Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says diplomatic efforts to resolve the US-Israeli war on Iran are ‘progressing steadily’ as he urged US President Donald Trump to postpone his threatened deadline for two weeks. Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid explains Islamabad’s ‘last-ditch effort’.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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A total 11 out of 15 members supported the resolution, which was already watered down to evade vetoes.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
Russia and China have vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution aimed at protecting commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The draft text, on which a vote was held on Tuesday, was proposed by Bahrain. Eleven of the 15 members of the UNSC voted in favour, and two abstained. However, Russia and China said that the measure was biased against Iran.
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Under the resolution, affected states would have been asked to “coordinate efforts, defensive in nature, commensurate to the circumstances, to contribute to ensuring the safety and security of navigation across the Strait of Hormuz”.
Shipping through the narrow waterway, through which a fifth of global oil and gas shipments previously passed, has effectively come to a standstill after Tehran threatened to attack vessels in response to the war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel on February 28.
The blockade has sent fuel prices soaring across much of the world and led some countries, particularly in Asia, to introduce restrictions on consumption and ration supplies.
A deadline set by US President Donald Trump for Iran to reopen the water passage or else face even worse bombardment is set to expire later on Tuesday, after he repeatedly issued – and delayed – similar threats.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, condemned the Russian and Chinese vetoes, saying they marked “a new low”, as Iran’s shutting of the strait was preventing medical aid and supplies from reaching humanitarian crises in the Congo, Sudan and Gaza.
“No one should tolerate that. They are holding the global economy at gunpoint. But today, Russia and China did tolerate it.”
France deplored the vetoes. “The aim was to encourage strictly, purely defensive measures to provide the security and safety for the strait without spiralling towards escalation,” its UN ambassador, Jerome Bonnafont, said.
Russia and China said the resolution was biased against Iran.
China’s UN envoy Fu Cong said adopting such a draft when the US was threatening the survival of a civilisation would have sent the wrong message.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said Russia and China were proposing an alternative resolution on the situation in the Middle East, including maritime security.
Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, praised the Chinese and Russian moves, saying “Their action today prevented the Security Council from being misused to legitimise aggression.”
The wording of the resolution had been the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations for days.
An earlier version of the document had explicitly referred to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which grants the UNSC the authority to take measures ranging from sanctions to the use of military force.
But after China’s opposition, Bahrain had significantly weakened its draft, dropping any authorisation of the use of force.
An explicit reference to binding enforcement, included in an earlier draft, was also left out.
Tehran, Iran – The head of Iran’s top science and engineering university believes that the United States and Israel are targeting symbols of Iran’s progress as a nation, and not merely hitting the governing establishment.
The Sharif University of Technology in Tehran was bombed on Monday, destroying and damaging multiple buildings, including what was described by the authorities as an artificial intelligence centre housing critical databases. The university’s website and other online services went dark.
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“We believe the reason the enemy targeted these buildings and destroyed the entire infrastructure is that it did not want us to achieve AI technology,” university President Masoud Tajrishi said, adding that the higher education facility had been working on training AI models in Persian for two years and provided services to hundreds of companies.
“The enemy does not want us to succeed or have development and progress, but all our universities are united now by these attacks,” he said at the site of the bombing on Tuesday. Minutes later, another attack targeted the capital, with low-flying cruise missiles visible over downtown Tehran and air defence guns activated.
Tajrishi also said that no country had been prepared to provide Iran with the knowledge and know-how to work on AI technology due to US sanctions and competitive advantages, so all of the research was done domestically.
The US and Israel have not provided an official reason for targeting Iran’s main higher education hubs or cultural heritage sites, which are considered civilian infrastructure. No casualties were reported inside Sharif since all school and university classes are being taken online, but more than 2,000 people have been killed during the war.
The strike on the top university, which was founded six decades ago, came after a string of similar air raids targeting research centres inside other prominent facilities, including the century-old Pasteur Institute, a photonics lab at Shahid Beheshti University and a satellite development lab at the Science and Technology University.
More than 30 universities have been affected by US and Israeli attacks since the start of the war on February 28, Iran’s minister of science, research and technology, Hossein Simaei Saraf, told Al Jazeera last week.
The attacks prompted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to declare US and Israeli-affiliated universities “legitimate targets”.
Mohammad Hossein Omid, president of Tehran University, wrote a letter on behalf of 15 top university heads last week, urging the IRGC to refrain from attacking other universities in order to show that Tehran is committed to safeguarding higher education facilities anywhere as “human and global heritage” entities.
However, he has since shifted his position and demanded retaliatory attacks in kind after a huge backlash from local hardline media.
The US and Israel have continued to attack across Iran, targeting the country’s infrastructure, hours ahead of US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to capitulate to his demands. The Israeli military has already on Tuesday hit Iran’s railway network, but Trump has threatened to bomb critical civilian infrastructure, such as the country’s main power plants and bridges, which would constitute a violation of international law.
Trump said “a whole civilisation will die tonight” in Iran, with the comment coming days after the country’s steel factories and petrochemical manufacturers were extensively targeted in another move that will affect all of Iran’s population of more than 90 million. He boasted that it would take 20 years for Iran to rebuild if Washington were to withdraw today, but it could take 100 years to rebuild if the war continues.
Inside the Sharif University on Tuesday, a mathematics professor held an online class inside the remains of a bombed building as a show of defiance and continuity.
Placards placed nearby by the authorities read, “Trump’s help has arrived.”
This was in reference to repeated claims by the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they wish to “help” the Iranian people overthrow the Islamic Republic, which came to power after a 1979 revolution but has faced nationwide protests in recent years.
But the increasing systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure has caused deep concerns among many Iranians, especially since the country was already dealing with a host of issues before the war, including economic woes and an energy crisis.
“It was a strange feeling waking up in the morning and seeing your university attacked, not to mention the terror of feeling you might not have electricity to check anything tomorrow,” said a Shahid Beheshti student, who asked to remain anonymous.
“If you can justify attacks on power plants, steel, petrochemicals, bridges, universities and science institutes, you can justify anything,” he told Al Jazeera.
The civilian infrastructure attacks have also prompted local media to lash out against foreign-based Iranians, some of whom have supported US and Israeli attacks in the hope that they would lead to the toppling of the governing establishment of military, political, and theocratic leaders.
The Fars news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, claimed on Tuesday that the attack on Sharif University could not have been possible without “betrayal” from dissidents abroad. It accused Ali Sharifi Zarchi, a top former professor-turned-dissident at Sharif, of leaking the coordinates of the bombed centre, without providing evidence.
Sharifi Zarchi pointed out in a tweet in response that the centre was marked on Google Maps, and said that while he unequivocally condemns the targeting of universities and other civilian sites, “the aim of any attacks should be the overthrow of the Islamic Republic regime, which has held the Iranian people hostage through repression, mass killings, and internet shutdowns.”
The professor circulated a letter published in a number of nongovernment student groups on Tuesday, which also condemned the US and Israeli attacks but said that the establishment was responsible for pursuing policies that put it on a collision course with the two countries and their allies.
“Our people want to work, to study, to breathe, to have access to the internet, and to build their own future,” the students wrote. “Minds that leave do not return. A girl who is detained no longer studies. A child whose school is bombed does not grow up. The cost of these losses will be paid by all of our futures – including those who benefit from this divide today.”
Donald Trump warned that “a whole civilisation will die tonight” if Iran does not open the Strait of Hormuz, ahead of a Tuesday night deadline for Tehran to comply. The comments follow a “pretty shocking” silence from US Congress on the US-Israeli war, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett explains.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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The US-Israel war on Iran has sparked a global fuel crisis as thousands of tankers carrying crucial deliveries of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) remain stranded on either side of the Strait of Hormuz, currently under a blockade imposed by Iran.
On Saturday, Egypt’s government said it is among the “best-performing” countries in tackling the crisis because of the measures it has implemented to save on fuel.
Here is what we know about the steps Egypt is taking and whether other countries are doing the same.
Pressure on oil and gas markets is mounting due to the almost complete halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz as well as air strikes on and around key energy facilities in the Gulf as the United States-Israel war on Iran enters its sixth week.
One-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG is shipped from producers in the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz in peacetime. This is the only route from the Gulf to the open ocean.
On March 2, two days after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, Ebrahim Jabari, a senior adviser to the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), announced that the strait was “closed”. If any vessels tried to pass through, he said, the IRGC and the navy would “set those ships ablaze”. Since then, traffic through the strait, carrying cargoes including 20 million barrels of oil each day, has plunged by more than 95 percent.
Now, Tehran is allowing just a handful of tankers through after reaching agreements with some countries to do so.
Besides this, energy infrastructure in the Middle East has suffered damage over the course of the war.
On March 24, QatarEnergy declared force majeure on some of its long-term LNG supply contracts after an Iranian attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG facility – the largest in the world – wiped out about 17 percent of the country’s LNG export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue and threatening supplies to Europe and Asia.
All of this disruption has sent energy prices soaring. On Tuesday, global oil benchmark Brent crude was around $109 per barrel, compared to around $65 per barrel right before the war started.
Egypt’s Petroleum Ministry has announced rises in fuel prices ranging from 14 percent to 30 percent.
On March 28, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s office told a press conference that the country’s energy import bill had increased from $1.2bn in January to $2.5bn in March.
Egypt is both one of the region’s largest energy importers and among its most heavily indebted economies. While domestic gas and oil account for the majority of its total energy supply, the country still relies on imported fuels, especially refined oil products and some natural gas, from Israel and the Gulf states.
Madbouly announced measures Egypt is taking to mitigate this and preserve state energy resources.
Besides Egypt, other countries are also taking steps to save energy.
Last week, Malaysia ordered civil servants to work from home to save energy in government offices.
In mid-March, it was revealed that government offices in the Philippines had moved to a four-day work week, officials in Thailand and Vietnam were being encouraged to work from home and limit travel, and Myanmar’s government had imposed alternating driving days.
Pakistan, which imports about 80 percent of its energy from the Gulf, announced on Monday of this week that markets and shopping malls would close at 8pm (15:00 GMT) across the country, except in Sindh province. The government’s statement added that food outlets would close at 10pm (17:00 GMT), which is also when marriage ceremonies at private properties and houses must end.
Bangladesh has reduced working hours for government and private workers and banking services hours in a bid to conserve electricity.
In Sri Lanka and Slovenia, authorities have introduced fuel rationing and purchase limits to manage shortages and soaring costs.
Iran has proposed a 10-point peace plan to end the war as the United States and Israel intensify their attacks on Tehran and a deadline looms that was set by US President Donald Trump for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, whose near-closure has triggered a global energy crisis.
At the White House on Monday, Trump called the 10-point plan a “significant step” but “not good enough”.
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Iran’s top university and a major petrochemical plant were hit on Monday after Trump threatened to target power plants and bridges until Tehran agreed to end the war and open the strait, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass.
Here is more about Iran’s 10-point plan and Trump’s response to it:
On Monday, Pakistan, which has mediated talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war, put forth a 45-day ceasefire proposal after separate meetings with US and Iranian officials. The Iranian and US negotiators have not met face to face about the 45‑day truce plan. In late March, Trump told reporters that his envoys were talking to a senior Iranian official, but this was not confirmed by Iran. Tehran has denied holding talks with US negotiators.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said Tehran had conveyed its response via Islamabad. Iran reportedly rejected the proposed ceasefire, putting forward instead a call for a permanent end to the hostilities.
The Iranian proposal consisted of 10 clauses, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of sanctions and reconstruction, IRNA reported. The conflict has spread to the Gulf region and Lebanon, where 1.2 million Lebanese people have been displaced due to Israeli attacks.
Details about the 10 clauses have not been published.
Speaking to reporters about Iran’s plan, Trump said: “They made a … significant proposal. Not good enough, but they have made a very significant step. We will see what happens.”
“If they don’t make a deal, they will have no bridges and no power plants,” he added.
In a profane Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump threatened to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, if the Strait of Hormuz is not fully reopened. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****** Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” he wrote.
The deadline is set for 8pm Washington time on Tuesday (00:00 GMT). Tehran has rejected this ultimatum and threatened to retaliate.
Human rights organisations and members of the US Congress have criticised Trump for threatening to attack civilian targets, which is considered a war crime.
The Axios news website reported that an unnamed US official who saw the Iranian response called it “maximalist”.
The last time the word “maximalist” was used to describe a peace plan in this war was late last month when Iran called a US plan “maximalist”.
An unnamed, high-ranking diplomatic source told Al Jazeera on March 25 that Iran had received a 15-point plan drafted by the US. The plan was delivered to Iran through Pakistan.
The source said Tehran described the US proposal as “extremely maximalist and unreasonable”.
“It is not beautiful, even on paper,” the source said, calling the plan deceptive and misleading in its presentation.
The 15-point plan included a 30-day ceasefire, the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear facilities, limits on Iran’s missiles and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
In return, the US would remove all sanctions imposed on Iran and provide support for electricity generation at Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
Iran has rejected a temporary ceasefire, arguing it would give the US and Israel time to regroup and launch further attacks. Tehran has pointed to Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in June. The US joined that conflict for one day, hitting Iran’s three main nuclear sites with air strikes. Trump claimed at the time that the US had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities but months later justified the current war by saying Iran posed an imminent threat.
The UN nuclear watchdog, however, said Iran was not in a position to make a nuclear bomb.
The US and Israel launched the war on February 28 as Washington was holding negotiations with Iran. On the eve of the war, Oman, the mediator of the talks, had said a deal was “within reach”.
Tehran has said for years that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes and it does not intend to create nuclear weapons. It even signed a deal with the US in 2015 to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. But Trump withdrew from the landmark deal in 2018 and slapped sanctions back on Iran.
In response, Iran decided to enrich uranium from 3.6 percent, which was allowed under the 2015 deal, to almost 60 percent after its Natanz nuclear facility was bombed in 2021. Iran blamed Israel. A 90 percent level of purity is required to make an atomic bomb.
With Tuesday’s deadline fast approaching, chances for a ceasefire appear remote as the two sides remain far from agreement and the conflict is now in its second month.
On Tuesday, Reza Amiri Moghadam, Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan, posted on X: “Pakistan positive and productive endeavours in Good Will and Good Office to stop the war is approaching a critical, sensitive stage …”
“Stay Tuned for more”.
African nations are scrambling to secure oil and gas as the Iran war disrupts supplies from the Middle East.
The war in Iran has created an energy shock in Africa.
The continent relies heavily on oil and gas imports from the Middle East.
Much of this supply is currently stuck on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, which is closed.
Countries including Kenya, Ethiopia and Zambia are reporting shortages.
Africa’s largest oil refinery in Nigeria is pumping out crude at maximum capacity, but that’s nowhere near enough to meet the continent’s needs.
In addition, Africa’s energy infrastructure has suffered from years of underinvestment.
So, what choices do governments have to contain the crisis?
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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During the first month of the US-Israel war on Iran, the Houthis adopted a cautious approach, even though many expected them to move faster based on the nature of their close relationship with Tehran. This assessment is not wrong — the relationship is indeed strong — but what this view misses is that decision-making within the Yemeni group has increasingly become the product of an extended internal debate.
This debate goes back to the Houthis’ decision to launch military action in support of Gaza after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. After the United States and Israel launched retaliatory strikes in March 2025, which lasted for two months, an agreement was brokered by Oman in May, bringing the fighting to a halt. This experience had a deep impact on the group.
Some Houthi leaders believe that the cost of that involvement over the past two years was high, not only in terms of military and leadership losses and civilian casualties, but also in terms of draining resources, damaging infrastructure and complicating the political track, especially with Saudi Arabia, which had put forward a roadmap for peace in Yemen in 2022.
This assessment did not remain at the level of abstract analysis; it became the basis for an internal discussion that produced two clear currents.
The first current leans towards caution. It seems that the previous experience proved that direct involvement does not yield strategic gains, but it does open costly fronts. This camp pushes for avoiding open confrontation, preserving existing understandings — especially with Saudi Arabia — and limiting action to political support or small, contained operations that do not drag the group into a large-scale escalation.
In contrast, there is another current that believes the present moment is crucial for the so-called “axis of resistance” created by Iran, and that absence or hesitation could cost the group its place in the post-war equation. For this current, this is a decisive moment to assert the Houthis’ presence, especially amid an expanding conflict and the likelihood of a reshuffling of the regional balance of power.
Two currents have shaped the Houthis’ decision-making over recent weeks. As a result, today the group has embraced neither full-scale engagement nor total absence. This was evident first in the escalation of political rhetoric during the first month of the war, then in the execution of limited, carefully calculated operations that began on March 27. There was a clear declaration of gradual intervention, close monitoring of developments, and a deliberate effort not to cross the red lines identified by the group’s military spokesperson, particularly those related to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
However, the balance between the two currents may become unstable at some point as the war escalates and widens regionally, and as Iranian and Houthi talk of a “unity of fronts” intensifies. The longer the conflict lasts, the less able the group will be to remain in this grey zone, and the stronger the pressure will be for deeper involvement.
With each new development on the ground, this internal debate may edge closer to a moment of decision: either entrenching caution as a long-term strategic choice, or shifting to broader involvement that may not be as gradual as was declared in Houthi statements.
What remains constant, however, is that the group has entered this phase with the accumulated experience of past years — a record that has taught it the cost of involvement and made it aware that entering a war is not merely a military decision, but an open-ended political, security, and economic trajectory. It has already paid that price in its previous confrontations with the US and Israel.
Thus, the question is no longer whether the Houthis will enter the war, but how they will enter and at what cost. Will they be able to set and maintain limits on their involvement? Will their calibrated entry avoid paying the full price? The answers to these questions will be made clear in the weeks to come.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
A US-Israeli strike has caused extensive damage to a synagogue in Tehran, according to a video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency. Footage shows civil defence workers amid the rubble, with Hebrew-language books scattered on the ground.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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US President Donald Trump said ‘Tuesday will be power plant day’ in a vulgar post on social media. He says the US plans to start bombing electricity infrastructure unless Iran opens the Strait of Hormuz. Al Jazeera’s Hala Al Shami looks at Iran’s power plants and the dangers of potential attacks.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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Political analyst Trita Parsi says no one should be surprised that Iran has rejected the idea of a ceasefire deal with the US and Israel, given their history of violating previous agreements.
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Around two dozen protesters gathered outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv, calling for an end to the war with Iran and Lebanon. Police ordered the protest to disperse within minutes as tensions rose and members of the public confronted demonstrators.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
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The WHO has warned of ‘catastrophic’ risks if radioactive release occurs.
Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has been targeted four times since the United States-Israel war on Iran began more than a month ago.
And the World Health Organization (WHO has warned of “catastrophic” risks if a radioactive release occurs.
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Tehran has accused the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog of inaction – an allegation that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rejects. But it does acknowledge that the situation is of deep concern.
Why are the attacks happening, and what risks do they pose?
Presenter: James Bays
Guests:
Tariq Rauf – Former head of verification and security policy coordination at the IAEA
Abas Aslani – Senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies
Alicia Sanders-Zakre – Head of policy at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says US forces are carrying out more strikes on Iran than any day since the start of war.
Published On 7 Apr 20267 Apr 2026
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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Monday will be the “largest volume of strikes” on Iran since the US-Israeli war began, adding that tomorrow could be even worse if Iran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
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Seoul says Pyongyang has not been supplying Iran with weapons in the hopes of being able to reopen diplomatic dialogue with the US.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
North Korea appears to be distancing itself from longtime partner Iran in the hopes of forming a new relationship with the United States, South Korean intelligence believes.
Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) sees no signs that North Korea has sent weapons or supplies to Tehran since the US-Israel war on Iran began at the end of February, lawmaker Park Sun-won, who attended a closed-door briefing held by the NIS, said on Sunday.
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While Iran’s other allies China and Russia have frequently issued statements on the US-Israel war on Iran, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry has only issued two toned-down statements so far, said the NIS.
While Pyongyang did condemn the US and Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal, it did not issue public condolences after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death or send a congratulatory message when Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him.
The spy agency said Pyongyang is likely adopting this cautious approach to position it for a new diplomatic chapter with the US once the Middle East conflict subsides, said Park.
The NIS also told lawmakers that it now believes Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un is grooming his teenage daughter as his successor, citing a recent public display of her driving a tank.
The NIS said the imagery was intended to highlight the supposed military aptitude of the youngster, who is believed to be around 13 and named Ju Ae.
Such scenes are intended to pay “homage” to Kim’s own public military appearances during the early 2010s, when he was being prepared to succeed his father, Park said.
Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, was earlier thought to be a leading candidate to succeed her brother.
On Monday, she was in North Korean headlines as she welcomed an apology issued by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday over a January drone incursion.
“The ROK [Republic of Korea] president personally expressed regret and talked about a measure for preventing recurrence. Our government appreciated it as very fortunate and wise behaviour for its own sake,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
Seoul initially denied any official role in the January drone incursion, with authorities suggesting it was the work of civilians, but Lee said a probe had revealed government officials had been involved.
“We express regret to the North over the unnecessary military tensions caused by the irresponsible and reckless actions of some individuals,” Lee said.
Lee has sought to repair ties with North Korea since taking office last year, criticising his predecessor for allegedly sending drones to scatter propaganda over Pyongyang.
His repeated overtures, however, have gone unanswered by the North until now.
Lee’s expression of regret follows Kim’s labelling of Seoul as the “most hostile state” in a policy address in March in which he vowed to “thoroughly reject and disregard it”.
US President Donald Trump has issued a direct ultimatum to Iran: reopen the Strait of Hormuz by 8pm Eastern Time in the United States on Tuesday, April 7 (midnight GMT on April 8), or face the destruction of national power plants and bridges.
This echoes an earlier March 21 ultimatum in which he threatened to attack Iran’s power plants – “the biggest one first” – if the strait was not fully reopened within 48 hours.
President Trump has since extended that deadline several times, citing progress in negotiations he claims the US is having with Iran to end the ongoing war. Iran denies it is holding direct talks with the US.
While Trump has made grand statements such as “they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country”, he has not mentioned specific targets.
The US president has also threatened to destroy the country’s bridges. Over the weekend, a US-Israeli strike hit the B1 bridge in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. The major highway link, described as the tallest bridge in the Middle East, had been scheduled to be inaugurated soon. It sustained significant damage in the strike.
Legal experts say that targeting civilian sites amounts to “collective punishment”, which is prohibited under the laws of war.
Iran operates hundreds of power plants which, together, form one of the largest electricity systems in the Middle East, supplying energy to 92 million people.
Most of the country’s power plants are close to major population centres and industrial hubs. The majority of Iran’s population lives in the western half of the country, with Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan the three largest cities.
Iran has a mixture of gas, coal, hydro, nuclear and oil-fired power plants, but most are gas-fired. In the north and centre of the country, clusters of gas-fired plants supply electricity to the country’s largest population centres, including Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Mashhad.
Another major concentration of power plants lies along the Gulf coast. These plants sit close to major gasfields and ports, allowing large thermal stations to run on abundant natural gas.
The coast is also home to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s only nuclear power facility, which has a capacity of 1,000MW. The US and Israel have repeatedly hit this nuclear power plant, raising risks of radioactive contamination far beyond Iran’s borders, the state-run Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) has warned.
Iran also operates a handful of hydropower dams concentrated along the Karun River, the country’s most important source of hydroelectric generation.
Electricity generated from all these plants is fed into a national transmission network operated by Iran Grid Management Company, which distributes power to cities, industries and homes across the country.
The map below shows all of Iran’s power stations with a capacity of 100MW or more.
A 100MW power plant can typically supply electricity to roughly 75,000 to 100,000 homes, depending on consumption patterns.
Iran’s largest power plant by capacity is the Damavand Power Plant located in the Pakdasht area, roughly 50km (31 miles) southeast of Tehran, with a capacity of some 2,900MW, enough to power more than two million homes.
Iran’s largest power plants include:
Other smaller but strategically important power plants include:
Iran’s electricity system relies heavily on large thermal power plants fuelled by natural gas. The country has one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves, and this fuel forms the backbone of its power system.
In 2025, 86 percent of Iran’s electricity came from natural gas.
Oil-fired plants provide a smaller share, generating roughly seven percent of electricity. Some power stations switch to diesel or fuel oil when natural gas supplies are tight, especially during winter demand peaks.
Hydropower accounts for about five percent of electricity. Large dams on rivers such as the Karun River generate power by using flowing water to spin turbines.
Nuclear energy contributes around two percent of the country’s electricity, mainly from the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, Iran’s only operational nuclear reactor.
Renewables such as solar and wind play a very small role, together accounting for less than one percent of electricity generation.
Overall, more than 90 percent of Iran’s electricity comes from fossil fuels, making it one of the most gas-dependent power systems in the world.
As the US threatens to launch a ground invasion of Iran, many questions remain about its goals and geographical span. Some scenarios suggest a focus on some of the islands in the Gulf, others – joining forces with local insurgent groups.
Early on in the war, Washington seemed to toy with the idea of supporting opposition groups from Iran’s large Kurdish minority to launch a war by proxy.
According to reports in the Israeli media, initial efforts by Mossad to encourage attacks by Kurdish groups in Iran’s northwest failed due to “leaks, distrust”. Iran bolstered its defences in the area and put pressure on the authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the Iranian Kurdish groups are based.
Last week, in an interview with Fox News, US President Donald Trump acknowledged that the US provided weapons to the Kurds.
Further action involving either Kurdish or other ethnic opposition groups may still be on the table as his administration seeks to put together an exit strategy from the war. Encouraging local insurgencies to weaken Tehran may seem like a good plan, but would it work?
Fomenting ethnic or religious tensions in the enemy camp is an old military tactic, which the US itself has used many times in the Middle East. Trump is likely looking for ways to gain leverage over the regime in Tehran and stretch its military capabilities. Iran’s internal fractures may seem to offer some opportunities for that.
In the past three decades, Tehran has failed to address the growing grievances of various minority populations in the country’s periphery. Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Balochis feel marginalised in the Shi’a majority state, while Arab and Kurdish Shia Muslims feel discriminated against by ethnic Persians.
This has led to various anti-government mobilisations, including armed ones over the past three decades.
Kurdish armed groups based in Iraq have operated for decades in northwestern Iran. Kurdish areas have also seen waves of mass protests, the most recent of which was in the autumn of 2022 following the death of a Kurdish woman at the hands of morality police in Tehran.
Other armed groups have also been active. In 2018, an attack on a military parade in the city of Ahvaz killed 29 people; an Arab separatist group claimed responsibility. In 2019, Baluchi rebels of the Jaish Al Adl group attacked a bus carrying members of the IRGC, killing at least 27. A raid by the same group on a police station in 2023 killed 11 security personnel. Then in 2024, the bombing of a mourner’s procession for the late General Qasem Sulaimani killed at least 90 people in the southeastern city of Kerman; ISIL claimed responsibility.
All of these incidents expose weaknesses in Iran’s periphery, which its enemies have long tried to exploit. If Trump decides to go down that path, he should take heed of the experiences of those who have tried to undermine the authorities in Tehran by fomenting ethno-religious insurgencies.
Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein was one of them. When he decided to invade Iran in 1980, he saw an opportunity in the ethnic unrest among Kurds and Arabs the Islamic Republic had inherited from the monarchical regime. Saddam Hussein encouraged insurgencies among both minorities.
By the time Iraqi troops stormed onto Iranian territory, the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDP-I) had already launched a rebellion against the newly formed Islamic Republic in 1979. Iraq eventually provided arms and finances, enabling the KDP-I to take over some territory and hold it for months, but internal fighting and the brutal campaign Tehran launched through its Revolutionary Guards managed to suppress the rebellion by 1982-83.
Saddam also tried to get the Arabs in the south to revolt, some Iranian Arab separatist groups fought alongside Iraqi forces in the battle for the Iranian city of Khorramshahr in 1980. But the Sunni Arab community did not join in large numbers. Shi’a Arabs had no desire to participate in what they saw as a foreign invasion, launched by an Sunni-dominated Iraqi regime. As a result, Saddam never got the mass Arab uprising he wished for.
Twenty years later, US President George W Bush tried to use a similar playbook against Iran. He authorised the CIA and other intelligence outfits to carry out covert operations in Iran and funnel money and equipment to some opposition armed groups.
Like Saddam, Bush also failed to foment rebellions in Iran. This is not just because the Islamic Republic was able to handle security situations swifty and decisively, but also because efforts to incite uprisings never really got enough momentum. The reason for that is that parts of Iran’s minorities are well-integrated into the nation’s core and elite. Ethno-religious identities and socio-economic realities in Iran are too complex to feed into a simple black-and-white narrative about ethnic oppression by the Persian majority.
More than a month into the war on Iran, it is by now clear that US and Israeli efforts to trigger a mass uprising in Iran by decapitating the regime have failed.
At this time, there is nothing to suggest that any efforts to foment ethnic insurgencies would be more successful. US-Israel support for separatist groups is unlikely to get anywhere further than localised acts of sabotage or small skirmishes.
This would not divert important military resources and attention away from the fight with the US and Israel, as Iran is fighting a techno-guerilla war, where its most valuable weapons are missiles and drones – not ground troops.
Furthermore, there is significant regional opposition to US support for separatist groups from major allies, including Pakistan and Turkiye. Islamabad has been dealing its own violent attacks carried out by Baluch separatists in the southwest of the country. Meanwhile, for Ankara, the issue of any support for Kurdish groups is highly sensitive given its own long history of unrest in the Kurdish regions of the country.
Iraq would also be reluctant to support such activities. The government in Baghdad, as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government, would not risk retaliation from Iran by allowing US-Israeli support for the Iranian Kurds to take place on Iraqi territory.
Inciting ethnic insurgencies may seem like a good strategy on paper, but in reality it would be another recipe for disaster for the Trump administration, which is already struggling with enough failures in its war on Iran.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US military has rescued a missing American fighter jet crew member in Iran.
The Air Force officer went missing in a remote part of Iran after the downing of his F-15 jet on Friday. Its two crew members ejected from the plane. The pilot was quickly rescued by US forces, but a search had to be launched for the F-15’s weapons systems officer.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump wrote that the US had rescued the second “seriously wounded, and really brave” airman from “deep inside the mountains of Iran”. It was reported that a firefight between US and Iranian forces took place in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province before the rescue. Iran has not confirmed this, however.
Here is how the complicated rescue mission unfolded:
While the identity of the rescued airman has not been made public, Trump referred to him as “a highly respected Colonel”.
He added that the type of rescue mission that recovered him “is seldom attempted because of the danger to ‘man and equipment’”.
Trump said two raids had taken place, and the pilot was rescued in “broad daylight” during the second raid. It is unclear when precisely the pilot was rescued. The US president wrote that the rescue was “unusual, spending seven hours over Iran”.
In his post, Trump said he would talk more about the rescue mission during a news conference with the US military in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday at 1pm (17:00 GMT).
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his Commander in Chief, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow Warfighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”
Trump added that he had ordered dozens of aircraft carrying “lethal weapons” to be sent to retrieve the airman, who had managed to evade Iranian forces for two days.
On Friday morning, the US confirmed that an F-15E Strike Eagle had been shot down over southern Iran. The F-15 is a tactical fighter jet used by the US Air Force that first flew in 1972. Modern variants of the jet cost more than $90m each.
State media outlets in Iran showed photos of what they said was wreckage from the F-15 and what appeared to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.
Trump suggested that the US knew the location of the plane’s second airman and was tracking him as the rescue mission unfolded.
Iran was also racing to locate the airman. Tehran called on the public to hand over the soldier to the authorities in what appeared to be an effort to secure an American prisoner of war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed on Sunday that Iranian forces had also destroyed two C-130 aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters during the operation to rescue the US airman in southern Isfahan province.
The C-130 Hercules and the newer C-130J Super Hercules variant were developed by the US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. They are military transport aircraft primarily used for tactical airlifts, troop transport and medical evacuations.
The Wall Street Journal reported that each C-130 costs more than $100m.
The newspaper said in a report on Sunday that the US blew up the C-130 jets on the ground during the rescue operation, quoting an unnamed person familiar with the matter. This unnamed official did not explain how the jets were downed during the rescue operation but told the outlet that it was necessary to destroy them to ensure they did not fall into enemy hands.
Yes. This conflict has killed 13 US service members and wounded more than 300, the US military’s Central Command said, but no US soldiers have been taken prisoner by Iran.
Since the start of the war on February 28, the US has lost three F-15 fighter jets in what it said was a friendly fire incident over Kuwait. A US military refuelling aircraft also went down over Iraq last month, killing all six crew members.
According to the US military, the last US fighter jet to be shot down by enemy fire before the F-15 on Friday was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
At least one Black Hawk helicopter was hit during the initial rescue operation, US officials said, but it managed to stay airborne.
An A-10 Warthog aircraft was also hit near the Strait of Hormuz a short time after the F-15E on Friday, but its pilot was able to eject before the plane crashed and was subsequently rescued. Iranian media reported this aircraft was hit by Iran’s defence systems.
Iran has not yet confirmed that a firefight took place before the F-15 airman’s rescue. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said a firefight appeared to have occurred in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province and nine people were reported to have been killed in “strikes” there although it was unclear if this was related to the US rescue mission.
Pakistan has proposed a two-stage plan to end the US-Israel war on Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with both sides now mulling the framework, a source has told the Reuters news agency.
Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday acknowledged diplomatic efforts by Pakistan, which has shared a plan with Iran and the United States to end hostilities, according to Reuters.
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Baghaei added that Iran is focused on its security amid the latest attacks from the US and Israel.
A top university in Tehran and the South Pars Petrochemical Plant in Asaluyeh were bombed on Monday, killing at least 34 people in Iran.
Axios first reported on Sunday that the US, Iran and regional mediators were discussing a potential 45-day ceasefire as part of a “two-phased deal” that could lead to a permanent end to the war, citing US, Israeli and regional sources.
The source told Reuters that Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has been in contact “all night long” with US Vice President JD Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
“All elements need to be agreed today,” the source said, adding the initial understanding would be structured as a memorandum of understanding finalised electronically through Pakistan, the sole communication channel in the talks.
Under the proposal, a ceasefire would take effect immediately, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, with 15 to 20 days given to finalise a broader settlement.
The deal, tentatively dubbed the “Islamabad Accord”, would include a regional framework for the strait, with final in-person talks in the capital of Pakistan.
The final agreement is expected to include Iranian commitments not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief and the release of frozen assets, the source said.
Tehran has responded by stating that it will not reopen the strait as part of a temporary ceasefire, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday, adding that it will not accept deadlines as it reviews the proposal. Washington also lacks the readiness for a permanent ceasefire, the official said.
The US has not yet responded to Pakistan’s plan.
“Pakistan officials tell me that Islamabad is involved in ‘frantic diplomacy’, as they put it,” said Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid.
“The problem they’re facing, as one official put it, is essentially that it’s a schoolboy brawl that they are dealing with. It is egos that they have to manage, and it is also a sea of distrust over which they have to build bridges.”
One source told Javaid that Pakistan is speaking to Iran’s clergy, diplomats, and military commanders, but the level of distrust is still high.
“You heard the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman mention that they have come under attack multiple times by the US and Israel. And then, if there is some sort of rapprochement, if there is some sort of agreement, what are the guarantees that their leaders are not going to be targeted?” said Javaid.
Baghaei, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said on Monday that Tehran would never accept a 15-point plan put forward by the US last month. He stated that Tehran had finalised its demands amid recent proposals to end the war, but would reveal them only when appropriate.
He stressed that Iran would not bow to pressure, the IRNA news agency reported.
“A few days ago, they put forward proposals through intermediaries, and the 15-point US plan was reflected through Pakistan and some other friendly countries,” Baghaei said. “Such proposals are both extremely ambitious, unusual, and illogical.”
Baghaei underlined that Iran has its own framework.
“Based on our own interests, based on our own considerations, we codified the set of demands that we had and have,” he said.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman also rejected the idea that engaging with mediators signals weakness.
The latest diplomatic push by Pakistan comes amid escalating hostilities that have raised concerns over disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global fuel supplies. More than 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas passes through the waterway, which remains under a de facto Iranian blockade.
Trump, in an expletive-laden post on Sunday, threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by the end of Tuesday that would reopen the strait.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in Iran since the war began on February 28, according to Iranian authorities.
Israel has also invaded southern Lebanon and struck Beirut, where Lebanese authorities say 1,461 people, including at least 124 children, have been killed. More than 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
Israeli air raids on Lebanon have killed more than 1,450 people, including 126 children, and displaced some 1.2 million residents since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The bombardment has wounded more than 4,400 individuals.
In southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta, an Israeli attack killed seven people, including a four-year-old girl and a Lebanese soldier, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Sunday. The Israeli military had ordered the forced evacuation of the town the previous evening, an area where many displaced Lebanese had sought refuge.
As invasion expands deeper into southern Lebanon, leaving devastated villages behind, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has intensified calls for negotiation. “Why don’t we negotiate … until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he pleaded in a televised address on Sunday, hoping to prevent destruction comparable to Israel’s Gaza operation.
In Toul village in the Nabatieh district, a couple were killed while their children, aged 15 and nine, were injured. Multiple bombardments have wiped out entire families in single attacks. Officials report that approximately 25 percent of all victims are women, children and medical workers.
On March 12, the Israeli military expanded its forced evacuation orders for southern Lebanon residents – from the Litani River to north of the Zahrani River, about 40km (25 miles) north of the Israeli border.
The massive displacement has overwhelmed the country’s shelter capacity. Many families are unable to find accommodation, spending nights in streets, vehicles, or public spaces as collective shelters reach maximum capacity. For many, this represents repeated trauma.
Between October 2023 and November 2024, amid cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon’s border villages suffered the worst of the violence.
At its height, 899,725 people were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces back then. Most had returned by last October, only to be forced to flee again.
Israeli attacks during those 14 months inflicted extensive damage to homes and infrastructure. The World Bank estimated damage to residential buildings alone at approximately $2.8bn. About 99,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, preventing many families from returning even after the ceasefire.
Tehran says it will respond ‘in kind’ to any attacks on its infrastructure, warns Trump threats an ‘incitement to war crimes’.
At least 34 people have been killed, including six children, as the United States and Israel carried out massive attacks across Iran, targeting a top university as well as residential areas, after US President Donald Trump set a Tuesday deadline for Tehran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face strikes on its power plants and bridges.
The Fars news agency reported on Monday that an air attack killed 23 people, including four girls and two boys aged below 10 years, in Tehran province’s Baharestan County.
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At least five people were killed in an attack on a residential building in the city of Qom, according to the political and security deputy of the governor, Morteza Heydari. Six others were killed in Bandar-e Lengeh, in southern Iran, authorities said.
At least a dozen cities were hit across Iran, including Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, Mahshahr, Shiraz, Isfahan and Karaj.
US-Israeli strikes also hit Sharif University in Tehran, one of Iran’s leading scientific universities, often compared with the US’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the facility was severely hit, with extensive damage reported in the compound’s mosque and laboratories.
“The Sharif area has witnessed other attacks, including one on a gas facility,” Asadi said, adding that other civil facilities, including roads, power plants and bridges were also targeted across Iran.
“Iran’s Ministry of Science and Technology told us that at least 30 universities have been hit” since the beginning of the war on February 28, he said.
The attacks follow Trump’s expletive-laden threat on Truth Social, demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face “hell”. Iran has warned of retaliatory attacks, saying it will respond “in kind” to any attacks on its infrastructure, with senior officials condemning the president’s remarks as an “incitement to war crimes”. The strait, through which some 20 percent of global oil and gas passes, has been under effective blockade by Iran in response to the war.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iranians were unfazed by Trump’s threats and that they would not be forced into any unfavourable deal. He said Trump’s statements were “an indication of a criminal mindset” and amounted to an “incitement to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
Baghaei also warned that Iran would respond to any attacks on its infrastructure by launching similar attacks in the region.
Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said a single misstep by either country could severely disrupt global energy flows and international trade.
Velayati added that while the US has learned certain lessons from Iran’s history, it “has yet to understand the geography of power”.
Meanwhile, Israel also faced several missile attacks, with alarms going off in parts of the country. According to the official Israeli radio station, four volleys of Iranian missiles were launched in the early morning hours on Tuesday.
Rescue workers pulled two bodies from the rubble of a building struck in Haifa, while two residents remained missing.
Ambulance and civil defence services reported several injuries, some serious, in more than 20 locations, including Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva and Ramat Gan.
The Ynet News outlet said a 34-year-old woman was “seriously injured” by interceptor missiles in Petah Tikva.
The Channel 2 broadcaster published images of smoke rising over Gush Dan and Bnei Brak, as well as a video of minor damage to a building in Tel Aviv.