US & Canada

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 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.

Washington, DC – Several Democrats in the United States have emerged from a classified briefing about the war on Iran, saying they still have little clarity about President Donald Trump’s justifications and end goals, even 11 days into the conflict.

“I emerge from this briefing as dissatisfied and angry, frankly, as I have from any past briefing in my 15 years,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, following Tuesday’s briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Their statements marked the latest wave of condemnation from congressional Democrats, who have a slim minority in the Senate and the US House of Representatives.

Party members in both chambers had recently voted in near unison on resolutions seeking to halt the war, which the US and Israel launched on February 28.

But their efforts to pass a “war powers resolution” to rein in Trump failed amid widespread Republican opposition.

More recently, Democrats have pledged to delay proceedings in the Senate unless top officials from the Department of State and the Pentagon testify under oath about the war.

Following Tuesday’s briefing, Democrats like Blumenthal argued that the Trump administration owes the US public more clarity about the war.

Blumenthal added that the meeting piqued concerns that US forces may be deployed to either Iraq or Iran.

“I am left with more questions than answers, especially about the cost of the war,” he said.

“I am most concerned about the threat to American lives of potentially deploying our sons and daughters on the ground in Iraq. We seem to be on a path towards deploying American troops on the ground in Iran to accomplish any of the potential objectives.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, said that the Trump administration “cannot explain the reasons that we entered this war, the goals we’re trying to accomplish and the methods for doing that”.

She also pointed to the high cost of the military operations against Iran, which some have estimated to exceed $5.6bn in the first two days alone.

Warren pointed out that Republicans cut healthcare subsidies last year in an effort to reduce federal spending, but appear to have no problem approving military expenses.

“While there is no money for 15 million Americans who lost their healthcare”, she noted, “there’s a billion dollars a day to spend on bombing Iran”.

While approached by reporters, Senator Jacky Rosen indicated she was limited in her ability to comment on classified briefings. Still, she offered brief remarks to voice her frustration.

“I can tell you what I heard is not just concerning. It is disturbing,” she said. “And I’m not sure what the end game is or what their plans are. They certainly have not made their case.”

‘On our timeline and at our choosing’

The latest round of criticism came shortly after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pledged to conduct the “most intense day” of strikes since the war began.

As of Tuesday, the war had killed at least 1,255 people in Iran, 394 people in Lebanon, 13 in Israel, six in Iraq and 14 across the Gulf.

Trump has repeatedly said the war would not be prolonged, but his officials have offered shifting timelines. Hegseth, for instance, said the fighting would not stop “until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated”.

“We do so on our timeline and at our choosing,” he said.

The Trump administration has also offered an array of justifications for launching the war, which came amid indirect talks with Iran on the future of its nuclear programme.

Trump has blamed Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the conflict, though Tehran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon, and his administration has also said the war was necessary to end Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

Experts have said that available evidence does not support the Trump administration’s claims that either posed an immediate threat to the US.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters last week that the US attacked because its close ally Israel had planned to attack Iran, which would have led to retaliation against US assets.

Rubio and Trump subsequently backed away from the circular rationale, with Trump claiming last week that Iran was the one planning to strike first.

Another rationale the Trump administration offered is that the totality of Iran’s actions since the 1979 Islamic revolution represented a threat to the US, thereby necessitating an attack.

Trump and his top officials have not provided evidence for any of their claims.

Calls for hearings, investigation

Democrats have been largely sidelined since the war began. Only a handful of Republicans have joined the left-leaning party in its efforts to rein in Trump through legislative means.

Under the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war. But presidents can still use the military to respond to imminent threats in instances of self-defence.

Still, there are limits to how long such operations can proceed. Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, presidents must withdraw forces within 60 to 90 days of an unauthorised military campaign, or else seek congressional approval.

Trump, however, has denied he needs congressional backing for the military campaigns he has conducted since returning to office.

The latest attacks in Iran have sparked widespread public opposition, with polls suggesting a majority of US citizens oppose the war effort.

Earlier this week, six Democratic senators called for an investigation into a strike on a girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran. Several investigations have indicated that the US was responsible for the attack, which killed at least 170 people, mostly children.

Last week, nearly 30 members of Congress called for an investigation into reports that US military leaders had used biblical motivations to justify the war to subordinates.

Some reportedly invoked “religious prophecy and apocalyptic theology” in statements to other enlisted personnel.

On Monday, Senator Cory Booker said Democrats had “collectively agreed” to use an array of procedural mechanisms in the chamber to block legislative business until Trump officials agree to testify under oath.

“Each individual senator has a tremendous amount of power to disrupt the normal functioning of the Senate, as well as certain privileges that we can exercise,” Booker said.

“And what we have agreed right now is that we’re not going to let the Senate continue business as usual, which seems to be ignoring the urgent issues the American people are dealing with.”

A Maronite Catholic priest has been killed by Israeli tank fire after it targeted a home in southern Lebanon. Father Pierre al-Rahi was reportedly killed when an Israeli tank fired on the home of a local couple a second time after several people had rushed there to try to help.

Rescue workers carefully extracted an unexploded missile from a house in Kuhdasht City, following US-Israeli airstrikes on western Iran.

Iran has significant oil and gas reserves, and is a key supplier to China.

A member of US President Donald Trump’s inner circle has said control of those reserves is a key United States aim amid the country’s war against Iran.

So, how valuable are Iran’s natural resources? And could they be a factor in US thinking?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Foad Izadi – Professor in the faculty of world studies at the University of Tehran

Mohammad Reza Farzanegan – Professor of Middle East economics at Marburg University

Paolo von Schirach – President of the Global Policy Institute, an independent think tank

A passenger onboard Southwest Airlines was removed from their flight after their call to prayer was mistaken for a ‘bomb threat’. Officials later called the incident a ‘misunderstanding’ after finding no credible threat, following the Florida-bound flight’s emergency landing in Georgia.

The United States and Israel’s war on Iran has caused the largest energy supply shock in decades.

The Strait of Hormuz is in effect closed, and attacks are being carried out on energy facilities in the Middle East, rattling oil markets.

From Americans filling their tanks at the pump to European factories and Asian economies, the impact is already being felt.

US President Donald Trump says the rise in oil prices is a “very small price to pay” for “safety and peace”. But investors warn that if the conflict drags on, there’s danger of stagflation.

The US president repeats claims that Cuba is ready to negotiate as it faces a spiralling energy and economic crisis.

United States President Donald Trump has signalled that his administration is still pursuing a government overthrow in Cuba even as the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second week.

Trump said on Monday that the US Department of State is still focused on Cuba, where plans by the White House may or may not include “a friendly takeover” of the island, according to the Reuters news agency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “dealing” with Cuba, the president told reporters in Florida.

“He’s dealing [with it], and it may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down to … as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money,” Trump said.

“They are going to make either a deal or we’ll do it just as easy, anyway,” he said.

Cuba has been grappling with an energy crisis since January, when US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and halted fuel exports from Caracas to Havana, cutting the country off from one of its few allies and a key source of oil for the Cuban economy.

White House officials have suggested that Cuba is facing an economic collapse and that its government is ready to negotiate with Washington.

Trump has said on multiple occasions that Cuba’s government is ready to “fall” and that its leaders want to “make a deal” with Washington, according to NBC News.

Cuba has denied reports of high-level talks, according to Reuters, but it has not “outright” denied US media reports of “informal talks” between Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, and US officials.

Cuba has been in the crosshairs of the US for decades, but Trump is the first US president since the Cold War to openly discuss and pursue a government change in Havana.

Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and Cuba are in line with his revival of the “Monroe Doctrine”, a 19th-century policy that states the Western Hemisphere should be solely under the sway of the US and no other foreign power.

Trump first raised the notion of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba in February.

North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong said the annual ‘Freedom Shield’ exercises could lead to ‘unimaginably terrible consequences’.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has accused the United States and South Korea of “destroying the stability” of East Asia, as the two countries start their annual 10-day joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula.

“The muscle-flexing of the hostile forces near the areas of our state’s sovereignty and security may cause unimaginably terrible consequences,” Kim Yo Yong said on Tuesday, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“The enemies should never try to test our patience, will and capability,” Kim said.

“We will watch to what extent the enemy violates the security of our state and what it is playing at,” she continued.

Kim’s remarks follow the start of the joint Freedom Shield exercises on Monday, which will run for 10 days and involve 18,000 South Korean and US military personnel.

The military manoeuvres are designed to “enhance the combined, joint, all-domain, and interagency operational environment, thereby strengthening the Alliance’s response capabilities,” United States Forces Korea said.

This year’s Freedom Shield will involve 22 field training drills, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, which is fewer than half the number carried out last year.

Kim added on Tuesday that there was no justification to hold the exercises, which have been called a “defensive” action by Washington and Seoul in the past.

“No matter what justification they may establish and how the elements of the drill may be coordinated, the clear confrontational nature of the high-intensity large-scale war drill staged by the most hostile entities in collusion at the doorstep of [North Korea] never changes,” she said.

“The recent global geopolitical crisis and complicated international events prove that all military manoeuvres of the field warfare troops, to be conducted by the enemy states, assume no distinction between defence and attack, training and actual warfare,” she continued, in an apparent reference to the US-Israel war on Iran.

South Korea and North Korea have technically been at war since 1953, when an armistice agreement paused fighting but did not formally end the armed confrontation.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in 2024 that he would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea, although it remains Seoul’s long-term goal.

An official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told Yonhap that Kim’s remarks on Tuesday were relatively muted by North Korean standards.

The statement did not refer directly to the US or threaten to use nuclear weapons, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Kim appears to have limited her response to merely pinpointing the South Korea-US exercise, taking the current security situation into account,” the official told Yonhap.

Surging energy prices caused by the US-Israel war on Iran could ripple across the United States economy, heaping further strain on consumers at a time when cost-of-living issues are already a primary concern.

The price of crude oil increased from about $67 per barrel before the war began on February 28 to nearly $97 on Monday, as the conflict snarls production and transport in one of the most energy-rich regions on earth. Oil temporarily passed $100 per barrel on Sunday before slightly easing back.

The price tracker GasBuddy reported on Monday that the average price of gas in the US has risen by 51 cents per gallon over the last week.

“Yes, yes, definitely,” said 52-year-old Alma Newell when asked if she was worried about price increases at a gas station in the coastal city of Goleta, California.

Newell said she is out of work with a shoulder injury and worried that rising costs could stretch her already limited budget.

“The prices have a big impact because I’m not working right now,” she said. “Food and rent are already very expensive.”

“It’s crazy,” she added. “Because the war is so unnecessary.”

Cost of living issues

Rising prices could deepen frustration with the administration of US President Donald Trump and put greater political pressure on the White House, already struggling to address cost-of-living issues with the crucial midterm elections set to take place later this year.

“I think the current price increase in oil suggests the US will see $3.50 to $4 gasoline by next week, and $5 diesel this week,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran and oil at the Eurasia Group.

The highest recorded average for gas prices at the pump was in June 2022, when prices soared to $5.034, months after the Russian war on Ukraine started, according to Gas Buddy, which tracks fuel prices going back to 2008.

“The impact 1773123967 is more political than economic, as high gasoline prices generate negative press and can add to the perception that the government is not properly handling the economy. That means Trump will feel more political pressure to end this war quickly.”

A Pew Research Center poll in early February suggested widespread anxiety about the rising cost-of-living before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, with 68 percent of respondents saying they were very or somewhat concerned about gas prices.

“I’m not too worried myself because I have a hybrid car and ride my bike,” said 72-year-old Bjorn Birmir at the gas station in Goleta, California. “But for people in general, it will make life more expensive. Prices are already high, and it will make them even higher.”

Ongoing disruptions

The disruptions caused by the war include the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz, a key node in global transit and shipping. Iran has long said that it could close down the strait in the event of a showdown with the US and Israel.

About 20 percent of global oil and a significant portion of natural gas pass through the strait, predominantly to Asia, supplies that are now stranded as traffic through the narrow waterway has ground to a halt. Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure in countries across the region have also led some countries to scale back production.

Other economic sectors are also feeling the squeeze.

Goods such as fertiliser, vital for agricultural production, are seeing price increases just ahead of the spring planting season in the Northern Hemisphere. About one-third of the global fertiliser trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Effects of the war could ripple throughout the global economy, with poor countries especially hard-hit. Pakistan announced a series of austerity measures and cuts to fuel subsidies on Monday, while Bangladesh shuttered universities and announced restrictions on fuel use as a result of the war.

US officials and countries around the world have already discussed measures to help ease the shock of rising energy prices, including the potential release of strategic oil reserves in a bid to temporarily boost global supply.

The G7 said on Monday that it would take “necessary measures” to support energy supplies, but held off on announcing the release of strategic reserves, with energy ministers set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter further.

The US has a strategic oil reserve of more than 415 million barrels, one of the largest in the world, that it could release in coordination with allied countries.

But it is unclear when these measures would kick in and how long such steps could help fill the gaps created by the war.

Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, says that much depends on whether the war is brought to a speedy conclusion or continues on for weeks or even months, with the possibility of further escalation.

Thus far, neither the US and Israel nor Iran has suggested it are willing to stop the war anytime soon, although Trump told CBS News on Monday that “the war is very complete, pretty much”, comments that helped ease some of the price swings in oil and stocks.

“If the war continues, we would see oil prices not only remain elevated, but perhaps rally further as markets price in a more protracted outage,” said Ziemba. “There’s also the question of, when it does end, how much damage will be done to infrastructure and just how quickly supplies could come back online.”

Initial polling has suggested that the war is unpopular in the US, with a Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday finding that 53 percent of voters who responded oppose Trump’s military action in Iran, including 60 percent of political independents.

That lack of popular support could present a political headache for Trump and his Republican Party if voters connect the war to increasing prices. Thus far, Trump has largely dismissed concerns about the war’s possible impact on the rising cost of living.

“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA, and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

US-Israeli attacks on Iran continue as Iranians rally in support of new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Trump administration accuses the group of receiving support from the Iran and carrying out violence against civilians.

The United States has designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group, as the administration of President Donald Trump widens its crackdown on the organisation.

The State Department accused the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood on Monday of receiving support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Washington labelled the group as a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT) and said that it will designate it as a “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO) starting next week.

“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

The SDGT designation enables economic sanctions against the group, while the FTO label makes it illegal to provide material support to it.

The State Department accused Muslim Brotherhood fighters in Sudan – where the Sudanese military is fighting against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group – of conducting “mass executions of civilians”.

The RSF, which has been accused of major human rights violations, and its supporters often argue that they are fighting Muslim Brotherhood forces.

On Monday, the United Arab Emirates welcomed Washington’s move to blacklist the group in Sudan.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the “US measure reflects the sustained and systematic efforts undertaken by the administration of President Trump to halt excessive violence against civilians and the destabilizing activities carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan”.

In January, the Trump administration blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in Lebanon, Jordan and Sudan, a move the groups rejected.

Established in 1928 by Egyptian Muslim scholar Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood has offshoots and branches across the Middle East, including political parties and social organisations.

The group and its affiliates say they are committed to peaceful political participation.

In the US and other countries in the West, right-wing activists have for years tried to demonise Muslim immigrant communities and Israel’s critics with accusations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some of Trump’s hawkish allies in Congress have also for years been calling for the group to be blacklisted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Kyiv could provide defensive systems as well as assistance to civilians and American soldiers “deployed in certain countries” in the Middle East as the war in Iran continues.

He has reportedly proposed an exchange of Ukrainian defensive technology to combat Iranian drones in return for advanced US defensive systems to use in the war against Russia.

The US-Israel-Iran conflict, which started 10 days ago when the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran and killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has continued to escalate. Iran has responded with strikes on Israel and US military assets and other infrastructure in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

As Gulf and other Middle Eastern states continue to attempt to intercept incoming drones and missiles with US-supplied air defences, the US has asked Ukraine to contribute some of its own air-defence systems.

Here is what we know.

What has the US requested from Ukraine and why?

The US has asked for Ukraine’s help in defending Washington’s allies in the Middle East against Iranian missile attacks on infrastructure and US military assets, Ukraine’s president confirmed last week.

At the moment, the US is using air defence systems such as the Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries and Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, to intercept Iranian drones and missiles targeting its military assets in the region. The Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) and PAC-3 are advanced surface-to-air missile defence systems.

However, these types of systems are extremely expensive, costing millions of dollars for each interceptor missile fired, and there are concerns that supplies of US interceptor missiles could run low.

“We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against ‘shaheds’ in the Middle East region,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on March 5.

Shahed drones, particularly the Shahed-136, are Iranian-designed “kamikaze” or loitering munitions which are very low cost compared to the interceptors being used by the US. Costing roughly $20,000-$35,000 each, these GPS-guided drones are about 3.5m (11.5 feet) long and fly autonomously to pre-programmed coordinates to strike fixed targets with explosive payloads. They blow up as they hit their targets.

Over the course of the Iran war, Shahed-136 drones have targeted Middle Eastern countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE where US military assets and troops are hosted. Experts estimate that Iran has thousands of these drones.

Iran has also been supplying Moscow with many thousands of Shahed drones during Russia’s war on Ukraine.

During the course of Russia’s four-year war on Ukraine, Ukraine’s domestic arms industry has been forced to innovate, building low-cost interceptor drones priced at roughly $1,000 to $2,000 to counter Russian attacks with imported Iranian Shahed-136s.

Kyiv is now mass-producing these low-cost interceptor drones.

“The role of Shahed-type drones in long-range attacks has become more prominent in Ukraine after Russia took Iranian technology, improved it, and built it in previously unimaginable numbers,” Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert for the UK-based think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera.

What has Zelenskyy said?

Zelenskyy has posted several statements on social media confirming that he is ready to help Middle Eastern countries defend their territories by providing technical expertise.

“Ukrainians have been fighting against ‘shahed’ drones for years now, and everyone recognises that no other country in the world has this kind of experience. We are ready to help,” he wrote on X on March 5.

“I gave instructions to provide the necessary means and ensure the presence of Ukrainian specialists who can guarantee the required security.

“Ukraine helps partners who help ensure our security and protect the lives of our people.”

It is understood that Ukraine is in talks with several Middle Eastern countries about this.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine has deployed interceptor drones and a team of specialists to help protect US military bases in Jordan.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that he has also spoken directly to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) about “countering threats from the Iranian regime”.

He also said he had spoken with the leaders of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine must not weaken its own air defences. However, it is mass-producing this equipment now, and may well be able to afford to share.

“The fact that there are surplus capabilities ready to be sent to the US and the Middle East is unsurprising because Ukraine has led this innovation,” Giles said.

Zelenskyy has therefore proposed an exchange of air defence systems with the US ones being used in the Middle East.

“We ourselves are at war. And I said, completely frankly, that we have a shortage of what they have. They have missiles for the Patriots, but hundreds or thousands of ‘shaheds’ cannot be intercepted with Patriot missiles – it is too costly,” Zelenskyy said.

“Meanwhile, we have a shortage of PAC-2 and PAC-3 missiles. So, when it comes to technology or weapons exchange, I believe our country will be open to it.”

Zelenskyy may also have good political reasons for extending help, analysts say.

“The US has declined support for Ukraine on the ground that it had insufficient supply of air defence munitions, and now more of those Patriots have been fired in the Middle East in a few days, than have been supplied to Ukraine in four years,” Giles said.

“Zelenskyy will be aware that in providing this assistance, he is not only shaming the US, but also directly supporting potential friends and partners in the Middle East, who before now have been ambivalent to the situation in Ukraine,” Giles said.

Who else has sent defensive backup to the Gulf?

European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy have pledged to provide defensive backup to Gulf nations over the past week. Additionally, Australia said it was deploying military assets to the region.

Wary of becoming directly involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, European countries have nevertheless been drawn into the conflict by attacks on a British base on Cyprus in the Mediterranean and Iranian strikes on Western allies in Gulf countries that host US troops in military bases.

What will happen next?

Just as Ukraine is getting involved in the war, Russia might too, say experts.

“We should not be surprised if before long, as well as Russian technology in Iranian drones, we see Iran launching Shaheds manufactured in Russia,” Giles said.

He described Russia as a “primary beneficiary of current US actions,” pointing to how the surge in oil prices, the relaxation in US curbs on Russian energy exports to keep crude and gas prices under control, and the diversion of air defence munitions from Europe to the Middle East all helped Moscow. These, he said, “are all lifelines for Russia”.

Iran’s military and political leaders pledge allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei as Saudi Arabia reports two deaths amid Iranian counterattacks.

Tehran has carried out more attacks on Gulf states – despite an apology by the president to Iran’s neighbours.

Civilian targets have been hit, including airports and vital infrastructure.

Who’s in control in Iran – and how will Gulf states react as the attacks continue?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

John Brennan – Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency under the administration of US President Barack Obama

Bader Al-Saif – Professor at Kuwait University and fellow at Chatham House, specialising in Middle East history and politics

Trita Parsi – Executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gordon Gray explains the short-term and long-term implications of US-Israeli war on Iran.

Bahrain has said an Iranian drone attack caused material damage to a water desalination plant in the country, marking the first time a Gulf nation has reported targeting any such facility during the eight days of the war between Iran and the US and Israel.

The attack on Sunday comes a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island in southern Iran was attacked by the United States.

“Water supply in 30 villages has been impacted. Attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The US set this precedent, not Iran,” he said on X on Saturday.

While Tehran has not yet commented on the Bahrain attack, it has raised questions about the vulnerability of the Gulf countries, which depend on desalination plants for the majority of their water supply.

How important are water desalination plants to the Gulf region? Can water security in the Gulf be guaranteed amid a widening of military targets to include energy and other civilian sites?

What are desalination plants?

A desalination plant primarily converts seawater into water suitable for drinking purposes as well as for irrigation and industrial use.

The process of desalination involves removing salt, algae and other pollutants from seawater using a thermal process or membrane-based technologies.

According to the US Department of Energy, desalination systems “heat water so that it evaporates into steam, leaving behind impurities, and then condenses back into a liquid for human use”.

Meanwhile, membrane-based desalination involves “a class of technologies in which saline water passes through a semipermeable material that allows water through but holds back dissolved solids like salts”.

Reverse osmosis is the most popular membrane technology. Most countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) use reverse osmosis since it is an energy-efficient technique.

Why are desalination plants important to the Gulf?

Water is scarce in the Gulf region due to the arid climate and irregular rainfall. Countries in the Gulf also have very limited natural freshwater resources. Groundwater, together with desalinated water, accounts for about 90 percent of the region’s main water resources, according to a 2020 report by the Gulf Research Center.

But in recent years, as groundwater has also begun to deteriorate as a result of climate change, Gulf countries have begun relying heavily on energy-intensive seawater desalination to meet their water needs.

More than 400 desalination plants are located on the Arabian Gulf shores stretching from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Kuwait, providing water to one of the most water-scarce regions in the world.

According to a 2023 research paper published by the Arab Center Washington DC, GCC member states account for about 60 percent of global water desalination capacity, producing almost 40 percent of the total desalinated water in the world.

About 42 percent of the UAE’s drinking water comes from desalination plants, while that figure is 90 percent in Kuwait, 86 percent in Oman, and 70 percent in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also produces more desalinated water than any other country.

Desalination has also played a crucial role in enabling economic development in the region, according to Naser Alsayed, an environmental researcher specialising in the Gulf states.

He noted that after the discovery of oil in the late 1930s, Gulf states had very limited natural freshwater resources and could not meet the demands created by population growth and expanding economic activity.

“Desalination plants were therefore introduced,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the importance of desalinated water in supporting the Gulf’s development is often overlooked.

“As a result, targeting or disrupting desalination facilities would place much of the region’s economic stability and growth at significant risk,” he said.

“Secondly, desalination is the main source of freshwater for most GCC states, especially smaller and highly water-scarce countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. Because this water is primarily used for human consumption, desalination carries a strong humanitarian dimension and is essential for sustaining daily life in the region, making any disruption to these facilities particularly significant for the population,” he added.

Iran also uses desalination plants, which have been installed in coastal areas such as Qeshm Island in the Gulf. But Iran also has many rivers and dams and is not as heavily reliant on desalination plants as other countries in the Gulf region.

If a desalination plant is attacked, what is the impact?

The Gulf’s heavy reliance on desalination plants has made it vulnerable during times of conflict.

During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, Iraqi forces intentionally destroyed most of Kuwait’s desalination capacity, and the damage to its water supply was severe.

Raha Hakimdavar, a hydrologist, told Al Jazeera that in the long-term, attacking these plants can also impact domestic food production, which mostly uses groundwater.

“However, the pressures from competing needs can divert this water away from domestic production. This can be especially challenging because the region is also highly food import dependent and is facing potential food security challenges due to the compromising of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Hakimdavar, who is a Senior Advisor to the Deans at Georgetown University in Qatar and the Earth Commons.

A 2010 CIA report (PDF) also warned that while “national dependence on desalinated water varies substantially among Persian Gulf countries, disruption of desalination facilities in most of the Arab countries could have more consequences than the loss of any industry or commodity.”

According to Alsayed, the impact of a plant being attacked in the region, however, depends on the local scenario.

“For Saudi Arabia, which is the least dependent on desalination and has significant geographic space, facilities on the Red Sea provide resilience. The UAE has 45 days of water storage aligned with its 2036 water security strategy, so contingency plans are in place to manage potential disruptions,” he said.

“The effects are likely to be felt more acutely in smaller states that are highly dependent on desalination like Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, which have minimal strategic reservoirs,” he noted.

“The most significant impact, in my view, is psychological,” Alsayed said. “Water is essential to human life, and the perception of risk can cause fear and panic, which is particularly challenging in the current environment in the region and where authorities are working to maintain calm.”

How can water security be guaranteed?

As attacks on Gulf countries continue, with energy and civilian infrastructure being targeted, Alsayed highlighted that it is important for GCC countries to view water security as a regional issue rather than an independent concern for each member state.

“The countries need to coordinate more closely and work together. The GCC has a strong platform to prepare for water challenges, but has not fully utilised it,” he said.

Alsayed noted that the GCC Unified Water Strategy 2035 called for all member states to have a national integrated energy and water plan by 2020, but this has not yet been achieved.

“Whether through unified desalination grids, shared regional strategic water reserves, or diversifying water resource goals, this is the way to usher a new era to strengthen Gulf water security,” he said.

Hakimdavar, the hydrologist, said there is no replacement for desalination in the GCC in the near-term.

But she added that the GCC countries can rely on strategic water storage reservoirs – many countries maintain large water reserves that can supply cities for several days or longer.

“Countries can also diversify water supply systems, and also invest in smaller, more distributed desalination plants powered by renewable energy to reduce reliance on a few very large facilities,” she added.

A year ago, engineers at Snowflake, the American cloud-based data platform, still spent part of their day on routine tasks – such as scanning dashboards to ensure systems were running smoothly and chasing colleagues for data to complete trend analyses.

Now, says Qaiser Habib, the company’s Toronto-based head of Canada engineering, AI agents handle much of that groundwork, allowing engineers to focus on higher-level decisions.

Habib spends 20 to 30 hours a week interacting with five AI agents. Snowflake has built agents to review product design or to help on-call engineers to help during an outage or an incident, among other uses. He estimates the average engineer works with three or four agents daily, using them to carry out coding projects under human supervision.

“You don’t have to bother a human for basic questions any more,” Habib said, noting that he still collaborates with colleagues on more complex work, such as troubleshooting coding problems.

As companies experiment with AI agents – systems designed to plan, reason and carry out multistep tasks – the technology is beginning to reshape office hierarchies across the United States and Canada. Unlike chatbots, which respond to prompts, AI agents can adapt to changing contexts such as business goals and draw on reference tools including calendars, meeting transcripts and internal databases, to complete work with limited human oversight.

In some workplaces, AI systems are not just completing tasks but also assigning them to human workers. As the technology improves, AI agents are also beginning to manage each other. One agent might generate code, for example, while another reviews it for errors and fixes bugs before a human signs off on the final version.

These agent-to-agent workflows can help companies scale faster. But they also intensify concerns that AI is moving beyond assistance into supervision – and potentially, job replacement.

The leaner office

Anthropic recently expanded access to its cowork agents, allowing users without technical expertise to grant Claude – its AI assistant – permission to specific folders on their computers so it can read, edit, create and organise files autonomously.

The growing use of AI agents is transforming how organisations function around the world, even in companies that aren’t focused on building technology products. For example, some companies are using AI tools to track performance, recommend promotions, role changes, and even identify roles for elimination.

The shift comes as white-collar jobs continue to disappear, particularly in the US. A slew of US employers have announced mass layoffs, mostly affecting entry-level and middle-management workers, and executives have pointed to automation and AI-driven efficiency as part of the rationale. When Amazon said in October that it planned to eliminate about 14,000 jobs, executives cited AI’s potential to help the company operate with fewer layers and greater efficiency. UPS, Target and General Motors also announced deep cuts last year, and this January saw more layoffs than any January in the US since 2009. Several more companies, including Pinterest and HP, continued to cite AI initiatives as part of the reason.

Goldman Sachs has estimated that 6 to 7 percent of US workers could lose their jobs due to AI adoption, with higher risks for computer programmers, accountants, auditors, legal and administrative assistants, and customer service representatives. Overall employment effects, the bank said in August, may be “relatively temporary” as new roles emerge.

Middle management squeezed

Early predictions suggested AI would mainly replace entry-level technical jobs, and some experts tie recent high unemployment rates for new graduates to AI adoption. But the bigger disruption, said Roger Kirkness, founder of AI software firm Convictional in Toronto, is occurring in middle management.

His company’s tools translate executive strategy into operational tasks – a role once handled by supervisors – delivering daily assignments and feedback to employees through a user-friendly inbox interface.

In companies of more than 50 people, “where CEOs can’t speak with each manager, our platform continually surfaces the context that the organisation has that is relevant to leadership decision-making”, Kirkness told Al Jazeera.

This doesn’t mean humans have become irrelevant. But there is growing pressure to reskill, and those who thrive in strategic thinking are better-positioned to adapt to AI-integrated work environments, Kirkness said.

“People are basically becoming managers of their prior jobs,” he said, because AI is now able to perform many of the tasks that previously fell within their roles. Instead of completing tasks such as coding or designing marketing assets, humans are focusing on higher-level strategy while monitoring AI systems, he added.

However, recent research indicates that job cuts reflect companies’ anticipation of AI’s potential, rather than its current ability to replace human workers fully.

A December Harvard Business Review survey of 1,006 global executives found that while AI has played little direct role in replacing workers so far, many companies have already cut jobs or slowed hiring in anticipation of its promised impact.

Most CEOs say they’re still waiting on AI’s payoff: 56 percent report no revenue or cost benefits so far, according to consulting firm PwC’s latest Global CEO Survey of 4,454 executives across 95 countries and territories.

Trust and control

Stefano Puntoni, a behavioural scientist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has found that AI usage is also already affecting workplace communication habits. His research shows employees are often more willing to delegate tasks to AI than to colleagues, which can help to reduce burnout. “There’s no social cost,” he said. “You don’t worry about burdening an AI.”

Still, Puntoni argues the biggest barrier to adoption is psychological, not technical. Even effective systems can fail if workers do not trust them. Generative AI, he said, can threaten employees’ sense of competence, autonomy and connection.

“If workers feel threatened, they may want the system to fail,” Puntoni said. “At scale, that guarantees failure.”

In other words, deploying AI primarily as a cost-cutting tool can backfire. Layoffs framed as efficiency gains may reduce cooperation and limit the productivity benefits companies hope to unlock with technology, Puntoni said.

Trust, Kirkness agreed, is the real constraint. To build staff confidence in the tools it sells – and to avoid layoffs – Convictional adopted a four-day workweek, framing it as a way to share AI-driven productivity gains with employees.

“Mass layoffs in the name of automation destroy trust,” he said.

The human premium

In the US, lawsuits have begun to challenge AI-driven corporate decisions, particularly in areas such as insurance claim denials and alleged AI-enabled hiring discrimination.

Some experts warn that as AI systems become more autonomous, humans risk losing meaningful oversight – and that these agents themselves could become targets for cyberattacks. Yet regulation has struggled to keep pace with innovation. Neither the US nor Canada has clearly defined rules governing AI agents.

Business leaders are testing which functions can be automated and which still require sustained human involvement. For some workers, that uncertainty has become a source of unease.

One employee at a multinational firm, who is based in Vancouver, said she sometimes wonders whether the online “coach” used to support employee development is an AI system or a human relying so heavily on AI tools that the distinction has blurred. She requested anonymity because of concerns about professional repercussions.

Some organisations are setting boundaries. New Ground Wellness, a Canadian clinical counselling and wellness firm, uses AI tools such as chatbots in its daily operations, but recently declined a 20,000 Canadian dollar ($14,600) proposal for an agentic AI intake system that would match therapists with clients.

After receiving feedback from callers, the company concluded that the efficiency gains would not outweigh potential damage to trust. Their decision also reflects multiple surveys showing a strong preference among Western consumers for human customer service workers.

“We are open to revisiting AI systems in the future,” said New Ground Wellness cofounder Lucinda Bibbs, “but at this stage, preserving human connections remains our highest priority.”

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE report more attacks despite assurance from Iran’s president that the strikes will stop.

United States President Donald Trump has posted on social media that he does not need the United Kingdom to deploy aircraft carriers to the Middle East, amid the ongoing war with Iran.

Saturday’s post on Truth Social follows a statement from the UK’s Ministry of Defence that one of its two flagship aircraft carriers, the HMS Prince of Wales, has been placed on “high readiness”.

“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” Trump wrote.

“That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer — But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

The post, with its reference to the UK as a “once great ally”, signals a deepening rift between the two countries that has emerged since Trump returned to office last year.

The divide appears to have deepened over the past week, as the US and Israel continue to hammer Iran as part of a war they launched on February 28.

The conflict has sparked fears across the Middle East, as retaliatory strikes from Tehran target US allies across the region.

Already, an estimated 1,332 people have been killed in Iran, and the US has confirmed the deaths of six of its service members. More deaths have been reported in countries like Lebanon, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.

The UK government has increased its involvement in the war on Iran, widely considered illegal under international law.

The UK Defence Ministry, for instance, said on Saturday that the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer had allowed the US to use its military bases for what it termed “limited defensive purposes”.

The bases include RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and the Diego Garcia site in the Chagos Islands, located in the Indian Ocean. Initially, there had been reports that Starmer had blocked the US use of the bases.

In the immediate aftermath of the initial US-Israeli strike, Starmer appeared to blanche at the prospect of joining the war.

He and the leaders of France and Germany issued a joint statement, underscoring that any actions they might take would be defensive in nature.

“We will take steps to defend our interests and those of our allies in the region, potentially through enabling necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source,” the joint statement said.

“We have agreed to work together with the US and allies in the region on this matter.”

But Starmer has had to push back on domestic criticism both for and against joining the war.

On Monday, he told the UK Parliament, “We are not joining the US and Israeli offensive strikes”, citing the need to protect “Britain’s national interest” and “British lives”.

The war in Iran remains largely unpopular in the UK. The polling firm Survation conducted a survey over the last week of 1,045 British adults, in which 43 percent of respondents called the war not justifiable.

When asked if they supported Starmer’s initial decision not to allow the US to use UK bases, 56 percent of respondents approved. Only 27 percent said it was the wrong choice.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside the US Embassy in London on Saturday to call for an end to the ballooning conflict.

The US president, meanwhile, has upped his criticism of Starmer over the past week, further fraying relations with the UK government.

On March 3, for instance, Trump held an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, in which he said repeatedly he was “not happy with the UK”.

Of Starmer, Trump said, “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

Trump has long admired Churchill, and last year installed a bust of the late UK wartime leader in the Oval Office, just as he had during his first term.

By contrast, Trump has issued a flood of criticism against Starmer, particularly for his 2024 decision to transfer control of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The transfer came after the International Court of Justice found the UK acted unlawfully in 1965 by separating the islands from Mauritius to create a separate colony.

The deal with Mauritius allows the US and the UK to maintain a military base on Diego Garcia, part of the archipelago.

However, Trump has repeatedly slammed the transfer, writing on social media that “giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY”.

Tensions between the US and UK also rose in January after Trump told Fox News that NATO allies had “stayed a little off the front lines” during the US war in Afghanistan.

Starmer had responded that he found Trump’s comments “to be insulting and frankly appalling”.

The Trump administration has signalled it is pivoting away from its traditional European allies in favour of more politically aligned countries.

At a summit on Saturday with right-wing Latin American leaders, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to praise the attendees while casting shade on other allies.

“At a time when we have learned that, oftentimes, an ally, when you need them, maybe may not be there for you, these are countries that have been there for us,” Rubio told the summit.

At the inaugural “Shield of the Americas” summit in South Florida, United States President Donald Trump announced the creation of what he calls the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition: a group of a dozen politically aligned countries committed to fighting drug trafficking.

But as he signed a declaration to cement that commitment, Trump signalled that it came with the expectation that cartels would not be confronted with law enforcement action, but instead military might.

“ The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our military. So we have to use our military. You have to use your military,” Trump told the audience of Latin American leaders.

“You have some great police, but they threaten your police. They scare your police. You’re going to use your military.”

Saturday’s summit was the latest step in a larger foreign policy pivot under Trump.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has distanced himself from some of the US’s traditional allies in Europe, instead forging tighter partnerships with right-wing governments around the world.

The attendance at the Shield of the Americas summit reflected that shift. Right-wing leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, were among the guest list.

But notably absent was top-level leadership from Mexico, the US’s biggest trading partner, and Brazil, the largest country in the region by economy and population.

Both Mexico and Brazil are led by left-wing presidents who have resisted some of Trump’s more hardline policies.

The growing rift between the US and some of its longtime partners was a feature in the brief remarks delivered by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who praised attendees for their cooperation.

“They’re more than allies. They’re friends,” Rubio said of the leaders present.

“At a time when we have learned that oftentimes an ally, when you need them, maybe may not be there for you, these are countries that have been there for us.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, meanwhile, reiterated his view that criminal networks and cartels pose an existential crisis for the entire Western Hemisphere, which he described as sharing the same cultural and religious roots.

“ We share a hemisphere and geography. We share cultures, Western Christian civilisation. We share these things together. We have to have the courage to defend it,” Hegseth said.

A military-first approach

Latin America is one of several areas where Trump has launched military operations since returning to office in January 2025.

His rationale for authorising deadly operations in the region has centred primarily on the illicit drug trade.

Trump has repeatedly argued that Latin American criminal networks pose an imminent threat to national security, through the trafficking of people and drugs across US borders.

Experts in international law have pointed out that drug trafficking is considered a criminal offence — and it is not accepted as justification for acts of military aggression.

But the Trump administration has nevertheless launched lethal military strikes against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America.

Since September, for instance, the Trump administration has conducted at least 44 aerial strikes on maritime vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, killing nearly 150 people.

The victims’ identities have never been publicly confirmed, nor has evidence been publicly released to justify the deadly strikes.

Some families in Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have stepped forward to claim the dead as their loved ones, out on a fishing expedition or travelling between islands for informal work.

In Saturday’s remarks, Trump justified the attacks by arguing that cartels and other criminal networks had grown more powerful than local militaries — and therefore necessitated a lethal response.

“Many of the cartels have developed sophisticated military operations. Highly sophisticated, in some cases. They say they’re more powerful than the military in the country,” Trump said.

“Can’t have that. These brutal criminal organisations pose an unacceptable threat to national security. And they provide a dangerous gateway for foreign adversaries in our region.”

He then compared cartels to a disease: “They’re cancer, and we don’t want it spreading.”

A ‘nasty’ operation in Venezuela

In late December and early January, Trump also initiated attacks on Venezuelan soil, again defending his actions as necessary to stop drug traffickers.

The first attack targeted a port Trump linked to the gang Tren de Aragua. The second, on January 3, was a broader offensive that culminated in the abduction and imprisonment of Venezuela’s then-leader, President Nicolas Maduro.

On Saturday, Trump reflected on that military operation, which he characterised as an unmitigated success.

Maduro is currently awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges in New York, though a declassified intelligence report last May cast doubt on Trump’s allegations that the Venezuelan leader directed drug-trafficking operations through groups like Tren de Aragua.

“America’s armed forces also ended the reign of one of the biggest cartel kingpins of all, with Operation Absolute Resolve to bring outlaw dictator Nicolas Maduro to justice in a precision raid,” Trump told Saturday’s summit.

He then described the military operation as “nasty”, though he underscored that no US lives were lost.

The early-morning raid, however, killed at least 80 people in Venezuela, including 32 Cuban military officers, dozens of Venezuelan security forces, and several civilians.

“We went right into the heart. We took them out, and it was nasty. It was about 18 minutes of pure violence, and we took them out,” Trump said of the operation.

Trump has since held up Venezuela as a model for regime change around the world, particularly as it leads a war with Israel against Iran.

Maduro’s successor, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, has so far complied with many of Trump’s demands, including for reforms to the country’s nationalised oil and mining sectors.

Just this week, the two countries re-established diplomatic relations for the first time since 2019, under Trump’s first term as president.

In Saturday’s remarks, however, Trump reiterated that his positive relationship with Rodriguez hinged on her cooperation with his priorities.

“She’s doing a great job because she’s working with us. If she wasn’t working with us, I would not say she’s doing a great job,” he said.

“In fact, if she wasn’t working with us, I’d say she’s doing a very poor job. Unacceptable.”

‘We’ll use missiles’

Trump did, however, express consternation with other presidents in the Latin American region, accusing them of allowing cartels to run amok.

“Leaders in this region have allowed large swaths of territory, the Western Hemisphere, to come under the direct control” of the cartels, Trump said.

“Transnational gangs have taken over, and they’ve run areas of your country. We’re not going to let that happen.”

He even delivered an ominous warning to the summit’s attendees: “Some of you are in danger. I mean, you’re actually in danger. It’s hard to believe.”

Many of the leaders in attendance, including El Salvador’s Bukele, have launched their own harsh crackdowns on gangs in their countries, employing “mano dura” or “iron fist” tactics.

Those campaigns, however, have elicited concerns from human rights groups, who have noted that presidents like Bukele used emergency declarations to suspend civil liberties and imprison hundreds of people, often without a fair trial.

Still, Trump dismissed alternative approaches in Saturday’s speech. Though he did not mention Colombia by name, he was critical of efforts to negotiate for the disarmament of cartels and rebel groups, as Colombian President Gustavo Petro has sought to do.

Instead, he offered to deploy military might throughout the region.

“We’ll use missiles. If you want us to use a missile, they’re extremely accurate — pew! — right into the living room, and that’s the end of that cartel person,” Trump said.

“A lot of countries don’t want to do that. They say, ‘Oh, sure. I’d rather not have that. I’d rather not have it. I believe they could be spoken to.’ I don’t think so.”

A call to ‘eradicate’ Mexico’s cartels

One country he did single out, though, was Mexico. Trump suggested that it had fallen behind other countries in the region in its efforts to combat crime.

“We must recognise the epicentre of cartel violence is Mexico,” he said.

“The Mexican cartels are fueling and orchestrating much of the bloodshed and chaos in this hemisphere, and the United States government will do whatever’s necessary to defend our national security.”

Since the start of his second term, Trump has pressured Mexico to step up its security efforts, threatening tariffs and even the possibility of military action if it does not comply.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded by increasing military deployments throughout the country.

In February 2025, for instance, she announced 10,000 soldiers would be sent to the US-Mexico border. For the upcoming FIFA World Cup, her officials have said nearly 100,000 security personnel will be patrolling the streets.

Just last month, her government also launched a military operation in Jalisco to capture and kill the cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, nicknamed “El Mencho”. She has also facilitated the transfer of cartel suspects to the US for trial.

But Trump reemphasised on Saturday his belief that Sheinbaum had not gone far enough, though he called her a “very good person” and a “beautiful woman” with a “beautiful voice”.

“I said, ‘Let me eradicate the cartels,’” Trump said, relaying one of his conversations with Sheinbaum.

“We have to eradicate them. We have to knock the hell out of them because they’re getting worse. They’re taking over their country. The cartels are running Mexico. We can’t have that. Too close to us, too close to you.”

‘Last moments of life’ in Cuba

Trump also used his podium to continue his threats against Cuba’s communist government.

Since the January 3 attack on Venezuela, Trump has increased his “maximum pressure” campaign against the Caribbean island, which has been under a full US trade embargo since the 1960s.

His administration severed the flow of oil and funds from Venezuela to Cuba, and in late January, Trump announced he would impose steep economic penalties on any country that provides the island with oil, a critical resource for the country’s electrical grid.

Already, the country has been struck with widespread blackouts, and the United Nations has warned Cuba is inching closer to humanitarian “collapse”.

But Trump framed the circumstances as progress towards the ultimate goal of regime change in Cuba.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he told Saturday’s summit.

“Cuba’s at the end of the line. They’re very much at the end of the line. They have no money, they have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time.”

He added that he thinks changing Cuba’s government will be “easy” and that a deal could be struck for the transition of power.

“Cuba’s in its last moments of life as it was. It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is,” Trump said.

But while Trump’s remarks largely focused on governments not represented at the summit, he warned that there could be consequences even for the right-wing leaders in attendance.

Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” coalition comes as he seeks to bring the whole of Latin America in line with US priorities. It’s a policy he has dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”, a riff on the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which claimed the Western Hemisphere as the US’s sphere of influence.

To Trump, that means ousting rival powers like China as they seek to forge relationships and economic ties with Latin America. Trump has even mused about retaking the Panama Canal, based on his allegation that the Chinese have too much control in the area.

“As these situations in Venezuela and Cuba should make clear, under our new doctrine — and this is a doctrine — we will not allow hostile foreign influence to gain a foothold in this hemisphere,” Trump said.

He then made a pointed remark to Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, who was in the audience.

“That includes the Panama Canal, which we talked about. We’re not going to allow it.”