forces abducted and imprisoned Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, flying him to New York to face drug and weapons charges.

While such actions have thrilled right-wing leaders across the continent, they have raised fears among left-wing politicians, who have voiced grave concerns over what they see as US bullying.

“We cannot allow anyone to interfere and violate the territorial integrity of each country,” Lula said Saturday.

Frustration with the UN

Lula, who has said he will run for a fourth, nonconsecutive term in Brazil’s upcoming October elections, also criticised the United Nations for its inability to stop multiple conflicts around the world.

“What we are witnessing is the total and absolute failure of the United Nations,” he said, pointing to the situations in Gaza, Ukraine and Iran.

He called, once again, for reform of the UN Security Council, which is mandated with ensuring international peace and security. But it has failed to stop major conflicts because of the veto power of its five permanent members: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

There have been decades of efforts to reform the Security Council. But they have all been unsuccessful.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, whom the US Drug Enforcement Administration has designated a “priority target”, echoed Lula’s condemnation of the UN.

The body “is acting in impotence, and that is not what it was created for. It was created after World War II precisely to prevent wars. And yet, what we have today is war,” Petro said at the summit.

But the world needs the UN to provide climate solutions and curb global warming, Petro said.

“The more serious humanity’s problems become, the fewer tools we have for collective action. And that path leads only to barbarism.”

Relatively few presidents and prime ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean attended the summit in Colombia, a sign of the continent’s deep divisions.

Those present included the presidents of Brazil, Uruguay, Burundi and Colombia, as well as the prime ministers of Guyana and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, along with deputy ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors.

US President Donald Trump threatens to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s power plants if it fails to open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. 

The head of US Central Command says forces have struck Iranian coastal missile sites and infrastructure, degrading Tehran’s ability to threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, as Washington vows to continue targeting its regional military capabilities.

Joe Kent says he resigned as director of the US National Counterterrorism Center over opposition to the war in Iran, telling an audience at a Washington prayer event that he couldn’t “send young men and women off to die on foreign battlefields” in “good conscience.”

Former FBI chief Robert Mueller, who probed the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States election, has died at age 81.

“With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away” on Friday night, his family said in a statement Saturday.

“His family asks that their privacy be respected.”

Mueller was appointed as director of the FBI by then-President George Bush in September 2001, a week before the 9/11 attacks that would push him into the centre of a national crisis.

He became the key figure behind changing the FBI from combating crime to now countering national security risks following the attack on New York’s World Trade Centre.

In 2013, Mueller stepped down from the bureau and later by 2017 was appointed as special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s probe into possible Russian interference in the election, which saw Donald Trump secure his first term over Democratic nominee, Hilary Clinton.

Following the announcement of his death, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to write: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

Mueller is survived by his wife and two children.

The fate of an Iranian woman caught in a US-Israeli bomb attack is unknown, after video emerged of the moments she filmed the bombardment on her phone.