war

Russia launched more than 600 drones and 47 missiles as it targeted eight regions in Dnpiro, authorities say.

Overnight Russian attacks in eight regions of Ukraine have killed at least five people and wounded 30 others, Ukrainian officials say.

The central Ukrainian city of Dnipro was hardest hit, with more than 20 people reported wounded, including a nine-year-old and two police officers, according to a Telegram statement from Ukraine’s National Police.

Two people died in the city of Nizhyn in the northern region of Chernihiv, while a one-year-old boy was among the wounded in Kharkiv region, police said.

A rescue operation was underway at a residential building in Dnipro, while emergency services worked in regions across Ukraine, including in Chernihiv, Odesa and Kharkiv.

Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin wrote on Telegram that one person was wounded in attacks on Sloviansk, and another in Kramatorsk. Six homes, five high-rises and buildings, including a post office and a church, also reported damage.

Ukraine’s Air Force tallied 619 Russian drones and 47 missiles launched during the attacks. Air defences shot down or suppressed 610 of them, it said.

“Russia’s tactics remain unchanged – attack drones, cruise missiles, and a significant number of ballistic missiles. Most targets are civilian infrastructure in cities,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X on Saturday, along with a video of emergency workers responding to shelled-out buildings.

The latest attacks came on the heels of the killings of a Ukrainian married couple, both aged 75, during a Russian strike on the port city of Odesa yesterday. Strikes also destroyed residential buildings and hit a foreign ship, Ukrainian authorities said.

The European Union this week approved a new round of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy, banking and trade sectors. Discussions had previously stalled amid opposition from Hungary.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called on Friday for a new package of sanctions, telling reporters in Cyprus that the EU is “really pushing”.

Zelenskyy urged European leaders to expedite the process in light of the latest attacks.

“The pause caused by the blocking of the 20th package gave the aggressor additional time to adapt – it is important to counter this,” he added.

The best coming-of-age stories derive their power from being endings as much as beginnings. There’s often a clarifying, poignant harshness in the losses they depict. That applies — with sobering grace — to the memory ballad “Amrum,” set on Germany’s titular North Sea island in 1945, when the winds of a world war’s conclusion blow into a 12-year-old boy’s life with unexpected consequences.

The movie bears a curious credit: “A Hark Bohm film by Fatih Akin.” Bohm, who died last year at 86, was a highly respected film writer, actor and academic, a veteran of Germany’s New Wave. Realizing he’d be unable to direct his fictionalized childhood remembrance, he entrusted it to his mentee Akin, the firebrand behind modern German classics such as “Head-On” and “In the Fade.” The project became, according to Akin, like “adopting a child.”

In story terms, that child, a stand-in for Bohm himself, is wide-eyed, sensitive Nanning (well-cast newcomer Jasper Billerbeck), who works in the potato fields of local farmer Tessa (Diane Kruger, in a small but key role). At home, he has a pregnant mother, Hille (Laura Tonke), aunt Ena (Lisa Hagmeister) and two younger siblings, but not the high-ranking Nazi officer patriarch who relocated them from bombed-out Hamburg to an ancestral house on this tiny, beachy outpost. Pejoratively dubbed a mainlander by even the friendliest neighbors and generally viewed with suspicion for his family’s Nazi ties, Nanning is assured by his ideology-soaked mom that their roots, their “bloodline,” make them real Amlumers.

The boy’s first real lesson in the shifting sands comes when, at dinner, he remarks that the war will soon be over, intending it as good news — Dad could come home. Yet his mother reacts as if he’d sided with the enemy by wishing defeat. Later, with the news of Hitler’s demise, she sinks into a depression, refusing food unless it’s white bread, butter and honey, all in scarce supply. So Nanning sets out to secure her the necessary ingredients, as if the fabric of his world depends on it.

What follows is a tightly told fable-like journey built around the war-battered realities of survival when everyone’s tired, hungry and irritated. There are brutal truths in store for Nanning about what his family represents. It’s an evolving boyhood, framed with unshowy elegance by cinematographer Karl Walter Lindenlaub against the island’s flat, grassy, weather-rich horizons. “Amrum” avoids the sentimentality baked into so many childhood-during-wartime stories. Akin, as if inspired by the unfussy youthfulness that marked Italian neorealism and the New Waves in both France and Iran (there are shout-outs to “Bicycle Thieves” and “The 400 Blows”), zeroes in on the steady accumulation of detail rather than the trappings of cuteness or melodrama.

That measured approach, exemplified in star Billerbeck’s arresting simplicity and the many fine supporting turns around him, allows us to clock Nanning’s growing awareness of what matters to others, what’s impossible to ignore and how to interpret an unjust world that’s still full of beauty and kindness if you know where to look. Which, of course, includes inside himself.

Near the end, “Amrum” serves up a wonderfully understated moment: Nanning is invited to celebrate the war’s end with a small group of dancing, drinking islanders. He hangs back, though, as if not quite ready to choose their joyous relief over obediently tending to his broken family. But you can see this dutiful son’s wish to be one of them. For all of us wondering when an ugly time will fade, the moment will resonate like a cautious, dawning hope.

Iran’s foreign minister is in Islamabad, with US envoys also on the way. Iranian officials deny they plan on holding talks with US delegates, but the visits have raised hopes the two sides can break the Strait of Hormuz deadlock with diplomacy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrives in Islamabad, but Tehran yet to commit to more talks with US delegation.

United States President Donald Trump is sending envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Pakistan as Iran’s foreign minister arrived in the country, raising hopes of new talks on ending the US-Israeli war on Iran amid a fragile ceasefire and growing tensions over control of the Hormuz Strait.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday that US envoys would sit down with Abbas Araghchi, expressing hope that parties would “move the ball forward to a deal”, but it remained unclear whether the Iranian delegation had agreed to hold talks.

Writing on X on Friday, Iran’s top diplomat had said he was off on a “timely tour of Islamabad, Muscat, and Moscow”, to coordinate on “bilateral matters”, with no specific mention of any intention to meet with US negotiators.

Trump expressed optimism over a potential deal, telling the news agency Reuters that Iran was “making an offer” aimed at satisfying US demands, which include ending its nuclear programme.

Earlier, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran had a chance to make a “good deal”. “Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely … at the negotiating table,” he said, adding that all they had to do was “abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways”.

But two Pakistani government sources told Reuters that the Iranian foreign minister’s visit would be brief, focusing on Iran’s proposals for talks with the US, which mediator Pakistan would then convey to Washington.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said a “senior official” had “made it clear” to him that there would not be any US-Iran talks in Pakistan.

“These regional partners all have their own ideas on how to solve this deadlock, but for the moment, Iran has said it would not meet for a new round of talks,” he said.

Top negotiators from last round absent

Reports on Araghchi’s trip in Iranian state media made no mention of Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, who was the head of its delegation at talks with a US delegation earlier this month that ended with no breakthrough.

The Iranian parliament’s media office denied a report that Ghalibaf had resigned as head of Iran’s negotiating team, adding that there was no new round of talks scheduled yet, according to Reuters.

US Vice President JD Vance also participated in the first round of talks, but is not travelling to Pakistan on this occasion, though Leavitt said he remained “deeply involved” and was on “standby” to join if needed.

She said Trump decided to send Witkoff and Kushner to Pakistan “to hear the Iranians out”. “We’ve certainly seen some progress from the Iranian side in the last couple of days,” she maintained, without offering any further details.

Reporting from Washington, Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said there appeared to be a “graded process” in place, describing it as “an initial exploratory phase” that could lead to “higher-level engagement if negotiations deepen”.

A new round of talks had been expected to start on Tuesday but did not materialise, with Iran saying it was not yet ready to commit to attending.

Trump had unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators as the US continued its blockade on Iranian ports.

Iran says it will not stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial maritime trade chokepoint, until Trump lifts his blockade. On Friday, the US applied more pressure on Tehran by freezing $344m in cryptocurrency assets in a bid to “systematically degrade Tehran’s ability to generate, move, and repatriate funds”.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reports from the EU summit in Cyprus, where the leaders of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan met with European leaders to discuss the regional crisis caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

As tensions ramp up amid fragile truce, US military says it ‘redirected’ 34 vessels as part of blockade on Iran’s ports.

The United States has three aircraft carriers in the Middle East for the first time in 23 years with the arrival of the USS George HW Bush, the US military has said, amid a fragile ceasefire with Iran.

The Middle East-based Central Command (CENTCOM) of the US military said on Friday that the carriers include 12 accompanying ships, more than 200 aircraft, and 15,000 soldiers.

“For the first time in decades, three aircraft carriers are operating in the Middle East at the same time,” CENTCOM said.

The last time the US amassed that amount of military assets in the region’s waters was in the lead up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The other two US aircraft carriers in the region are USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Gerald R Ford, which is the largest in the world.

The show of force signals that the US is preparing to return to fighting should the fragile ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran unravel.

Diplomacy between the two countries has been in limbo, with Iran setting the lifting of the US naval blockade against its ports as a condition for resuming the talks.

US President Donald Trump announced extending the truce on Wednesday, but he said the naval siege would persist.

For its part, Iran has reblocked the Strait of Hormuz in response to the US blockade after declaring the waterway completely open last week when the regional ceasefire was extended to Lebanon.

Trump has not set a deadline for the extended ceasefire and suggested that he is comfortable with the status quo, which he argues is depleting the Iranian economy at a low cost for the US.

“I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t,” he wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

The US president was later asked how long he would be willing to wait before receiving a proposed deal from Iran. He said: “Don’t rush me.”

Iran has described the blockade – which has seen US forces seize at least two Iranian oil ships – as an “act of war”.

Iranian forces have also captured foreign commercial ships in the Hormuz Strait, accusing them of violating maritime regulations.

With negotiations on hold, Trump has shown no signs of willingness to lift the siege in order to facilitate talks.

On Friday, the US military said it has “redirected” 34 vessels in the region. “The blockade against ships entering or exiting Iranian ports continues,” CENTCOM said.

Trump has previously threatened to destroy Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including bridges, power and water stations.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that his country is awaiting the green light from Trump to return Iran to the “age of darkness”.

“Israel is prepared to renew the war against Iran. The [Israeli military] is ready in defence and offence, and the targets are marked,” Katz said, according to The Times of Israel newspaper.

On April 20, the United States fired at and then seized an Iranian-flagged container ship close to the Strait of Hormuz in the northern Arabian Sea, amid its blockade of Iranian ports.

It was similar to a scene which played out in the 1980s during the so-called Tanker War between Iran and Iraq, during which both countries fired on each other’s tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to cripple each other’s economies.

As naval tensions rise again in the Strait of Hormuz – this time between Iran and the US – we break down what happened in the 1980s and examine the parallels and differences between the situations then and now:

How the 1980s Tanker War played out – a timeline

The war between Iran and Iraq began in 1980 when then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion of Iran following Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

In 1984, this war reached the Gulf when Iraq attacked Iranian oil tankers, seeking to cripple its oil-revenue-dependent economy. Iran retaliated by firing at oil tankers belonging to Iraq and its allies in the Gulf.

According to a report by the University of Texas’s Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Iran also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz then, but did not do so since its own economy, already crippled by the war, was dependent on exporting oil to the rest of the world through it.

In November 1986, when Iran struck Kuwait’s ships, Kuwait asked for foreign help. The former Soviet Union was the first to respond and helped escort the nation’s ships in the Gulf.

The US, led by then-president Ronald Reagan, launched Operation Earnest Will in July 1987, also seeking to protect tankers in the Gulf and render more assistance than Moscow. The operation involved reflagging Kuwaiti tankers with the US flag so they could legally sail under US protection.

According to an article by the Veterans Breakfast Club, a US-based website which shares experiences of former US military veterans, during Washington’s very first escort mission in July 1987, a reflagged tanker hit an Iranian mine in the Gulf.

“The convoy continued, but the incident made clear that the United States had entered a shadow war with Iran at sea,” the article said.

“Over the next fourteen months, dozens of US warships rotated through the region escorting tankers and protecting shipping lanes. US forces also conducted special operations to hunt Iranian mine-layers at night and conducted strikes against Iranian military positions and ships. The mission wasn’t a small one, consuming 30 US Navy ships at one time,” the article added.

Then in April 1988, the US frigate USS Samuel B Roberts was damaged by an Iranian mine in the Strait of Hormuz. Historian Samuel Cox, writing for the US Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC), noted in 2018 that by the end of 1987 that vessel was so badly damaged, that “the only thing actually holding the ship together was the main deck”.

So, the US launched Operation Praying Mantis, seeking to destroy Iranian vessels.

The tanker war eventually ended in August 1988, following a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement between Iran and Iraq.

Cox noted that by the end of 1987, “Iraq had conducted 283 attacks on shipping, while Iran attacked 168 times. Combined, the attacks had killed 116 merchant sailors, with 37 missing and 167 wounded, from a wide variety of nationalities.”

“Initially, there was great concern that the attacks would cut off the vital flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf, but all they really did was drive up insurance rates. The world’s need for oil was so great, that over 100 dead merchant seamen was apparently an acceptable price,” he wrote.

What is happening in the Strait of Hormuz now?

The current hostilities between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz began when Tehran, whose territorial waters extend into the strait, closed passage to all vessels after the US and Israel began bombing the country. On March 4, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared that it was in full control of the strait, and ships would need to get clearance from them to pass through it.

Shipping through the strait collapsed by 95 percent, sending the price of oil – 20 percent of global supplies of which are shipped this way – soaring above $100 a barrel.

Iran, through its imposition of control over who passes through Hormuz, has for almost eight weeks now, determined which vessels can exit the strait from the Gulf into the Gulf of Oman.

At first, Iran indicated that it would allow “friendly” ships to pass if they paid a toll. On March 26, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iran’s state TV: “The Strait of Hormuz, from our perspective, is not completely closed. It is closed only to enemies. There is no reason to allow the ships of our enemies and their allies to pass.”

Vessels from Malaysia, China, Egypt, South Korea, India and Pakistan passed through the strait through most of March and early April.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided these vessels with an alternative route through the Strait of Hormuz to avoid potential sea mines. US officials, including Donald Trump, have said mines have been placed there by Iran, although it has not officially confirmed or denied this.

But on April 13, alarmed that Iran was continuing to ship its own oil out of the strait, the US imposed a naval blockade of all Iranian ports. Since then, US Central Command has said US forces have directed 33 Iran-linked vessels to turn around or return to an Iranian port.

On Monday, the US military fired on and then captured the Iranian-flagged container ship Touska close to the Strait of Hormuz in the northern Arabian Sea, and, a day later, detained another oil tanker sanctioned for transporting Iranian crude oil as it sailed in the Bay of Bengal, which links India and Southeast Asia.

In a post on social media after detaining the Touska, the Pentagon wrote: “As we have made clear, we will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran – anywhere they operate.
International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.”

Since the US naval blockade of Iranian ports began, Tehran, which was earlier allowing vessels from “friendly” nations to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, has further tightened its grip on the strait.

Justifying the decision not to allow any foreign ships to pass until the US ends its naval blockade on April 19, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.

Last Saturday, Iran reportedly fired at two Indian-flagged merchant vessels in the strait. The IRGC said the two ships were attacked because they were “operating without authorisation”, according to state media reports.

Then, on April 22, Iran captured two container ships seeking to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz after firing on them and another vessel.

What are the parallels between the two wars?

Just like during the Tanker War of the 1980s, shipping has been severely disrupted by the US-Israel war on Iran, upending global oil and gas prices.

According to an April 17 article by the World Economic Forum, from the mid-1980s when the Tanker War took place, to the start of the new millennium, a barrel of crude oil averaged $20.

On Friday, while a ceasefire between the US and Iran was in effect, a naval battle was still playing out in the Strait of Hormuz, and Brent crude, the international benchmark, topped $106 per barrel. During open warfare between the US, Israel and Iran in March and early April, oil rose as high as $119 per barrel.

Mines in the sea are another problem common to both time periods.

While vessels were damaged by mines during the 1980s Tanker War, there has so far been no report of vessels being damaged by mines in the current war. However, the risk is the same.

US President Donald Trump has said the US will ramp up efforts to remove mines from the Strait of Hormuz. This has not begun yet, however.

According to CNN, there are only a few US minesweeping ships in the Gulf. The US Navy also told the broadcaster that four dedicated minesweepers stationed in the Gulf region were decommissioned last year.

John Phillips, a British safety, security and risk adviser and former military instructor, told Al Jazeera: “There are some clear parallels between the current situation in Hormuz and the Tanker War of the 1980s. In both cases, the basic idea is the same: pressure at sea can have effects far beyond the water itself.

“A relatively small amount of naval disruption, whether that means mining, harassment of shipping, missile threats, or attacks on tankers, can create real strategic and economic consequences, especially in a chokepoint like the Strait of Hormuz. So in that sense, the original Tanker War is a useful reminder of how vulnerable global trade can be when the maritime domain becomes part of a wider political or military confrontation.”

What are the differences between the two wars?

During the Tanker War, the US escorted ships to protect them from Iranian attacks and also deployed vessels to remove mines. NATO countries like the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy also joined.

But in the current standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, US allies like the UK and other NATO nations have refused to join Washington in reopening the Strait of Hormuz, or begin minesweeping operations, fearing they will be dragged into the war.

In a post on Truth Social in early April, the US president took aim at allies, “like the United Kingdom”, which, he said, have “refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran”, telling them to either buy US fuel or get involved in the rapidly escalating war.

“You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!” Trump wrote.

The framework of the US-Israel war on Iran is different from that of the war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s, experts say.

“In the 1980s, the Tanker War was part of the broader Iran-Iraq War, so the shipping attacks were tied to a much larger land conflict between two regional armies. Today, the situation is more about Iran’s standoff with the United States and its allies, and the maritime activity is less about asymmetrical war at sea and more about deterrence, signalling and the threat of escalation,” said Phillips.

“The military lesson, really, is that Hormuz is still one of those places where limited actions can have outsized effects, but the modern setting is more fast-moving, more technologically advanced and potentially more volatile than the original Tanker War,” he added.

Analysts have also pointed out that, unlike in the 1980s, Iran is currently stronger when it comes to withstanding attacks and naval blockades by the US.

In the Tanker War, Iraq was militarily supported by Western allies, while Iran was under a US arms embargo imposed in 1979 after the Iranian revolution. While this gave Iraq a military advantage, Iran’s IRGC used asymmetric warfare tactics by striking Iraq’s allies’ ships and oil tankers.

Experts also say that since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last year, Tehran has shifted its military doctrine from one that is primarily about defensive containment to an explicitly offensive asymmetric posture.

“Iran today appears more structurally aggressive in doctrine where it is formally embracing earlier and more extensive use of regional missiles, drones, cyberattacks and energy coercion [when energy resources and infrastructure are targeted or cut off], but is operationally constrained by battle damage, sanctions and internal instability,” Phillips, the risk adviser and a former military chief instructor, told Al Jazeera in an interview on March 2.

A former US ambassador to Bahrain, Adam Ereli, also told Al Jazeera that Iran and the IRGC have “revolutionary fervour”, which means they can “survive”.

“They can tolerate pain for a lot longer than I think most American decision-makers and planners calculate,” he said.

Ex-intelligence officer Amjad Youssef was seen shooting blindfolded civilians in a leaked video.

Syrian authorities have arrested the main suspect accused of the 2013 Tadamon massacre in Damascus, during which at least 41 people were killed.

Amjad Youssef was arrested following a “tightly executed security operation”, the interior ministry said, adding that surveillance and tracking operations were employed for days across the Al-Ghab Plain in Hama.

Footage circulating on social media showed the moment Youssef was arrested. He is seen handcuffed on the floor and then in a vehicle surrounded by security forces, with traces of blood on his face.

An intelligence officer during the leadership of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Youssef was responsible for security operations in southern Damascus during the Syrian uprising. He has been accused of numerous crimes against civilians.

In 2022, a leaked video appeared to show evidence of crimes committed by Syrian forces. Youssef, whose face appeared clearly in the footage, was seen shooting civilians who had been detained and blindfolded, with their hands bound.

A military recruit filmed the incident and leaked the video, date-stamped on the day of the Tadamon massacre – April 16, 2013, after fleeing war-torn Syria.

The release of the video footage triggered an outcry, with some families recognising their relatives being killed in the video.

Youssef went into hiding after the fall of Assad in December 2024.

The Tadamon district was a battlefront between Syrian government forces and opposition forces at that time.

Youssef was trained in military intelligence and rose through the ranks to become an investigator.

Accountability following the massacre

In August 2023, German police arrested Ahmed al-Harmouni, a friend of Youssef, also accused of taking part in the Tadamon massacre, after a three-year investigation in cooperation with the Syrian Centre for Justice and Accountability.

Syria’s new government began a security campaign to pursue figures of the former leadership, while citizens launched a public fundraising campaign to offer a reward to anyone who could find those accused of atrocities, primarily Youssef.

Since then, several suspects of the Tadamon tragedy have been arrested and confessed to the killings.

Human Rights Watch visited the southern Damascus neighbourhood in December 2024, where it found human remains that showed signs consistent with execution and called on the transitional authorities to preserve evidence of war crimes.

United States President Donald Trump has claimed Iran is “collapsing financially” and said the country is losing millions of dollars a day due to Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately – Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!”

The US blockade of Iranian ports began at 14:00 GMT on April 13. Since then, the US has fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, and redirected ships in the open seas carrying cargo to or from Iran. Iran’s armed forces have called this “an illegal act” that “amounts to piracy”.

In response to the US naval blockade, Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz to all foreign shipping and has captured several foreign-flagged ships. Previously, it had allowed some ships deemed “friendly” to Iran to pass.

On April 19, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said the “security of the Strait of Hormuz is not free”.

“One cannot restrict Iran’s oil exports while expecting free security for others,” he wrote in a post on X.

“The choice is clear: either a free oil market for all, or the risk of significant costs for everyone,” he added. “Stability in global fuel prices depends on a guaranteed and lasting end to the economic and military pressure against Iran and its allies.”

In a statement on social media on Thursday, Iran’s parliamentary speaker and lead negotiator in the ceasefire talks, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said a full ceasefire could only work if the US naval blockade is lifted.

Analysts say the blockade is hurting Iran but believe the country has the economic and political will to sustain it.

How long can Iran survive the naval blockade?

Here’s what we know:

How is the naval blockade hurting Iran?

Iran exports oil, gas and other goods including petrochemicals, plastics and agricultural products by sea. Analysts say the US naval blockade of its ports, including in the Strait of Hormuz, could therefore affect this trade.

Soon after the start of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, authorities in Tehran implemented the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the only waterway out of the Gulf, through which 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies were shipped from Gulf producers in peacetime.

The near-shutdown of the vital chokepoint sent global oil and gas prices soaring, and since then, Iran has controlled the strait. However, it has continued to export its own energy products through the waterway.

Iran’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz account for about 80 percent of its total oil exports. According to Kpler, a trade intelligence firm, Iran exported 1.84 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in March and has shipped 1.71 million bpd so far in April, compared with an average of 1.68 million bpd in 2025.

From March 15 to April 14, it exported 55.22 million barrels of oil. The price per barrel of Iranian oil – across its three major variants, known as Iranian light, Iranian heavy and Forozan blend – has not fallen below $90 per barrel over the past month. On many days, the price has surpassed $100 a barrel.

Even at the conservative estimate of $90 a barrel, Iran has earned at least $4.97bn over the past month from its ongoing oil exports.

By contrast, in early February before the war started, Iran was earning about $115m a day from its crude oil exports, or $3.45bn in a month.

Simply put, Iran has earned 40 percent more from oil exports in the past month than it did before the war.

Stopping this is a key motivation behind the US naval blockade of Iranian ports.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on April 14, Frederic Schneider, a nonresident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera that the previous six weeks had been a boon for Iran in terms of oil revenues, but with the US blockade, that will change.

“Iran has some buffer in the form of crude oil reserves in floating tanks – basically parked tankers – which was estimated at about 127 million barrels in February. But that doesn’t mean that the blockade wouldn’t hurt Iran,” he said.

On Friday, Schneider told Al Jazeera that Iran, however, seems to be “playing the longer game” and has anticipated and prepared for this sort of conflict to some degree.

“The naval blockade has added economic strain, as several civilian ships have been captured in international waters. But it remains unclear how tight the blockade is, how many ships manage to pass given the considerable amount of floating Iranian oil, and how long Trump can maintain the blockade,” he said.

Can the US keep the blockade going for long?

Schneider noted that Trump will face a legislative challenge by May 1, when the 60 days he can maintain a foreign offensive without congressional approval come to an end.

Dire conditions have been reported on the ships that are upholding the blockade, he said, and it remains to be seen how China will react to the continuing seizure of ships that carry any of its cargo.

“China has already said it sees the blockade of Chinese trade with Iran as unacceptable. Further, the closure of Hormuz by Iran in retaliation is hurting, if not the US itself that much, American allies in the region and globally, raising the pressure on Trump,” he said.

“If we can glean anything from the behaviour of the two sides, it is Iran that is signalling patience and Trump showing impatience,” he added.

Adam Ereli, a former US ambassador to Bahrain, told Al Jazeera’s This is America programme that while the US blockade of Iranian ports and seizure of vessels transporting Iranian oil “makes sense” as a policy, it may not work as intended due to domestic political considerations in the US.

“The Iranians have prepared for this, for this eventuality. They have their own plans. They’ve got alternative means of storing their oil or selling their oil,” Ereli told Al Jazeera.

“Even if they ran out of oil, they have ways to survive a very tough blockade and sanctions regime that, frankly, I think will outlast Trump’s patience and the patience of the American people,” he said.

“Remember, this isn’t just about moving soldiers and ships and planes around on a map. There’s politics involved here in the United States,” he added.

“Trump is nothing if not attuned to the political winds. And for that reason, I think that you’ve got this Iran strategy on the one hand that runs up against an electoral strategy on another hand, and therefore, the question is, which one is going to give?”

Can Iran store the oil the US is blockading in the meantime?

Iran’s domestic refineries have a capacity of 2.6 million bpd, according to consultancy FGE Energy. Its oil and gas production facilities are concentrated in southwestern provinces: Khuzestan for oil and Bushehr for gas and condensate from the South Pars gasfield.

Iran is also the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and exports 90 percent of its crude oil via Kharg Island for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The US naval blockade has begun affecting the country’s storage capacity, according to TankerTrackers, the maritime intelligence agency. The blockade means Iran has to store more oil, and space could become tight.

TankerTrackers said that on Kharg Island, to prepare for the possibility of running out of oil storage space, Iran has brought an old tanker named NASHA (9079107) out of retirement.

“She’s a 30yo [year old] VLCC [Very Large Crude Carrier] that’s been anchored empty for the past few years; currently spending 4 days on a trip that should take 1.5-2 days,” TankerTrackers said in a post on X, suggesting that the tanker is being used to store oil. It is unclear if the ship has a heading or course.

Can Iran continue to earn revenues from oil?

Yes, analysts say that for a few months, Iran can continue to earn revenue from oil which is already in transit at sea.

Kenneth Katzman, former Iran analyst at the Congressional Research Service in Washington, DC, said Iran is not exporting new oil amid the US blockade of Iranian ports, but Tehran has between 160 million and 170 million barrels of oil “afloat” on ships around the world currently.

Those supplies, which transited the Strait of Hormuz before the US blockade was imposed, are on board hundreds of tankers and “waiting to be delivered”, Katzman told Al Jazeera.

Katzman said he had been informed by an Iranian professor that, based on those supplies, Tehran could have revenue flows that can last until August despite the US naval blockade.

“Which is a long time. Does President Trump have until August? Probably not,” he said.

“He’s probably going to have to look at kinetic escalation if he wants to bring this to the conclusion that he wants, or he’s going to have to accept less than the deal he ideally wants,” he said.

Iranian ships will still have to avoid US naval ships on the open ocean, as the US Navy has also recently intercepted ships carrying Iranian cargoes.

On Wednesday this week, for example, the US military intercepted at least three Iranian-flagged tankers in ‌Asian waters, Reuters reported, and was said to be redirecting them away from their positions near India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

How else can Iran earn revenue?

Besides oil revenue, Iran is also currently receiving revenue from a “toll booth” system that the country imposed on the Strait of Hormuz in March.

On Thursday, Iran’s deputy parliament speaker Hamidreza Haji-Babaei said Tehran’s central bank had received the first revenues from tolls imposed since the start of the war, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. It is unclear how much that toll revenue is.

Iranian politician Alaeddin Boroujerdi told the United Kingdom-based, Farsi-language satellite TV channel Iran International in March that the country has been charging some vessels as much as $2m each to pass through the strait.

According to Lloyd’s List, the shipping news outlet, at least two vessels that have transited the strait so far have paid fees in yuan, China’s currency. Lloyd’s List reported that one “transit was brokered by a Chinese maritime services company acting as an intermediary, which also handled the payment to Iranian authorities”. It is, however, not clear how much the vessels paid.

How resilient is Iran’s leadership?

In recent days, while pressuring Iran to negotiate a ceasefire deal, US President Donald Trump has claimed that Iranians are “having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is”, alleging that there is “crazy” infighting between “moderates” and “hardliners” in Tehran.

But the country’s officials have insisted that Iran’s government is united.

Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s first vice president, said on Thursday: “Our political diversity is our democracy, yet in times of peril, we are a ‘Single Hand’ under one flag. To protect our soil and dignity, we transcend all labels. We are one soul, one nation.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also dismissed allegations that the Iranian military may be at odds with the political leadership.

“The failure of Israel’s terrorist killings is reflected in how Iran’s state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline,” he wrote on X, referring to the assassinations of Iranian political and military figures Israel has carried out in recent weeks.

“The battlefield and diplomacy are fully coordinated fronts in the same war. Iranians are all united, more than ever before.”

One of the strongest messages of unity came from Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.

“In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates,” he said on X.

“We are all Iranians and revolutionaries. With ironclad unity of nation and state and obedience to the Supreme Leader, we will make the aggressor regret.”

How strong is Iran militarily?

Iran has demonstrated considerable military resilience in the face of weeks of US-Israeli strikes through its use of asymmetric warfare.

This includes the use of guerrilla tactics, cyberattacks, arming and supporting proxy armed groups and other indirect tools.

During its war with the US and Israel, Iran has targeted energy infrastructure in Israel and across the Gulf, threatened to target banking institutions and targeted US data centres of technology companies such as Amazon in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Iran has also blocked the Strait of Hormuz and reportedly placed mines in the strait to disrupt shipping, sending global oil prices soaring.

Since the US began its naval blockade of Iranian ports in mid-April, Iranian officials have repeatedly promised that their country will defend itself and respond to any US attack.

Earlier this week, after the US military said it had seized an Iranian vessel and ordered dozens of others to turn around, Iran also retaliated by capturing foreign commercial vessels around the Hormuz Strait, which it said violated naval regulations.

Ereli, the former US ambassador, told Al Jazeera that Iran and the IRGC have “revolutionary fervour”, which means they can “survive”. “They can tolerate pain for a lot longer than I think most American decision makers and planners calculate,” Ereli said.

Ereli said it was unknown how long Tehran could last under “siege conditions” imposed by the US, but probably a lot longer than the US anticipates.

“I think they can go a lot longer, especially than most people imagine, and especially when it comes to kneeling to the Americans,” Ereli said.

“There’s a level of pride and survival. They’re at war with us, and for them it’s a war of necessity. They’ve got to survive,” he added.

This week Tucker Carlson apologized for unintentionally “misleading” voters into supporting President Trump’s return to the White House. The apology came days after the president called Carlson dumb and overrated on social media. We’ve seen this plot before: It’s a different name but the same story.

Recall the president’s first term was closely shadowed by high-profile breakups from loyalists who disagreed with him on matters of substance. For example, the split with his first Defense secretary, James Mattis, began in 2017 when Mattis, a man who spent more than four decades in uniform, defended the importance of NATO. His successor, Mark Esper, found himself at odds with the president for refusing to use the military on citizens. On his way out the door, Esper told the country that if his replacement was “a real ‘yes man’ … then God help us.”

Some of the highlights from Trump’s second term include squabbles with his biggest donor, Elon Musk, who was upset the president wasn’t lowering the national debt enough; with former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene because millions of Americans faced losing health insurance; and with Rep. Thomas Massie for having the audacity to seek justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex-trafficking operation.

Now it appears it’s Carlson’s turn. He, like Pope Leo XIV and many of our allies and nearly 70% of Americans, disapproves of the president’s handling of the war in Iran. On a recent episode of the Carlson podcast, the former Fox News host invited his brother Buckley, himself a former Trump speechwriter, on the show to discuss their buyer’s remorse.

Everyone has that line they won’t cross for the president.

Omarosa Manigault Newman left reality TV to advise Trump. She followed him to the White House, found out there was a lot of racism over in MAGA land, and ended up back on reality TV. For Mattis, it was abandoning our allies. For Esper, it was shooting protesters.

For Carlson, it’s Iran. Candidate Trump campaigned on ending endless wars. This week, Trump said there’s no timeline for when the war he started with Iran will end.

“I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson told his brother. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”

Now before Tucker’s apology, Buckley defended his initial support of Trump’s candidacy in 2015 — despite “all of his obvious foibles and his disgusting elements of his personality” — in part because “he built things.” Buckley also said that after the election of President Obama, white Americans in Washington were subjugated by a version of Jim Crow in education and society, and that progressives “would look blank or angry” whenever he asked what Obama was doing to strengthen the nation.

In other words, being red in the face over Trump did not turn the Tucker boys blue. In fact, the episode ended with the two calling the left a bunch of “lunatics,” even after listing the ways the Trump administration was holding back release of the Epstein files and hurting the country.

“Demonic influences concentrate on those who have power. Beware of power,” Tucker warned listeners halfway through the show before his brother chimed in: “And those who seek power.”

Of course, Trump’s ascension to the White House wasn’t solely based on the contributions of media folks. The president entered 2015 having been a public figure for more than 30 years. He’s had the luxury of criticizing elected officials and legislation on camera without the burden of governing for much of that time. When he entered the political arena, he didn’t have a record to defend. He likes being quotable, not being held accountable. That’s why it’s doubtful he would have been elected a second time if not for the support from unscrupulous podcasters masquerading as political journalists such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Andrew Schulz, who less than a year ago said everything Trump “campaigned on, I believed he wanted to do. And now he’s doing the exact opposite thing.… I voted for none of this.”

As if “this” had not been clearly spelled out in the pages of Project 2025 for all to see before deciding whether to vote for Trump and that agenda.

Schulz, the comedian and podcaster, might not have read that outline, but Tucker Carlson probably did. That’s why his apology to listeners — like the mea culpas from the discarded loyalists of the past — ultimately won’t mean anything to mainstream Republicans or MAGA. Those who identify with the latter listen only to Trump. As for the former — they have always known that people like Carlson don’t regret supporting Trump. They regret falling out of favor.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

Jump in prices comes as Donald Trump says vessels will need permission of US Navy to transit key waterway.

Oil prices have jumped on heightened tensions between the United States and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz following Washington and Tehran’s tit-for-tat captures of commercial vessels.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, topped $106 per barrel early on Friday morning as Washington and Tehran stepped up their confrontation over the key maritime route for transporting the world’s energy.

Brent stood at $106.80 as of 01:00 GMT, up nearly 5 percent from its closing price on Wednesday, when it surpassed $100 per barrel for the first time in two weeks.

US stocks fell overnight, with the benchmark S&P 500 index dipping 0.41 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping 0.89 percent.

Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about one-fifth of the world’s supply of oil and natural gas, remains at a standstill as Iran continues to demand the right to decide which vessels may pass and the US blocks Iran’s maritime trade.

US President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that he had ordered the US Navy to destroy any Iranian boats laying mines in the strait, shortly after the Pentagon announced that it had seized a tanker carrying sanctioned Iranian oil for the second time in less than a week.

Trump also appeared to expand the scope of the US naval blockade beyond Iranian ports, writing on Truth Social that no ship “can enter or leave” the strait without the approval of the US Navy.

“It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!!!” Trump said.

Trump’s threats came a day after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced the capture of two foreign cargo ships in the waterway.

The IRGC said it had seized the Panamanian-flagged MSC Francesca and Greek-owned Epaminondas after the vessels had endangered maritime security “by operating without the necessary permits and tampering with navigation systems”.

The Greek Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Ministry has denied that the Epaminondas was captured and said the vessel remains under the control of its captain.

Only nine commercial vessels transited the strait on Wednesday, compared with seven on Tuesday and 15 on Monday, according to maritime intelligence platform Windward.

Before the US and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, the waterway saw an average of 129 transits each day, according to United Nations Trade and Development.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort and relatives of U.S. service members stuck in Qatar to a third country, the U.S. government and some advocates said. Congo is an option, the advocates said.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said Wednesday that U.S. officials informed him and other groups of discussions between the United States and Congo about taking the Afghan refugees who have been in limbo at a U.S. base in Doha for the last year.

The 1,100 refugees at Camp As-Sayliyah include Afghans who served as interpreters and with Special Operations Forces as well as the immediate families of more than 150 active-duty U.S. military members.

The State Department said Wednesday that it is working to identify options to “voluntarily” resettle the refugees in a third country, but it did not confirm which nations were being discussed.

An alternative provided to the refugees, VanDiver said, is to return to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal or even death at the hands of the Taliban for working alongside the U.S. during the two-decade war.

“You cannot call a choice voluntary when the two options are Congo and the Taliban, civil war or an oppressor who wants to kill you,” VanDiver said at a virtual news conference. “That is not a choice. That is a confession extracted under duress.”

The discussions — which were reported earlier by the New York Times — come more than a year after President Trump paused his predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration.

That policy left thousands of refugees who fled war and persecution, and had gone through a sometimes years-long vetting process to start new lives in America, stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar.

From one war-torn country to another

Negotiations between the U.S. and several other countries, including Botswana and Malaysia, started months ago, according to an executive at a refugee resettlement agency who was briefed by U.S. officials. The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share private negotiations, said that Botswana was seen by many refugee advocates as the most promising option but that talks between senior U.S. officials and the country’s leadership fell through. In early April, the executive was briefed that Congo was now the main option being discussed.

A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity said they had heard from State Department personnel that the U.S. was looking at sending the Afghans at the base in Qatar to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The person said the Afghans were told Wednesday that there was no final deal on where to send them.

The base in Doha “was always intended as a transit platform. It was never designed to hold families for months or years, which is the situation that people are currently in,” said Jon Finer, who was deputy national security advisor to then-President Biden. “What I want to emphasize is that this was intended to honor a wartime commitment.”

Finer and other former U.S. officials and refugee advocates warned of the risk of resettling Afghans in Congo, a country that U.N. officials say is facing “one of the most acute humanitarian emergencies in the world.”

The African country has been battered by decades-long fighting between government forces and Rwanda-backed rebels in its eastern region.

Congolese authorities did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on the discussions, which did not come as a surprise to some there. Congo is one of at least eight African nations that were paid millions in controversial deals with the Trump administration to receive migrants deported from the U.S. to countries other than their own.

Like most other African nations involved in the deportation program, Congo is also among the worst-hit by the Trump administration’s policies on aid and trade. At least 70% of the country’s humanitarian aid came from the U.S. before Trump’s second term, and aid workers say American aid cuts have led to avoidable deaths in the conflict-hit region.

Sean Jamshidi — an Afghan American who served in the U.S. military, including a stint in Congo — said he was deeply concerned about his brother possibly being sent from the Doha base to the war-torn country.

“I saw the security situation and what it looked like there. I saw the displacement camps. … I stood in places where the United Nations has counted the dead,” Jamshidi said. “I’m telling you, as someone who has been in uniform, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a place you send vetted Afghan allies and their children to live.”

Refugees are in the dark as they await their fate

Negina Khalili, a former prosecutor in Afghanistan who fled during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, has been waiting to hear about the resettlement status of her father, brother and stepmother since they arrived at the Doha base in January 2025. That was just days before Trump suspended the refugee program soon after he returned to the White House.

Khalili told the Associated Press on Wednesday that she spoke to her family about reports that they could be sent to Congo.

“They are not giving them any information or updates regarding which countries they will go to,” she said. “They were so stressed and worried about it and said that Congo is not a safe place either. They don’t know if it’s a temporary location for them there or a permanent location. They are worried.”

She said U.S. officials at the camp have been suggesting to refugees that they go back to Afghanistan and offering them money to do so.

Amiri, Santana and Asadu write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York and Asadu from Abuja, Nigeria. AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Several Iranian officials have stressed that their country is united, rejecting United States President Donald Trump’s claims of a rift in the leadership in Tehran.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf all issued statements rejecting the United States president’s assertion.

Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf joined the Supreme National Security Council in posting the same message on X.

“In Iran, there are no radicals or moderates,” it said.

“We are all ‘Iranian’ and ‘revolutionary’, and with the iron unity of the nation and government, with complete obedience to the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, we will make the aggressor criminal regret his actions.”

Mohammad Reza Aref, Iran’s first vice president, also shared the statement, adding another note in English.

“Iran is not a land of rifts, but a stronghold of unity,” Aref said. “Our political diversity is our democracy, yet in times of peril, we are a ‘Single Hand’ under one flag. To protect our soil and dignity, we transcend all labels. We are one soul, one nation.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has not made a public appearance since replacing his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed by US-Israeli strikes on February 28.

US officials have said that the younger Khamenei was wounded and “disfigured” in the strike that killed his father.

The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing unidentified Iranian officials, that Khamenei is gravely wounded but remains “mentally sharp”.

Trump and his aides have been reiterating daily over the past week that there are major disagreements among Iranian leaders.

The US president claimed that Iranians are “having a very hard time figuring out who their leader is”, alleging that there is “crazy” infighting between “moderates” and “hardliners” in Tehran.

Citing the supposed rift by Trump could serve to justify the extension of the ceasefire while also putting the blame on Iran for the stalled diplomacy.

Tehran, however, has stressed over the past days that the talks – previously scheduled to take place in Pakistan – are not happening due to the US blockade on its country’s ports.

On Thursday, Araghchi dismissed allegations that the Iranian military is at odds with the political leadership.

“The failure of Israel’s terrorist killings is reflected in how Iran’s state institutions continue to act with unity, purpose, and discipline,” he wrote on X.

“The battlefield and diplomacy are fully coordinated fronts in the same war. Iranians are all united, more than ever before.”

diplomatic impasse with the US, with Trump suggesting that he is comfortable with the status quo of blockading Iran’s ports to inflict economic pain on the country without resuming the war or rushing towards a conclusive deal.

“Iran’s Navy is lying at the bottom of the Sea, their Air Force is demolished, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar Weaponry is gone, their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse — Time is not on their side!” Trump said on social media on Thursday.

“A Deal will only be made when it’s appropriate and good for the United States of America, our Allies and, in fact, the rest of the World.”

But the truce under the status quo remains tenuous. Air defences were activated over Tehran earlier on Thursday, but there has been no official confirmation of an attack against the country.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said the US military will “shoot and kill” Iranian laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, which could spark a response

And oil prices are once again rising due to the uncertainty and the double blockade in the Gulf – Iran closing down Hormuz and the US naval siege on Iranian ports.

Israel also appears ready to rejoin the war. Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday his country is awaiting the green light from Trump to return Iran to the “age of darkness”.

“Israel is prepared to renew the war against Iran. The [Israeli military] is ready in defence and offence, and the targets are marked,” Katz said, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.

As the US expands its war with Iran, opposition is growing – not just among the public, but inside the military itself. Some service members are questioning orders, exploring conscientious objection, and speaking out. What’s driving this shift, and how far could it go?

In this episode: 

• Mike Prysner (@MikePrysner), Executive Director of the Center on Conscience & War

Episode credits: 

This episode was produced by Marcos Bartolomé, Tamara Khandaker, and Sarí El-Khalili with Spencer Cline, Tuleen Barakat, and our host, Malika Bilal. It was edited by Tamara Khandaker and Noor Wazwaz. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer.

Connect with us:

@AJEPodcasts on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Disruption to fuel and fertiliser supplies due to the Strait of Hormuz closure will hit crop yields, UNDP chief warns.

The Iran war will push more than 30 million people back into poverty, with the knock-on effects of the conflict likely to increase food insecurity in the coming months, the United Nations has warned.

Disruption to fuel and fertiliser supplies due to the ongoing blocking of cargo vessels through the Strait of Hormuz has already lowered agricultural productivity and will hit crop yields later this year, the UN’s development chief said on Thursday.

“Even if the war would stop tomorrow, those effects, you already have them, and they will be pushing back more than 30 million people into poverty,” said Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He also warned of other fallouts of the United States-Israeli war on Iran, including energy shortages and falling remittances.

Much of the world’s fertiliser is produced in the Middle East, and one-third of global supplies passes through the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran and the US are jostling for control.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) last week warned that a prolonged crisis in the strait could lead to a global food “catastrophe”.

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Kenya, and Egypt are among the countries most at risk, according to the FAO.

“Food insecurity will be at its peak level in a few months – and there is not much that you can do about it,” De Croo said.

Straining humanitarian efforts

The knock-on effects of the Iran conflict have already wiped out 0.5 percent to 0.8 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), according to De Croo, who noted, “Things that take decades to build up, it takes eight weeks of war to destroy them.”

De Croo, the former prime minister of Belgium, also warned that the Middle East crisis is straining humanitarian efforts in other parts of the world, with the sector already facing funding cuts.

The US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which began on February 28, have also choked up key humanitarian aid routes, delaying life-saving shipments to some of the world’s worst crises.

“We will have to say to certain people, really sorry, but we can’t help you,” De Croo said. “People who would be surviving on help will not have this, and will be pushed into even greater vulnerability.”

Before he became a fugitive preacher, during which time security officials learned to mutter his name with a foreboding weight, culminating ultimately in his killing,  filmed and circulated across local and international news platforms, Mohammed Yusuf was a boy seated before his father, learning the Qur’an. This is where this story begins.

Not in 2002 or in July 2009, which are often cited as the landmark years. The beginning lay far away from prying eyes, in the ordinary intimacy of religious learning, in a world of fathers and sons, mallams and pupils, recitation and repetition.

Those who knew Yusuf’s early life describe a child shaped in his father’s image. According to one of his sisters, who does not wish to be named, “He learned to recite the Qur’an under Baba. He was our father’s student before he became anyone else’s.” He imbibed that discipline, the rigour and rhythm of recitation, correction, and memorisation. 

He went on to study under Goni Bulama, who was reportedly knowledgeable in fiqh (the human interpretation and application of Sharia law). Later, he travelled to Potiskum in Yobe State to continue learning under his uncle, Goni Madu. He stayed there for two or three years, “then he returned home and continued seeking knowledge in several places” as part of the Almajiranci system, his sister recalled. 

Among the clerics repeatedly named by people who followed that part of his life is Goni Modu in Lamisula, a suburb in Maiduguri. He occasionally took lessons from the late Sheikh Abba Aji, a well-respected Mufassir (Qur’anic exegete)in Maiduguri. “Yusuf did not emerge from the bubble; he was shaped through the interplay of ideologies,” said Kyari Mustafa, a researcher and one of Yusuf’s former students. One of his childhood friends, who is now a moderate cleric in Maiduguri, described Yusuf as a very curious child, adding that he thinks “that was what made him learn faster than all his peers”.

According to many who encountered Yusuf, he was many things, some of them deeply dangerous, but he was not a man who wandered by accident into religious influence. He read, listened, argued, absorbed, and faltered like many clerics before him and after him. He later recast those ideas into a corrosive, doctrinal political weapon, with devastating consequences that plunged more than five countries bordering Lake Chad into violence, killing and maiming tens of thousands, and uprooting millions from their communities.

Long before he created a movement the world would come to know as Boko Haram, he moved through circles of da’awah and doctrinal activism that were themselves products of a wider shift in Muslim politics. At one stage, he was linked to the Muslim Brothers, a movement of mostly students active in the 1980s and 1990s that promoted political Islam and reform. Some accounts also linked him to circles associated with Sheikh Ibrahim El Zakzaky, the Shia cleric and leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria. Those familiar with that era said Yusuf pulled away immediately from what he regarded as Shi’a framing by key figures in the movement, since he was inclined toward Sunni religious beliefs. However, Yusuf was not separated from their struggle; instead, he was separated over the terms, over authority, aqeedah, and over who would define the path ahead.

The claim that Yusuf was a disciple of the late Kano-based Salafi scholar Sheikh Ja’afar Mahmud and his circle does not hold under closer scrutiny. However, those who observed the stint at Muhammad Indimi’s mosque in Maiduguri and the eventual split describe a sharper divergence. “Ja’afar argued that Muslims should engage formal schools and institutions, then reform them from within. Yusuf rejected that path, calling for a boycott. He pushed for parallel systems built on Islamic guidance with zero secular influence,” said Mustafa.

From the beginning, there were overlaps between Yusuf and dozens of clerics in broad questions about jihad and Sharia. Still, Yusuf pushed toward establishing a totalitarian Sharia system on terms others did not share, or not yet. Across the Sahel, a broad clerical ecosystem continues to propagate hardline doctrinal interpretations reminiscent of those once advanced by Mohammed Yusuf. Many remain obscure, not for lack of ideological alignment, but because they have not transitioned into open confrontation with the state. Unlike Yusuf, whose influence escalated when he mobilised disaffected youth into armed resistance, these figures operate below the threshold of insurgency and restrict themselves to preaching. 

There was also an organisational history that has been largely buried beneath the violence that came later. “Yusuf was once part of a movement in 1997/1998 identified as ‘Jamatul Tajdid Islami’, which was first created in Kano and headquartered there,” said Malam Mohammad, Yusuf’s former associate now based in Kano. By early 2000, he was back in Maiduguri, beginning or deepening preaching activities across several mosques. He was pushed out from Mohammed Indimi’s Mosque, moved to Al’amin Daggash Mosque, was stopped again, and then continued from his own house, given to him by his father-in-law. He named the sanctuary Ibn Taymiyya Masjid after a 13th-century Islamic scholar. 

This was a precursor phase built on a study circle, not an insurgent cell. At the time, young men in white jalabiyas and their wives in black long jalbabs flooded Maiduguri. They were encouraged to bond tightly, abandon schools, and resign from secular institutions. “They shared food amongst themselves. They sold farm produce at subsidised rates from their large farm in Benisheikh. They provided free medical care through two clinics in Maiduguri. They ran a small revolving loan scheme for indigent members,” said Malam (name withheld), one of the movement’s former clerics currently in Maiduguri.

A fighter still active told HumAngle he dropped out as a sophomore at the University of Maiduguri, leaving his parents’ home to move in with a member of the group. “Between 2006 and 2007, I had no skills or a job. I survived on daily meals and food stamps from the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque. I will never forget that support by Malam Mohammed Yusuf,” said the 42-year-old Boko Haram member.

Ideology and a premeditated war

Boko Haram did not erupt because of the high-handedness of security agents, though that high-handedness was real and consequential. It did not begin because Mohammed Yusuf was extrajudicially killed in July 2009. However, that killing transformed him into a martyr in the eyes of his followers and helped harden the foot soldiers in the war that came thereafter. It did not begin because of one helmet law, one police confrontation, or one week of clashes in Biu, Bauchi, Maiduguri, Damaturu, Potiskum, and elsewhere.

Those events merely accelerated the rupture.

The deeper fuse was ideology, and that ideology did not grow in isolation. It travelled with money, with wars fought elsewhere, with transnational religious currents, and with the afterlife of global politics that Nigeria still refuses to examine closely.

In the 1980s, amid oil-fuelled prosperity and the protracted Cold War contest in Afghanistan, a distinct wave of Salafi thought was actively scaled by a Gulf state. It travelled through well-funded clerical networks, charities, publications, scholarships, and layers of international patronage that gave it both reach and structure.

For external backers, the fine details of ideology did not matter. What mattered was shared strategy. As long as this movement in Afghanistan put pressure on the Soviet Union, its beliefs were rarely questioned and were sometimes quietly supported.

In Afghanistan, jihad evolved from a theological concept into something more kinetic, a pathway, a destination, and, for many, a defining personal transformation. Young men from across the Muslim world answered that call. Nigerians were among them. Many of them were strikingly from the southwest region, but when they returned, they did not find the same fertile conditions in their home environment for a project of violent proselytisation. The idea survived, but it did not easily reproduce itself in that terrain.

In the north, these returnee fighters from Afghanistan did not arrive on stable ground. They met a generation of young men with little education and a grim future, a generation that knew the state only through force, neglect, and theft. They met boys raised on the daily humiliation of poverty and poor investment in education by corrupt officials.

That was the combustible field in which Yusuf picked up most of his ideas in the late 90s and began to nurture them into a movement in the early years of 2000. By the time the July 2009 ma’araka occurred, the insurgency had already been imagined, nurtured, and prepared for years. The movement had passed through the stages of learning, da’awah, withdrawal, factional dispute, internal sorting, and ideological hardening.

“Operation Flush” and the broader security pressure during that period disrupted a longer period of preparation. When the confrontation came, the group had not yet fully built what they intended to build. If they had been left to prepare longer, and if the rupture had come later rather than in July 2009, Nigeria might have faced a movement with greater organisational maturity and strategic capacity.

In the weeks after the confrontation between Boko Haram members and Operation Flush in Maiduguri, triggered by the enforcement of helmet regulations on motorcycle riders, tensions escalated sharply. Security forces shot around 20 sect members, an incident that hardened positions within the group and deepened mistrust of state authority.

Mohammed Yusuf responded with an open declaration, signalling that the group would confront the state if certain demands were not met. Within the cult-like community, preparations began quietly but deliberately. Members started liquidating personal assets. Cars, motorcycles, and even houses were sold. Women parted with jewellery and household items. Contributions came from across the network, each person offering what they could.

This mobilisation unfolded in earnest in the month leading up to July 2009. 

Long before the war, there were also fractures inside the movement that foreshadowed what would come later. One notable example is that of Muhammed Alli, who, after disagreeing with Yusuf, left for Hijra to Kanamma in Yobe State with dozens of youths in 2003. They isolated themselves from normal civil life in a remote location. When the traditional leader in the vicinity noticed a strange group of people in his turf in December 2003, he approached them, and one thing led to another; the group had violent confrontations with the Police that resulted in the loss of lives and properties. 

At the height of Yusuf’s sectarian authority between 2006 and 2009, a fracture was already taking shape within his movement. Beneath the surface, a harder, more impatient current was consolidating around Abubakar Shekau, his top lieutenant. “Yusuf believed in sequencing. Build strength first. Recruit deeply. Arm deliberately. Accumulate resources. Then, confront the state from a position of capacity,” said Mustafa.

Shekau, like Muhammad Ali, who led Kanamma, rejected that procedure. They both pushed for immediacy. Strike now and absorb the consequences later. Death itself, whether inflicted or received, was framed as victory through martyrdom, according to those inclined to Shekau’s hardline views.

Malam Hassan (Gandrova), a staff member of the Nigerian Prison Service, who was radicalised during one of Shekau’s brief remands at the Maiduguri Maximum Security Prison, would eventually join the terror group’s bomb-making unit. On Friday, July 24, 2009, he was assembling an IED with two other individuals at his rented apartment in Umarari, ‘Bayan quarters’ in Maiduguri. “Hassan and the two other bomb-making members of the sect were unskilled at the time, and their explosives blew up everyone in the room,” said a former member currently in one of Nigeria’s deradicalisation programmes set up to reintegrate former fighters back to normal civil life in their communities. 

The following day, Saturday, July 25, Yusuf’s followers were attacked in Bauchi. On the night of Sunday, July 26, Yusuf faced mounting pressure from his own ranks after the bomb incident and the raids in Bauchi, compounded by a sting operation by the police in Maiduguri, “who falsely tipped Yusuf’s men that security forces would launch an assault against them before dawn,” said a senior police officer familiar with the events of July 2009. Shekau’s more radical supporters within the group demanded action.

On the evening of July 26, 2009, hours before they launched an attack on the Borno State Police headquarters, Yusuf condemned the attacks on his men during an interview with this reporter, who worked for Daily Trust at the time. “What I said previously that we are going to be attacked by the authorities has manifested itself in Bauchi, where about 40 of our brothers were doing what Allah said, arm yourself and your religion in the face of an attack and an attack was imminent. This was what Malam Hassan [bomb victim] was doing when he became a martyr,” he said.  

Had Yusuf refused the group’s attack on the Police Force headquarters in Maiduguri, he would not have remained leader after that night, said several senior members of the group interviewed by HumAngle. The movement was already shifting beneath him. At best, he would have been sidelined. At worst, he would have been removed entirely by the very hardline faction he had tried to restrain.

Blood ties and the machinery of war

To understand how this story has unfolded, one has to see Yusuf as the centre of a household as well.

He had four wives and a large number of children, between 24 and 26, according to the accounts available. His first wife was Aisha, also known as Ya Bintu or Yaya Bintu. Among the children attributed to her are Yusuf, Habib, Ibrahim, Ahmad, Imam Muslim, Abdullahi (also called Abba), Isa, and Abdulazeez.

His second wife was Fatima, also called Ummu Zara. Children linked to her include Zarah, Alhaji Ba (recalled unclearly in one account), Iya Gana, Ummu Kulthu, Aish, Uma, and Abdulwahab.

His third wife was Hajja Gana, also called Ba’ba. Children associated with her include Zainab (often called Ummi), Maryam, Umar, and Khadija (also known as Ya Dija).

The fourth wife was Ummu Tulaf, or Ummuthulab in some accounts. Muazu is consistently named among her children. This is not a perfect register, but a family history carried through oral memory, insurgent secrecy, death, displacement, and the distortions that come when names are repeated across generations. But the uncertainties do not dilute the central point. Yusuf did not leave behind a disembodied ideology. He left behind a house, and that house has remained part of the machinery of war to date.

One relative of Yusuf, based in Kano, who spoke in detail about the family, put it simply: “All of his children are part of the insurgency. Some are dead now. But they are all part of it with no exceptions.”

The first son, Yusuf, married in Hotoro, Kano State, in 2010. The marriage was brief; he died not long after, leaving no children. His death followed the September 7, 2010, prison break in Bauchi, when Boko Haram freed hundreds of their members. Some of the escapees of that prison break were later traced to a hideout in Hotoro, where Yusuf lived. Security forces moved in. In the exchange that followed, Yusuf, the first son of Mohammed Yusuf, was killed.

Habib, the second son, known as Abu Musab, became the most consequential. Family testimony about his domestic life varies in detail, as such testimony often does in clandestine worlds, but the core is clear. He had multiple wives and many children. Zainab is recalled as one wife, Halima as another, Aisha as another. Their children, depending on who recounts the family tree, include Mus’ab, Humaira, Rumaisa, Muhammad, another Muhammad, Shifa’u, Ramla, Zarah, Rufaidah, Kasim, Abdullahi, and Amir. In one account, there is mention of a concubine or enslaved woman who bore him a daughter. 

After the July 2009 violent outbreak, most of Mohammed Yusuf’s children, except his first son, were moved out of Nigeria. They were first taken to Kusiri in northern Cameroon, then to N’Djamena in Chad, where they continued their religious education under Sudanese and Chadian tutors. This relocation appears to have taken place within months of Yusuf’s death and was aimed at preserving both their safety and their symbolic value within the movement.

In 2012, after Abubakar Shekau left Rijiyan Zaki in Kano and established himself in the Sambisa forest, he ordered Yusuf’s children to be brought back into the insurgent enclave, which the group had begun to frame as its Daula. This move reflected a deliberate effort to consolidate legitimacy by reabsorbing Yusuf’s lineage into the insurgency’s core.

Among those elevated during this period was Abu Musab al-Barnawi. He was progressively assigned roles that combined religious authority and operational relevance, positioning him as a bridge between doctrinal leadership and battlefield command.

From 2015 to 2016, tensions between Shekau and ISIS leadership intensified. The central issue was Shekau’s expansive use of takfir, particularly Takfir al-‘Umum, which justified violence against broad segments of the Muslim population. ISIS leadership, including Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, engaged in repeated efforts to moderate Shekau’s position. These attempts also addressed concerns over targeting practices, the use of female suicide bombers, and command discipline. All efforts failed.

In August 2016, ISIS formally intervened. Through its Al-Naba publication, it announced the removal of Shekau as leader and the appointment of Abu Musab al-Barnawi as Wali of the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP). This marked the formal split between Boko Haram and ISWAP. The decision was externally driven by ISIS central and reflected a strategic shift toward a more controlled and population-focused insurgent model under new leadership. 

Abba (aka Abu Umaysa), whose given name is Abdullahi, is also one of Yusuf’s sons. He reportedly had multiple wives and children, including Muhammad, Maryam, Aisha, and at least one other son. Within the insurgent structure, he played a technical and operational role, particularly in communications. Sources indicate he was responsible for managing encrypted messaging platforms that facilitated contact between ISWAP leadership and ISIS-linked actors in the Middle East.

Despite his communications role, Abba was known to participate directly in combat operations, a pattern that reportedly drew disapproval from senior leadership due to the sensitivity of his liaison responsibilities. Internal disputes led to repeated detentions. Abba was imprisoned on four separate occasions by his brother Abu Musab, including periods of detention alongside that of Mamman Nur, a senior figure associated with Mohammed Yusuf’s lifetime.

In one instance, he escaped custody with other fighters and fled to the Niger Republic, but later returned. According to a source, he was subsequently pardoned and allowed to reintegrate without facing the death penalty typically imposed on members accused of attempting to defect.

A senior ISWAP defector, Malam Ibrahim, stated that during one period of detention linked to internal disagreements, ISIS-linked contacts “declined communication with ISWAP as long as they did not hear his voice. He was released immediately to continue his work.” 

Abba later died in early 2023 during an engagement with the Multinational Joint Task Force in the Kangarwa forest area.

The other sons, Muslim, Abdulazeez, Isa, and Abdulwahab, are described by one source as married and without children at the time of this report. However, Muslim was arrested in Chad when he was trying to defect from the group to live outside of Nigeria. 

Even inside the household of a movement that would later devastate the northeast, family life is still narrated through the intimate vocabulary of births, marriages, hopes, namesakes, and unanswered prayers for children. That is exactly why the story resists easy reduction. The people at the centre of violence remained human in their own domestic worlds. That does not mitigate their responsibility, but it explains how such worlds sustain themselves.

The patriarch’s execution

Yusuf’s rise spiked because of his soft-spoken, unusual, and persuasive verbal skills rather than his scholastic proficiency. He did not need the theatrics many expected from Sahel’s religious authorities. He could name what young men already felt but had not yet organised into doctrine. Corruption. Injustice. Absence. State impunity. The feeling that rulers had abandoned both God and the governed. He took those scattered injuries and gave them a single haunting frame.

Yusuf was carrying a worldview shaped by transnational currents, doctrinal disputes within Nigeria and the broader Sahel Islam, and his own insistence that the Nigerian state was religiously illegitimate.

Then came the extrajudicial killing.

Outside the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Yusuf was captured on camera,  alive in custody, seated and handcuffed. Later, he was dead, his body riddled with bullets. The state said he had been shot while trying to escape. The footage with his hands tied, however, invalidated that claim.

What followed was brutal and systematic. Raids spread across northern states, with Maiduguri at the centre. Security forces targeted hospitals and local pharmacies. They forced staff to identify and lead them to patients treated for gunshot wounds or related injuries. Those patients were taken to the State Police headquarters. Some could barely stand. Some were on crutches. Some were executed at close range in the presence of this reporter, as documented here.

For followers, the image of Yusuf became proof of everything he had preached about state injustice. This was the moment the war entered the family’s bloodstream. His children, who had already grown up under his teachings, now witnessed his extrajudicial death. 

Abu Musab was central to the next phase.

The rise and fall of Abu Musab

Relatives remember him first as a disciplined son who rose through the ranks. He became a Munzir, later Ka’id, fiya, then a Waliy. He read deeply. He gained influence not only because he was Yusuf’s son but because he appeared to embody knowledge and steadiness.

Some accounts describe him as a serious internal voice within the insurgency, especially in doctrinal disputes over takfir and the treatment of ordinary Muslims. At one point, some within the movement argued that any Muslim who refused to migrate to the bush and live under insurgent control was an unbeliever. The practical effect of that doctrine was robbery, extortion, and killing. 

Abu Musab is remembered by those close to him as having resisted that direction. “People had reasons they could not leave,” he said in one of his recorded messages. “Not everyone outside the bush was an apostate.” That detail does not make him humane in any broad sense. He remained a leader in a movement that killed, abducted, raped, extorted, and terrorised civilians. But it does place him more accurately within the insurgency’s internal tapestry. He was part of the crop of leaders who believed Shekau had gone too far.

That split would define the next phase of the war.

After Yusuf’s death, Abubakar Shekau turned what remained of the movement into a machine of spectacle and indiscriminate terror. His fighters razed villages, bombed markets, assassinated Muslim clerics, and turned young women and girls into delivery systems for explosives. Entire communities were punished under expansive accusations of unbelief or collaboration. Shekau did not merely fight the Nigerian state. He fought whole populations, including the Muslims his faction claimed to defend.

Inside the movement, dissent built over time. Some of Yusuf’s old followers, including members of his family, believed Shekau had broken from the founder’s original doctrinal line. They still believed in jihad. They still rejected the Nigerian state. But they did not accept his disregard for restraint and counsel.

When the movement pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, those internal disputes widened. That split changed the insurgency’s logic. Shekau’s faction remained rooted in Sambisa and in a politics of fear, punishment, and theatrical violence. ISWAP, under Abu Musab, moved toward an equally brutal but more organised form of insurgent governance around the Lake Chad Basin. It taxed fishermen, farmers, and traders. It built courts, regulated movement, and sought not merely to kill but to rule.

It was still a terrorist organisation. It still abducted, extorted, murdered, raped and coerced. But its method of domination differed from Boko Haram. Where Shekau often destroyed civilian life outright, ISWAP frequently sought to occupy it, supervise it, and harvest from it. Communities brutalised by both insurgents and the military often did not think in abstract moral categories. They thought in terms of survival. To some, ISWAP looked more predictable than Shekau’s men, less erratic, and more likely to tax than to massacre. In this phase, Yusuf’s family became an infrastructure.

Some sons moved into command, others into ideological work. Some daughters married senior figures, tightening bonds between bloodline and leadership. One of Yusuf’s wives, Hajja Gana, later married Abubakar Shekau. The geography of Lake Chad then amplified everything.

Once a vast inland body of water, the lake has, over the decades, become a shifting geography of reeds, channels, islands, marshes, and seasonal passages where state borders blur, and state authority thins into abstraction. A fighter can move from Nigeria into Niger or Chad with less friction than a trader might face at a conventional checkpoint. Armouries can be hidden on islands. Training camps can be relocated across terrains that conceal unfriendly surveillance. Tax routes can be imposed on fishing channels more effectively than the Nigerian state can regulate ordinary commercial life in some border communities.

Yet dynasties do not move cleanly. They fracture from within.

Abu Musab’s rise inside ISWAP did not end in settled power. Internal struggles sharpened. Rivalries widened within the rank-and-file and the shura. Family accounts describe a period of captivity that placed him in real danger. The Boko Haram faction led by one Bakura Doro wanted him dead. Some within ISWAP opposed his return to influence, reflecting deeper internal fractures shaped by ideology, loyalty, and competition for authority. Yet he retained a critical asset: He was a recognised member of the shura within the broader Islamic State network. That status placed him within a transnational decision-making architecture that extends beyond the Lake Chad Basin, linking local commanders to the central leadership historically based in the Levant and later dispersed across multiple theatres.

According to a high-profile source, “a decision was made to extract him, perhaps toward North Africa or the Middle East.” Such a move would align with patterns seen in the Islamic State’s global operations, where experienced figures are sometimes redeployed across provinces. These decisions are often driven by strategic need, internal distrust, or the desire to preserve individuals with institutional memory and ideological legitimacy within the wider ISIS ecosystem.

That plan never reached its destination.

Instead, he moved through Nigeria under concealment. He spent time with one of his wives and their child. He moved through Kano. He surfaced in Kaduna. The high-profile source said, “Kaduna was the location chosen for him to wait for his travel documents to be processed.” HumAngle gathered that he was in the process of obtaining a Niger Republic international passport. At his Kaduna hideout, between April 21 and May 19, 2023, one of his couriers was tracked and security agents followed the trail to the house.

What remains most striking is that they appear not to have known whom they were closing in on. They suspected criminality, but by available accounts, they did not know they were approaching Abu Musab al-Barnawi himself. 

Abu Musab heard heavy banging at the gate, mixed with men shouting and the rumble of vehicles. He knew immediately it was security forces. HumAngle gathered through extensive interviews that he was calm, almost detached. He told his young wife, who was holding their young child, to open the gate. As she moved toward it, he slipped into the room’s toilet. Moments later, he detonated the explosive vest strapped to his body.

The blast stunned everyone outside, including his wife. The sound cut through the compound without warning. He chose death over arrest, over public disgrace, over the certainty of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

There was no public announcement after the blast that killed Abu Musab, no official triumph, no clear state recognition that one of the most significant insurgent figures in the region had died in that house. The insurgents, too, remained quiet, neither publicly mourning nor confirming the incident. Instead, the kunya Abu Musab continued to circulate, adopted by others as part of the deception and continuity that sophisticated insurgent networks rely on.

So he died in near silence.

A complex conflict

The temptation in telling this story is to simplify it into a mirror, a dreadful, clean reflective script revealing the ugliness and wretchedness of ruthless power mixed with aloof governance. The state is wholly guilty. The insurgents are evil. The civilians are trapped. All of that is true, and none of it is enough.

Yusuf’s movement drew strength from three elements that must be held up together if the story is to make sense.

The first was ideology. A structured creed, nourished by transnational currents, that delegitimised secular authority and imagined an Islamic order justified by violence.

The second was a grievance about corrupt governance, collapsed services, absent justice, police extortion, and growing poverty and unemployment across northern Nigeria.

The third was impunity: lawlessness by the state, extrajudicial killings, collective punishment, detention without process, and the routine treatment of poor people as disposable.

Some of the young men who heard and looked up to Yusuf died in 2009, before the insurgency fully matured. Some fled and returned. Some crossed into Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Sudan. Some started living normal lives. Some became commanders, teachers, recruiters, executioners, or administrators in the insurgent order. Some of his children, like Abu Musab, moved into leadership. Others remained within family or support structures inside the insurgent ecosystem. Some died. Some vanished. Some married deeper into the insurgency. Some had children in forest camps and island settlements. Those children then formed a third generation.

That third generation may be the hardest part of this story.

Across parts of the Lake Chad Basin, children have grown up under insurgent authority or the culture of violence, with no memory of peace. Their parents’ stories are not about school, court, civic life, or public trust. They are about raids, camps, betrayal, martyrdom, command, and survival.

In Borno, Yobe, and across the Lake Chad region, insurgency is not sustained only by ideology at the top. It is sustained by marriages, kinship, cattle routes, fishing economies, clerical contentions, clans, dialects, borderland trade, and the practical calculations of communities trying to stay alive between insurgent taxation and military suspicion. A woman’s marriage can be an alliance, survival, coercion, and entrapment all at once. A boy’s movement from the city to the forest can be due to indoctrination, family obedience, or a lack of alternatives. A trader may pay insurgents not because he supports them but because the state has left him no other safe route.

That is also why the story cuts beyond Nigeria. 

The symmetry is brutal. The state killed the father after capture. The son killed himself to avoid capture. Between those two deaths lies the whole distortion of the northeast conflict. A state too often governed by force rather than law. An insurgency that chose violence over any serious claim to humanity. A population trapped between them, paying in graves, hunger, displacement, and silence.

More than a decade after Yusuf’s death, the conflict he helped set in motion has not collapsed into victory or defeat. Instead, it has settled into a prolonged contest between military containment and insurgent adaptation.

The Nigerian military and the Multinational Joint Task Force have, despite operational limitations, prevented a full territorial takeover by Boko Haram and ISWAP. At multiple points, especially between 2013 and 2015, insurgents controlled significant territory. That phase was rolled back through sustained military pressure.

However, these successes were fundamentally limited. The military has achieved containment, not resolution. This creates a circle where military gains are repeatedly eroded in the absence of credible state presence, turning the conflict into a durable stalemate rather than a solvable war.

The danger now is not only that Nigerians forget Mohammed Yusuf’s actual place in this history. The danger is that the next generation inherits only the myths. On one side, the state myth that terrorism came from nowhere and can be resolved through raids, procurement, press releases, and more force. On the other side, the insurgent myth is that an unbelieving state martyred a “righteous founder” and that his children merely carried forward a sacred duty.

Both myths kill.

The truer version is harder. Yusuf was a product of corrosive ideology, ambition, and grievance. That is why this story still matters.

Nigeria did not invent militant Salafi ideology. It did not write the script of the Afghan jihad. It did not create global takfiri currents. But Nigeria did something unforgivable in its own space. It abandoned millions of citizens to conditions in which men like Mohammed Yusuf could speak with authority. Then, when the blowback came, it answered with the same habits that had already emptied the state of legitimacy in the eyes of many.

There is one final image that remains.

Somewhere in northern Nigeria, perhaps in Lake Chad, perhaps in a displacement camp, perhaps in a community held loosely between one armed authority and another, a child is being taught. The question is not whether that child will learn religion. The question is what will be wrapped around it. 

WASHINGTON — Polls show that record numbers of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Anxious voters find no shortage of corroboration. Seeming proof of national decline is everywhere–the savings-and-loan bailout, an imperial Congress, overpaid executives at the top of underperforming companies, record murder rates in cities, declining school quality, an intractable drug epidemic, spiraling health-care costs and a flat economy riddled with deep pockets of regional recession. We haven’t felt good about ourselves, our country or our future since the Gulf War.

President George Bush’s decline in the polls mirrors this trend. As long as voters were concerned about foreign policy, his high standing compensated for lower ratings on domestic affairs. The Cold War’s end has changed the issue mix of presidential races forever.

The recession is an immediate problem, but that will decline in importance when the growth most economists predict resumes this spring. But the recession masks a deeper fear that our post-Cold War inheritance is a declining standard of living, with high-paying jobs and prosperity flowing overseas. That fear will not recede quickly.

With the recession ending by spring, campaign planners will be tempted to heave sighs of relief and run a status-quo candidacy against the uncertainties of a switch to the Democrats. That would be a serious mistake.

For Bush will never have more fertile ground to lay out a new GOP agenda that addresses the deep fear voters have about the future of America. He can capitalize on the public’s thirst for certainty by laying out a set of ambitious goals–in government, in jobs, in schools and in social progress.

He can start with government. A recent Gallup poll shows 20% blame Bush for the economy’s condition, but 54% blame Congress. Support for term limits and a Trumanesque campaign to fix what’s wrong with Congress will not only pay political dividends, but give him a governing coalition for a second term. Beginning with this week’s State of the Union, Bush should challenge Congress to pass his economic recovery program within 100 days and return it to him for signature. He should also push legislation on health-care reform, education and crime by similarly challenging Congress. To dramatize the push for excellence, he might consider national middle-class merit scholarships for college.

Nor should he give up on trade, despite the Japan trip. Presidential involvement in a few trade confrontations will make his claim to fight for American jobs more credible. Where unfair trading practices are found, executive action on import relief should be swift.

By establishing his vision for the post-Cold War future, contrasting his own activism with Democratic and congressional obstruction, showing that he thinks free trade should benefit us as well as our partners and fighting hard for the middle class–in essence charting a course the country thinks takes us in the right direction and gets us off the wrong track–he’ll win not only reelection but a mandate.

It’s also important to understand this is not the 1984 reelection. Compression of the primary calendar means there are fewer days between the first Iowa caucuses, Feb. 10, and Super Tuesday, March 10, and the Democratic winner-take-all rules could give a front-runner enough momentum to be the apparent nominee by April. There is little prospect for a protracted Democratic primary battle like 1984’s between Gary Hart and Walter F. Mondale.

Because the Democrats won’t be tearing each other apart as long, Bush should engage the Democrats early. But he needs to shore up his own vulnerabilities before he begins to contrast with the Democratic nominee. He needs to sharpen his middle-class message, starting with the economy and people’s fears about the future.

This should be done well before the summer Democratic convention, when the Democratic ticket will have a solid week of national television coverage to engage in Bush-bashing.

It’s also critical to understand this is not 1988. The Democratic nominee will also have learned a lesson from Michael S. Dukakis–define your candidacy before your opponent gets a chance to define it negatively for you. It’s highly unlikely the ’92 Democratic nominee will be kept on the defensive for months as was Dukakis.

This year’s presidential election takes place in politically uncharted territory. It is the first contest of the post-Cold War era, probably the last election with a World War II veteran running for President. World events, from Eastern Europe’s velvet revolutions of 1989 to last summer’s failed Soviet coup, have irrevocably reshaped America’s political landscape.

Foreign policy and defense no longer matter much to voters. Communism’s death also buried anti-communism as an issue. With few external threats, Americans see old relationships through a new prism. They supported the post-war alliance with Japan for mutual security; without the Cold War, that same relationship looks one-sided.

To win reelection, it’s critical to understand what this dramatic shift means. The old rules are gone–now is the time for a new political order in American campaigns. For four decades, we’ve elected presidents against a Cold War backdrop. Now that we’ve won the Cold War, we need a new presidential agenda that’s relevant for the ‘90s.

ONE of the world’s biggest airlines has said they could soon increase the cost of flights due to ongoing conflict.

United Airlines has warned that fares could go up by as much as 20 per cent because of soaring jet fuel prices.

The airline flies mainly to America from a number of UK airports including Edinburgh, Manchester and London Heathrow.

According to Reuters, the airline’s CEO Scott Kirby said on Wednesday that the airline could increase flight prices by between 15 and 20 per cent to offset the surge in fuel costs.

For example, if a flight was £500 before, after the price rise it could be as much as £600.

The airline added that it has already begun raising some prices, as well as higher baggage fees – all to offset increased fuel costs.

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Kirby added that the airline has not yet seen a drop in demand, despite prices rising.

However, he also accepted that if the airline does introduce higher prices, it may test and put off travellers.

United Airlines has also already confirmed that five per cent of flights would be cancelled – or around 250 flights a month – because of rising fuel cost fears.

This news follows data released by The Transport & Environment (T&E) that disruption to jet fuel supplies has added as much as $100 (£77) per person to the price of long-haul flights from Europe.

As such, for a family of four heading on a long-haul holiday it would cost them an extra £308.

For short-haul flights within Europe, prices have increased by £25.26 per passenger – which would be more than £100 per family heading on holiday.

And a number of airlines have already raised their prices to offset the increasing cost of jet fuel.

For example, on Virgin Atlantic flights economy fares have been increased by £50.

Anyone flying in premium economy will pay an extra £180 and those in business class will pay an extra £360.

Air France and KLM, which are part of the same company, are also increasing round-trip fares by €100 (£87) on most of their long-haul flights.

Some airlines have cancelled flights as well.

For example, Lufthansa has cancelled 20,000 flights up to September, Air New Zealand and Scandinavian Airlines have cancelled around 1,000 flights, KLM has cancelled 160 flights and Cathay Pacific has cancelled two per cent of flights up to June.

In other flight news, a major airline is set to axe 20,000 flights this summer amid soaring fuel costs due to Iran war.

Plus, Brits are being warned that their summer holidays are at risk of being cancelled as jet fuel runs low and thousands of flights are axed.

April 23 (UPI) — Senate Republicans have again blocked the Democrats from curbing President Donald Trump‘s ability to wage war with Iran, as negotiators try to find a diplomatic end to the conflict during the fragile cease-fire.

The Senate voted 51-46 on Wednesday afternoon against Sen. Tammy Baldwin‘s War Powers Resolution, the fifth time since March 4 that the Senate has voted against directing the removal of U.S. Armed Forces from hostilities with Iran until authorized by Congress.

As with previous votes, Wednesday’s was mostly along party lines with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky again voting with his Democratic colleagues, and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania again voting with the Republicans.

“This entire war has been unnecessary, illegal and unwise. And we need to put a check on this president before it gets even worse,” Baldwin said from the Senate floor on Wednesday.

“Unfortunately, the president has shown us that he did not have a plan after day one. The president said the war would be over in a matter of days; we are coming up on the two-month mark with no real end in sight. And over the course of 50-plus days we have seen nothing short of a disaster.”

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a veteran, vowed in a statement that the Democrats will continue to do all in their power to end the war.

“It’s infuriating that Senate Republicans keep shirking their oaths and giving Donald Trump the green light to plunge our nation even deeper into his war of choice, further endangering our troops abroad and surging prices at home,” she said.

“This wanna-be dictator keeps breaking every single promise he’s made to the American people who are sick and tired of watching Republicans duck their responsibility to stop this chaos.”

The war began Feb. 28 with the United States and Israel attacking Iran.

Since then, 13 Americans have been killed. At least 3,646 people have been killed in Iran, according to HRANA.

Gas prices have surged as Iran has restricted access to the important Strait of Hormuz energy transportation route, and the United States is enforcing a blockade of Iran’s ports, cutting it off from sea-based trade.

The vote was held as a two-week cease-fire was to end before President Donald Trump announced an indefinite extension amid negotiations. On Wednesday, Iran’s military claimed to have seized two cargo ships in the conflict over the waterway.

Since the war began, Democrats have been seeking to rein in Trump’s war powers, arguing the ongoing war with Iran violates the Constitution, which mandates that only Congress has the power to declare war.

Democrats in the Senate have pledged to use their powers to force weekly debates on the war as well as weekly votes, forcing Republicans to repeatedly and publicly state their position on the conflict.

The vote was held less than a week before the 60-day limit of the war passes. On April 28, the War Powers Act will compel Trump to seek congressional authorization for the war.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has said that Trump should have sought Congress’ authorization, and appears to be leading Republican efforts to draft legislation for the continuation of the use of military force as that deadline comes.

“My focus is on the safety of America’s armed forces and the American civilians who are on the ground in the Middle East,” she said in a statement in early March, just days after the war began.

“At this point, we have little choice but to continue the military operation to degrade and destroy Iran’s capability for nuclear weapons.”

Washington, DC – The latest battle in United States congressional redistricting has been decided, with voters in Virginia approving redrawing the state’s electoral map.

The result of Tuesday’s referendum on Virginia redistricting is widely expected to benefit Democrats in their fight to retake control of the slimly Republican-controlled US House of Representatives in the midterm vote in November.

While redistricting is typically conducted every 10 years, following the US Census count of the country’s population, the election season has seen an unprecedented flurry of states moving to redraw their legislative maps early, initially spurred by pressure on US President Donald Trump to urge his fellow Republicans in Texas to do the same.

Democrats may be up at the moment, but several scenarios – including a redistricting push in Florida – could soon spoil those gains.

Experts, meanwhile, warn of the long-term implications of the election season’s norm-busting political manoeuvres, which they say could transform how and when electoral maps are drawn for years to come.

“Virginia’s unorthodox redistricting isn’t just a map redraw, it’s a mid-decade power play in a national arms race,” Rina Shah, a political adviser and strategist, told Al Jazeera.

“In a cycle defined by retaliation over reform, this sets a precedent: when one side bends the rules, the other follows, until courts or voters draw the final line.”

Democrats gain – for now

Trump has not been timid about his desire to redraw state congressional maps to benefit his Republican Party.

In July 2025, he confirmed the plan to reporters: “Texas would be the biggest one,” he said. “Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats.”

By August, Texas’s Republican-controlled State House had passed a new map favouring Republicans, setting the party on course to secure five more seats in the US House of Representatives compared to the earlier map.

The move was soon followed by changes in Missouri, whose new maps are expected to net Republicans one additional seat, while redistricting in North Carolina and Ohio is expected to give the party two to three new Republican-dominated districts.

Democrats in several states responded in kind, pushing for redistricting in California and Utah that resulted in about six new Democrat-dominated districts. Virginia’s victory largely neutralised Republican gains, adding between two and four seats for Democrats.

“This could shift Virginia from a 6-5 split to something like 10-1 Democratic,” political adviser Shah said, referring to Virginia’s 11 congressional districts and noting this would result in “delivering up to four net seats and dramatically tightening the fight for House control in the 2026 midterms”.

This comes as Republicans are already expected to face a punishing election season, with wariness over the US-Israeli war in Iran and the stubbornly high cost of living in the US.

Democratic control of either chamber of Congress – or of both – would give the party the ability to largely curtail Trump’s agenda in the final two years of his presidency.

As of Wednesday, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a midterm predictor published by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, rated 217 Congressional districts across the country as leaning towards Democrats, with 205 leaning towards Republicans and 13 rated toss-ups.

Good for Democrats, ‘terrible’ for democracy

In the short term, Democrats are “winning” from the redistricting battle, according to Samuel Wang, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton University who runs the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

“But from a non-partisan good government standpoint, it’s just a terrible event,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

He explained the “incredible” flurry of redistricting in recent months opens the possibility of a new age of heightened gerrymandering, the process by which congressional boundaries are drawn to benefit one political group.

Prior to this election cycle, there had been just three instances of mid-decade redistricting over the last five decades. Wang described the recent spurt as a “complete busting of norms”.

“It’s bad in the sense of reducing competition. Gerrymandering on both sides, basically, removes voters from the equation everywhere it happens,” he said.

Top Democrats have largely argued their hands were forced in mirroring the Republican strategy, rather than yield to the opposing party ahead of a consequential election.

“We fought back,” Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, told the Associated Press after Virginia’s vote. “When they go low, we hit back hard.”

But some Democrats have echoed concerns over the new precedent being set.

John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania who has regularly sided with Republicans, told Newsmax on Wednesday, “Whether it’s a red state or whether it’s a blue state, our democracy is degraded.”

Attention turns to Florida

To be sure, while opportunities for further redistricting are diminishing following the vote in Virginia, the final congressional maps ahead of the midterms may not yet be set.

The Virginia vote now shifts pressure on Republicans in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis is set to hold a special legislative session on April 28 to discuss possible redistricting.

A new map could add up to five Republican-dominated congressional districts in the state, but could be scuttled by strict language in Florida’s constitution related to the process.

Democrat Jeffries, in a statement on Wednesday, vowed to surge resources to the state to take down Republican incumbents if the map is redrawn. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time,” he pledged.

Several challenges to Virginia’s redistricting ballot measure are also currently being heard before the state’s Supreme Court, which could hinder the implementation of the new map.

Trump on Wednesday decried the Virginia vote as “rigged”, without providing any evidence to back up the claim.

Meanwhile, a case pending before the US Supreme Court could beckon in another slate of redistricting in the US South.

In Louisiana v Callais, the justices will determine whether the creation of two Black-majority congressional districts is in line with the Voting Rights Act, which seeks to assure minority representation in states with a history of racist election policies.

A ruling could open the door to redrawing maps in several states that would have previously been banned due to so-called “racial gerrymandering”, a process of drawing congressional lines based on racial makeup to dilute the electoral power of a minority group.

A pathway to reform?

A handful of states have created independent commissions to oversee redistricting, in an effort to assure the process remains non-partisan.

But the vast majority rely on their state legislatures to draw the maps, which can lead to outsized influence over the party in control, barring legal challenges. That largely remains true whether redistricting is conducted every decade or, as the current election season could portend, more frequently.

But amid the current cavalcade of congressional map changes, Princeton’s Wang, who is himself running in the Democratic primary for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th district, sees a rare opportunity for federal reform.

That could take the form of Congress creating independent commissions to oversee redistricting.

“Now that mid-decade redistricting is backfiring on Republicans, it creates the possibility that both parties can see clearly that gerrymandering is a zero-sum game,” Wang said.

“It opens a path for possible bipartisan action.”