war

It has been six months since February 28, when the US and Israel shocked the world by launching missile strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior Iranian officials in Tehran, as well as scores of children in a school in Minab, southern Iran.

US President Donald Trump then claimed the conflict would only last “four to five weeks”.

In the months since, the war has erupted on several other fronts, reaching as far as the Caspian Sea. It has triggered a global oil supply crisis as the US and Iran battle for control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which more than one-fifth of oil and natural gas cargo transited.

And it has resulted in an estimated 8,000-10,000 deaths, as well as tens of thousands of injuries.

The conflict is also realigning the global order, experts say, as new alliances form and dominant ones show signs of crumbling.

Here’s what we know:

Has the US achieved any of its war objectives?

The US’s goals were not initially clear: officials first claimed the strikes were carried out in preemptive self-defence.

According to demands presented on the eve of the war, and a jumble of sometimes contradictory statements from Trump and senior US defence officials, they include the following:

Iran’s nuclear programme

Despite Trump’s claim that the US had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities when it joined in at the end of Israel’s 12-day war on Iran in June 2025, the US and Israel again claimed in February that Tehran was just weeks away from developing nuclear weapons.

Repeated strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites during the war have likely caused vast damage to the facilities, but it is believed Tehran still possesses 440kg of highly enriched uranium, which could be used to make a weapon.

The Trump administration wanted Iran to hand over this stock to the US and to commit to zero enrichment of uranium going forward. Iran refused to do this, although at one point appeared open to the possibility of handing the stock over to a third country. Iran also insisted on retaining the capacity to develop a nuclear power programme, which requires much lower levels of uranium enrichment.

Later, Trump briefly floated the idea of US troops retrieving the stock by force – a potentially dangerous mission.

In the June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by both sides, Iran agreed not to pursue a nuclear weapon – something it had always pledged anyway. The MoU unravelled as its vague wording led to disagreements about what it actually stipulated.

Clark Summers, a US military veteran and professor at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, said the US “can rightly assert that these ends have been achieved. Although for how long before Iran can rebuild is difficult to assess.”

But Iranian expert and professor at the Australian National University (ANU), Alam Saleh, disagreed, and noted that Iran’s nuclear power programme is still intact. “The US lost even before the war,” he said, adding that the effort also shows that Washington failed in last year’s 12-day war.

Regime change in Iran

On day one of the war – February 28 – the US killed Khamenei alongside several other senior officials. Trump, two days earlier, said regime change is “the best thing that could happen”.

As the US launched missiles, he also called on “Iranian patriots who yearn for freedom to seize this moment to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back your country”.

Iran’s political leadership has, however, remained largely the same under the new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – the late ayatollah’s son.

Summers told Al Jazeera that the goal may have been “ad hoc” or improvised rather than well-planned. But “killing leaders does not mean strategic achievements, even if it’s a tactical success,” Saleh said.

Ending support for regional proxy groups

Iran’s “axis of resistance” is an umbrella comprising a number of armed groups around the region that it funds. This includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and several smaller groups in Iraq and Syria.

There are no signs that Tehran’s support for them has ended, and this demand did not appear in the MoU signed by the US.

Hezbollah went to war with Israel in Iran’s defence, and Iran has refused to negotiate an end to the war unless the Lebanon front is included. The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched a blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, partly in support of Iran.

Iran’s ballistic missiles programme

Washington swore it would “raze” Iran’s missile facilities to the ground when it launched the war on February 28. The US also pledged to destroy Iran’s navy.

Trump has since claimed that about 82 percent of Iran’s missiles are gone and the navy is degraded.

In April, he also said that 158 Iranian naval vessels had been hit, while US Central Command (CENTCOM) has continued to announce dozens of strikes on command centres of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Iran, however, has continued to fire missiles, most recently launching a long-range missile in July that killed three US soldiers in Jordan.

Furthermore, the demand for an end to Iran’s ballistic missiles programme was also absent from the July MoU.

Control of Iranian oil

In June, Trump said the US would seize and control Iran’s Kharg island, the heart of Iranian oil production.

To date, the US does not control any Iranian territory.

What have the US and Iran gained and lost during the war?

Besides the US demands at the start of the war, several other pressure points have emerged during the conflict.

Control of the Strait of Hormuz

Soon after the war began, Iran in effect closed the narrow but critical Strait of Hormuz, which passes through its territorial waters as well as those of Oman. Since then, shipping traffic has slumped from more than 100 ships per day to an average of about five.

To enforce this closure, Iran began striking vessels in the strait, the only route to the open ocean for Gulf oil and gas producers, which had not gained its explicit permission to pass through.

The US responded with its own naval blockade on Iranian ports in and around the strait. This is continuing.

Despite a large number of expletive-laden demands from Trump since then – many of them on social media – that Tehran reopen the strait, Iran has not budged. It is currently negotiating plans for the future of the waterway, through which more than one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies were shipped before the war, with Oman.

As part of these negotiations, Iran announced this week that it has agreed to a shipping route, which it will partially control, with Oman.

While Trump has recently claimed that the US has “full control” of the strait and that it is open to vessels, shipping remains at an all-time low and Iran has continued to fire at any vessels trying to pass without its permission.

Iran sees the strait as its main piece of leverage in the war with the US, which Salah said, Iran views as an “existential threat”.

Economic impact

• Iran: The war’s impact on Iran’s economy has been severe. The Iranian rial has in effect collapsed. Food prices have surged amid the war, and the US blockade and renewed sanctions have hampered Iranian oil exports, with the blockade cutting oil revenue by at least $6bn. Tehran’s economy has long been battered by US sanctions, although the fragile ceasefire provided temporary relief. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week that economic pressure is a “rerun we know by heart” and that the country knows how to survive it.
• US: US consumers have also felt the pressure of the war at the petrol pump, making the conflict highly unpopular. A July poll by The Associated Press revealed that two-thirds of Americans are against the conflict. While many tend to forget there’s a war, Summers said, they do remember it acutely when petrol prices rise. In states like California, gasoline prices doubled. That anger will likely translate into a political backlash against Republicans in November’s midterms, experts say.

Relations with allies

• Iran: Iran’s targeting of US military assets as well as both military and nonmilitary infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf states and Jordan has not made it popular regionally, experts note. Iran has hit infrastructure in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. Those states have called this a violation of their sovereignty. However, Iran’s economic and political ties with China have held, as Beijing has managed a delicate dance by advocating against sanctions on Iran while refraining from becoming fully entangled in the conflict. Trade relations with Russia also remain strong.
• US: The US has faced reluctance from its NATO allies to back it up in this war. Despite being asked directly by Trump, they have refused to join the war. Spain and Italy, in particular, have highly criticised the conflict, while Germany, Israel’s strongest ally in Europe, has done the same. France rejected calls to send warships to enforce the blockade. Gulf allies, Pakistan and Turkiye have all similarly refused, while in Asia, Japan, Australia and South Korea all declined to get involved. Gulf allies are also likely weighing the fact that it is the US’s war on Iran which has caused them to become targets.

Military capabilities

• Iran: US experts say that claims Washington has degraded Iran’s military capabilities are correct. Several army bases have been struck while Iran’s ballistic missile stockpiles are down by about 82 percent, according to Trump. However, Iran is still launching missiles and, while nuclear facilities have been damaged, it still has possession of its enriched uranium stockpile. Experts point out that Iran likely has a bigger appetite for an atomic weapon now than before the war began. Tehran has also continued to produce and deploy its mass-produced, cheap Shahed drones. An estimated 1,221 military personnel were killed by April, although the real toll is likely higher.
• US: The US has lost 18 soldiers and more than 750 have been wounded. That’s “quite low”, Summers said. However, US media reports suggest the Pentagon has severely depleted stockpiles of some of its most powerful and most expensive weapons – particularly its Patriot defence missiles – something Washington denies. Those missiles are only produced in the dozens annually and cost millions of dollars each. In August, the US signed a $22.9bn deal with manufacturer Raytheon to boost Tomahawk cruise missile production from 60 to more than 1,000 annually.

Is there an outright ‘victor’?

Observers say there is not.

“Both of them have not achieved anything,” Saleh of ANU said, noting that the US has failed to translate military superiority to actual gains despite being a “superpower” fighting a “middle power”.

China and Russia are likely observing Washington’s weaknesses, making new military calculations in the event of a future conflict with the US, he said. That has implications for Taiwan, especially as the US has now deployed its last aircraft carrier in the Pacific to the Middle East. The shift leaves the US without an aircraft carrier in the Western Pacific, despite Washington’s previous strategic emphasis on the region.

“Iran surviving also does not mean it’s a winner,” however, Saleh said. “This might be a defeat for the US, but it’s not a victory for Iran either.”

WASHINGTON — For the last six months, President Trump has attempted to control the narrative of the Iran war.

As days, weeks and months passed, he repeatedly said that an agreement to end the conflict was close at hand and that Iran was already defeated. Between fraught negotiations, Trump has gone from conciliatory to antagonistic, characterizing Iran’s new leadership as more “rational” than their predecessors, only to later call them “sick individuals.”

There have even been times the commander in chief contradicted himself and his own Cabinet in the same week — and sometimes, the same day.

Friday marks the sixth month of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel. Among U.S. forces, there have been at least 18 killed and 758 wounded, according to Pentagon data. The Human Rights Activists News Agency puts the death toll in Iran at 3,636. In Lebanon, officials, say more than 4,300 have died. The Israeli military reported 72 deaths, and at least 50 civilians have died, according to news reports.

Here is a recap of notable comments Trump made in public remarks and on social media during half a year of war:

What he said: “The United States military has undertaken a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

In announcing the start of Operation Epic Fury from the White House, Trump called Iran the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror and recalled actions by Iran or its proxies, such as the hostage crisis of 1979 and the bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that left 241 dead.

The goals of the operation, Trump said, were to destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its naval capabilities and missile industry and to ensure that Iranian proxies — including Hezbollah and Hamas — were thwarted. He implored Iranian citizens to rise up against the government.

Women carry the casket of a teacher from Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School toward the cemetery in Minab, Iran, on March 30. The teacher was among those killed in a missile strike on Feb. 28, the first day of the war on Iran.

(Zohreh Saberi / For The Times)

What happened: That morning the U.S. and Israel conducted airstrikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as well as other key military and government figures. According to Iran’s Red Crescent, 24 of Iran’s 32 provinces were hit in the first day of bombings, with more than 200 deaths and 700 injuries reported. Iranian officials said that at least 120 students and 26 teachers died in a missile strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab.

Iran retaliated by launching missiles at Israel and U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also warned ships to not travel through the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway for 20% of the world’s oil and energy supplies.

What he said: “We grieve for the true American patriots who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation, even as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. Sadly, there will likely be more.”

Trump announced that at least three service members were killed in an Iranian attack, the first U.S. casualties in the war.

In an interview with the New York Times, Trump was asked how long the U.S. and Israel could sustain its offensive in Iran. “It won’t be difficult,” he replied. “We have tremendous amounts of ammunition. You know, we have ammunition stored all over the world in different countries.”

What happened: An Iranian one-way drone attack was launched against the industrial Port Shuaiba in Kuwait, where American soldiers set up an operations center after abandoning the larger Camp Arifjan military installation.

What he said: “We projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”

At a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House, Trump assessed the progress of the attacks on Iran, saying the U.S. was “already substantially ahead of our time projections.”

Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Terry P. Richardson is presented the Medal of Honor by President Trump on March 2, the same day Trump said progress in the war on Iran was exceeding projections. ..

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

What happened: The conflict expanded, with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon launching drones against Israel.

Israel’s counter-strike would ultimately decapitate Hezbollah leadership, but strikes between the two forces would continue through the first week of war.

U.S. Central Command increased the number of U.S. troop deaths in the Kuwait strike to six from three.

What he said: “The war itself is going unbelievably. It’s as good as it can be.”

He said that the U.S. “wiped out” the Iranian navy, air force, drone manufacturing capabilities and “every form of leadership you can have,” adding that he was interested in being a part of the selection of Iran’s new leader.

He also said that he believed the strike on the Minab school was a misdirected missile launched by Iran. He offered no evidence.

The family of 8-year-old Reza Habashian, a second-grader killed in the strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, observes the Persian New Year at his graveside in Minab, Iran, on March 20.

(Zohreh Saberi / For The Times)

What happened: Iranian drone and missile strikes on gulf neighbors continued.

The day after Trump said Iranians had no existing leadership prospects, Mojtaba Khamenei, one of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s sons, would become the new supreme leader.

U.S. officials familiar with the preliminary findings of an investigation into the Minab school strikes leaked information to the New York Times that indicated the U.S. had bombed the school as a result of a “targeting mistake.”

What he said: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”

In a Fox News radio interview with Brian Kilmeade, Trump said that an uprising by Iranian civilians appeared likely. “It’ll happen, but it probably will be, maybe not immediately,” he said.

What happened: Iran and Hezbollah continued joint attacks against Israel, while Israel continued its own large-scale strikes on Beirut and Tehran.

On March 13, a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker — a refueling and airlift plane — crashed over Western Iraq without being attacked, resulting in the death of six more U.S. service members, Central Command announced. The U.S. death toll increased to 13.

What he said: “I think we won. All they’re doing is clogging up the Strait [of Hormuz], but from a military standpoint, they’re finished.”

Lightning streaks across the sky over an oil tanker on March 21 at Sultan Qaboos Port in Muscat, Oman.

(Elke Scholiers / Getty Images)

That same afternoon, in a post on his social media website, Trump said the U.S. was considering “winding down” military efforts in Iran.

What happened: The Pentagon said in a statement that it would send three warships and roughly 2,500 Marines to the Middle East for “routine training.”

What he said: “I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country Iran have had, over the last two days, very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.”

Trump also postponed military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure after threatening to do so if Iran did not open access to the Strait of Hormuz.

What happened: Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker, responded to Trump’s claims in a post on X. “No negotiations have been held with the U.S.,” Qalibaf wrote, adding that he believed the U.S. was using the prospect of an accord to ease strain on financial and oil markets.

What he said: “The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, addressing journalists in Tehran on March 30, said a truce plan proposed by the United States contained “very excessive, unrealistic and unreasonable” demands.

(Shadati / Xinhua / Getty Images)

While saying in a social media post that progress had been made, Trump leveled additional threats if a pact wasn’t reached shortly. “We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island,” he wrote.

What happened: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei once again rejected that direct talks with the U.S. had taken place, describing the proposed terms as “unrealistic, unreasonable and excessive.”

What he said: “We’re gonna hit them hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re gonna bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong.”

In an address to the nation, Trump also denied that a change of governments was ever a goal in attacking Iran.

What happened: Thousands more U.S. troops arrived in the Middle East amid continuous back-and-forth strikes. Iran hit an oil tanker off Qatar’s coast and fired missiles and drones at Jordan, which were intercepted. Israel carried out strikes on a Beirut neighborhood.

What he said: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”

Vice President JD Vance holds a cellphone up to a microphone while on a call with President Trump at an event on April 7..

(Jonathan Ernst / Pool Photo)

What happened: Trump’s post about a whole civilization dying went live around 5 a.m., but later in the day the U.S. and Iran announced a two-week truce. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said in a statement that the truce did not “signify the termination of the war.”

What he said: “Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.”

What happened: U.S. Central Command announced that the blockade of Iranian ports began at 10 a.m. Eastern. Central Command said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas.

People pass in front of a pro-government political mural in Tehran on April 12.

(Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)

What he said: “I think it’s close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over.”

Trump’s comment to Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on “Mornings with Maria” came two days after he announced the blockade of Iranian ports.

What happened: Though the ceasefire continued to hold, Iran officials had not relented on their right to enrich uranium, to maintain conventional defensive capabilities and to police traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

What he said: “I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”

In an interview with Kristen Welker of NBC on the 100th day of the conflict, Trump claimed that he had never promised during his campaign that he would not engage in new wars in the Middle East.

President Trump sits for an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker.

(Adam Bettcher / NBC / Getty Images)

What happened: On multiple occasions during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump suggested that he wouldn’t start new “endless wars.”

In a social media post in late June 2024, he framed the election as a choice between “peace and prosperity or war and no war.”

What he said: “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head.”

Trump spoke the same day he signed a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding with Iran to cease hostilities for 60 days. Trump put his signature to the memorandum while attending a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron in Versailles.

French First Lady Brigitte Macron, President Emmanuel Macron and President Trump meet at the Palace of Versailles in France on June 17.

(Mustafa Yalcin / Anadolu / Getty Images)

What happened: The document set out a series of conditions, including the release billions of dollars in Iranian assets that were frozen and restricted by the United States “upon the implementation” of the memorandum.

Some issues, such as the future of Iran’s nuclear program, were set aside for negotiations down the road.

The White Housed pushed back on bipartisan criticism of the deal, arguing its concessions were contingent on Iran’s conduct.

What he said: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

President Trump boards Air Force One on Aug. 9 at Morristown Airport in Morristown, N.J.

(Eric Lee / Getty Images)

What happened: Trump’s social media post came as Iran and the U.S. continued to carry out strikes in the Middle East despite the memorandum. CENTCOM announced that military surveillance, air defense sites and drone storage facilities were struck after an Iranian attack on a container ship, the Ever Lovely.

What he said: “Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They’ve lost everything, almost, militarily. … They’ve got very little left; They’ve got some missiles; They’ve got some drones; They’ve got some manufacturing ability, not much; We control the Strait.”

People gather July 19 on a bridge rendered unusable in a U.S. airstrike in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Iranian authorities said the United States carried out attacks on 95 locations in Iran over the previous 10 days.

(Amir Hossein Khorgooei / Anadolu / Getty Images)

What happened: According to a CENTCOM press release, the U.S. completed 13 nights of consecutive strikes against Iran by July 23, adding to an earlier announcement that Iran had attacked more than 30 commercial vehicles in the previous three months of conflict.

What he said: “I think it’s going to end really soon.”

Trump made the comment in the Oval Office while back-and-forth strikes — primarily over control of the Strait of Hormuz — continued.

What happened: According to a report by NPR, Iran’s parliament aimed to block U.S. and Israeli access to the Strait of Hormuz, despite Trump’s assertion that the waterway was under his control.

What he said: “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”

Trump’s comments reflected how U.S. officials sought to readjust wartime strategy after multiple rounds of failed negotiations. Trump told Axios that he would not proceed with expanded strikes against Iran, as the U.S. was “low-keying” its approach to the conflict.

What happened: As the war approached its six-month mark, both sides mostly ceased military attacks, but shifted to economic pressure.

“ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences,” Trump wrote in an Aug. 19 post, threatening “ECONOMIC D-DAY” if Iran did not comply with his demands.

According to Reuters, Qalibaf, the Iranian parliament speaker, said that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until military threats ceased and sanctions on Iran were lifted.

What he said: “IRAN IS COMPLETELY COLLAPSING!!!”

What happened: In a post on X three days before Trump’s “completely collapsing” post, the hard-line leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had noted economic sanctions placed on Iran by previous presidents, including Obama and Biden, and said they had all failed.

“We have seen this movie before,” he wrote. “Same bull. Different bullies.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other officials attend an event at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Tehran on Aug. 23.

(Anadolu / Getty Images)

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Mike Gibbons sat out the presidential election two years ago, frustrated that Democrat Kamala Harris did not take a stronger stand against Israel’s war in Gaza and unable to bring himself to cast a vote for Republican Donald Trump.

That is not his plan this year.

The 33-year-old restaurant server in this eastern Pennsylvania town that once housed one of the world’s largest steelmakers is eager to vote for any Democrat he can in November. As the war with Iran that Trump initially said would last weeks surpasses six months on Friday, Gibbons is feeling the fallout every time he fills his tank at nearly $1 per gallon more than last year.

“The price of gas affects the price of everything and the price of everything’s up and my pay hasn’t gone up,” he said. “I’m doing blue no matter who this time.”

The Iran war has reshaped the rapidly approaching midterm elections, undermining Trump’s campaign pledge to steer clear of foreign conflicts and challenging Republicans who would rather focus on their tax cuts as they cling to narrow majorities in Congress.

While the president’s supporters are undeterred, the war’s unpopularity and economic ripple effects could tilt the scales in tightly contested U.S. House districts like the one in Bethlehem, where Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie is one of this year’s most vulnerable incumbents.

Midterm elections are always difficult for the party in power in Washington. But interviews with voters around the country show how a war that Trump expected to end with a swift victory could undermine the final years of his presidency.

Many U.S. adults say the war has not been worth fighting

About two-thirds of U.S. adults say the war with Iran has not been worth fighting, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That includes the vast majority of Democrats and independents, as well as more than one-third of Republicans.

Although Trump has long criticized Iran’s leadership, he did little to prepare Americans or allies for such a lengthy conflict. Republican President George W. Bush, for instance, spent more than a year making a case for launching a war in Iraq through speeches and attempts to build an international coalition. Trump did none of that.

Trump has refused to acknowledge the war’s cost, saying this month he would “never apologize” for higher prices stemming from it and insisting he did “the right thing” to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. His administration announced new sanctions this week in an attempt to further isolate Tehran.

In Congress, Republicans have shifted from initially cheerleading Trump’s moves in Iran to expressing concern about the toll of the war. But the party has largely unified to block measures that would curb Trump’s war powers and leaders have shown no interest in cutting off money for the war, preferring to portray Democrats as extremists who cannot be trusted to govern.

Democrats who were blamed just two years ago for presiding over high prices see an opportunity to turn the issue back on their opponents. As part of his comeback U.S. Senate bid in Ohio, Sherrod Brown released an ad this week filmed at a gas station as he said “the cost of gas is out of control and we’re the ones paying for it.”

Speaking to a group of older adults recently in a Republican-dominated swath of western Maryland, Democratic U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks blamed higher prices on the war. Heading into November, she encouraged fellow Democrats to stay focused on the war’s impact and what it says about Trump’s leadership.

“We ought to be saying what is obvious, which is our country is heading in the wrong direction,” she said in an interview.

That resonates with voters such as Brandon Bane, a fast-food worker in Bakersfield, California, where Republican Rep. David Valadao is also in a competitive congressional race. Bane, who described himself as a political independent, said he often has to balance paying rent and groceries, noting high gas prices have only added to the challenge.

“It hasn’t been worth it at all,” he said of the war, adding that he plans to vote for Valadao’s challenger, Democrat Randy Villegas.

Melissa Wegman, a Democratic retiree who is also from Bakersfield, said she was shocked when the pump recently whirled to $128 to fill the tank on her SUV.

“I have to manage a budget,” she said.

Some voters are sticking with Republicans

But there is a risk, too, that the war does not provide Democrats with the political boost they are expecting.

While there is plenty of frustration about prices, there are also voters willing to make adjustments without blaming Republicans. Many remain aligned with Trump and are not interested in seeing Democrats return to power.

North Carolina is a top pickup opportunity for Democrats hoping to flip a U.S. Senate seat. But at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh, North Carolina, Lucienda Lowe of Sugarloaf Orchards said her faith in Trump is solid.

“There has to be a reason why they’re over there,” she said. “They wouldn’t be over there doing that if there wasn’t something more going on than what we’re seeing.”

She has not raised her prices on apples even as fuel and fertilizer costs soar. Her family has been farming since 1846 so she feels resilient to weather the next rough patch and tells others to do the same.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” she said.

Similarly in Iowa, where Democrats are bullish on their prospects of flipping everything from a U.S. Senate seat and the governor’s mansion to several U.S. House races, Larry Cole said higher gas prices as a result of the war are just the “nature of the beast.”

The 66-year-old Republican service manager from Perry, Iowa, said he will back Republicans in this midterm elections and does not want to see Democrats gain control in either chamber. He said Trump has taken action that other presidents were not willing to do to keep Iran in check.

Trump “hit them where they need to be hit,” Cole said.

Mark Duffy, 65, of Scottsdale, Arizona, said he did not expect the Iran war to go on as long as it has, but it has not had material effects on his life.

“I didn’t think it would go this long,” said Duffy, who retired a year ago from his career selling electronic components. “I don’t think anybody did, but now the next wave is the economic sanctions, so we’ll see if that works and maybe that is a way for other people to join.”

For others, the war has only reinforced a sense that neither political party is responsive to the needs of voters.

As he left a tattoo parlor in Ashland, Virginia, 26-year-old Evan Mise said he feels the increase in gas prices and worries about whether his mom will be able to retire or whether he will someday be able to.

But he had not decided whether to support Democrats or Republicans in November.

“I feel like our government is pretty corrupt through and through,” he said. “It’s kind of just a sit-back-and-watch thing. And I think my generation especially feels helpless.”

Catalini and Sloan write for the Associated Press. Sloan reported from Washington. AP writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C., Michael R. Blood in Bakersfield, Sarah Rankin in Ashland, Va., Jonathan J. Cooper in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

The Iran war is settling into attrition, with no regime collapse and Gulf economies facing growing uncertainty

Analysts broadly agree the United States and Israel’s war on Iran will not see regime collapse in Tehran or a definite victory for Washington, but rather a dragged-out affair of stagnation and attrition.

The hope among the US leadership at the start of the war, which began after surprise Israeli and US attacks on February 28, was that mounting economic and military pressure on Iran would force a structural shift in Tehran. Six months on, it is clear this vision will not come about, and instead many are preparing for a protracted war and managed fallout.

Oil-dependent economies are still absorbing supply shocks after traffic in the Strait of Hormuz slowed to a trickle of pre-war levels following Iran’s attacks on shipping and a US blockade on Iranian ports.

The US military is still entrenched in a region that remains its most militarised in years. Although the war’s intensity has lessened since a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Washington and Tehran in June, there is no sign it will conclude, leading to continued uncertainty about the future.

Existing tensions, such as those between the Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, look only set to increase as the war drags on. The influence of rival powers, such as those of India and China, remains stalled rather than stopped, with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative having already established itself within the Middle East and North Africa. All in all, the region remains in flux where formal alliances with outside powers no longer guarantee safety.

The defence agreement between Turkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia recently signed in Mecca will likely be the first of many such military pacts agreed in the region.

“The war has just accelerated trends, but hasn’t really started anything that wasn’t already under way. The Gulf countries were already diversifying their economies,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera. “Many were already looking at broadening their defence partnerships beyond existing US security guarantees, as well as increasing their own defence capability.”

Israel, for its part, is still pursuing its regional project of “paramountcy”, HA Hellyer of the Royal United Services Institute said, despite its failure to bring Iran to its knees this year.

“There is no chance of the government in Tehran falling in the next six months,” Hellyer told Al Jazeera. “If everything were to theoretically stay the same … with just increased economic pressure, that could eventually cause a ripple effect that could lead to state collapse in Iran. But we’re talking years, not months, and everything is not likely to stay the same.”

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and strikes on regional cities have hindered Gulf states’ plans to use oil revenues as an engine to diversify their economies and build on their reputations as a safe haven to encourage investors.

Shipments of oil, derivative products and liquefied natural gas (LNG) have been repeatedly and severely disrupted since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran in February.

Transit through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which saw attacks on shipping by the Houthis during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, became even more hazardous in July, when the Iran-allied Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia.

“The price of oil has increased broadly in line with the Gulf states’ difficulties in exporting it,” John Sfakianakis, chief economist at the Gulf Research Center, told Al Jazeera. “Is this going to go for six months? Is it going to go on for longer?”

Exacerbating the Gulf states’ difficulties is that, although the price of oil has risen, so has inflation. In addition to the economic difficulties the war has created, there is also growing pressure for Gulf states to invest more in defence.

For now, the majority of the states caught in the middle will look at ways of living with the turmoil and managing the consequences.

BEIRUT — Iran’s economy, already strained by high inflation, years of Western sanctions and a war that has sharply reduced oil revenue, is poised for more instability as the Trump administration tries to coerce other countries into ending all financial dealings with the Islamic Republic.

A decision by the United Arab Emirates to suspend trade relations with Iran last week kick-started the White House’s latest attempt to isolate Tehran into submission. Iran entered the war with its foreign commerce concentrated among a relatively small group of countries, leaving it with fewer places to turn now.

The success of the U.S. strategy largely will hinge on China, the main buyer of Iranian oil and its top trading partner. Russia, a fellow target of sweeping U.S.-led sanctions, has a military conflict and economic crisis of its own and probably can’t offer longtime ally Iran much hard financial support.

Regional partners like Turkey, Pakistan and Iraq maintain important relationships with both Iran and the U.S., giving them reason to avoid exposure to the secondary sanctions that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said awaited nations that did not cut economic ties with Iran.

“Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership,” Bessent said Monday while outlining the plan he called “Operation Economic Outcast.” “Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation.”

The Emirates will be hard for Iran to replace as a conduit for foreign goods and payments

Despite Western sanctions, Iran in 2024 exchanged $125 billion worth of goods globally, according to Trade Data Monitor, a private firm. Iran is not a member of the World Trade Organization.

The bulk of its declared international trade, though, was with a handful of partners. The UAE, China and Turkey supplied nearly three-quarters of Iran’s merchandise imports. Four countries — China, Iraq, the UAE and Turkey — accounted for more than two-thirds of its non-oil exports.

On the supply side, the UAE held outsized importance. It was Iran’s biggest source of imported items and a gateway to financial channels that helped Iranian businesses make and receive international payments. Both roles kept Iran connected to the global economy.

As a reexport hub, the UAE processed shipments from foreign suppliers reluctant to deal directly with Iranian customers.

“From Iran’s perspective, the UAE can be replaced, but the Iranians are openly saying it’s not going to happen overnight,” said Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

China has deep economic ties to Iran but depends less on the relationship

Beijing has economic interests in the Persian Gulf beyond Iran, and so far has avoided getting drawn into the conflict the U.S. and Israel initiated. China buys the overwhelming majority of Iran’s crude through opaque trading networks that bypass sanctions.

Its manufacturing clout and stranglehold on critical mineral supplies nonetheless give Beijing more room than Iran’s other partners to resist U.S. pressure, said David Lubin, a senior research fellow at Chatham House. Aggressive action against major Chinese banks and businesses could revive trade tensions as Chinese leader Xi Jinping prepares to meet with President Trump in Washington next month.

“I don’t see China playing ball by any means,” Lubin said.

China is both Iran’s largest reported export market and a supplier of essential parts and products, according to WTO and United Nations data.

During the Obama administration, Beijing did agree to reduce energy imports from Iran, said Atlantic Council fellow Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland.

“We will want the Chinese to go a lot farther than they have gone in the past,” Fried said. “But it’s a lot harder now.”

China has experience helping an ally survive sanctions: It has long been North Korea’s economic lifeline and main diplomatic backer. Experts say China has avoided fully enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea and sent clandestine aid to help its impoverished neighbor stay afloat.

Expanding bilateral trade would create problems for Iran’s neighbors

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who has been his country’s lead negotiator over the last six months, was in Iraq the day of the UAE’s trade suspension. A purpose of his visit, he said, was “speeding up efforts to expand joint cooperation among all countries in the region, without foreign interference.”

The U.S. dollar’s preeminence in international trade and finance, however, means none of Iran’s trading partners would antagonize Washington lightly, Vatanka said. “We’re still at a point where if the U.S. wants to hurt you, it will matter,” he said.

Underscoring potential consequences, Turkey settled a years-long U.S. dispute in July over the role of a state-owned bank in helping Iran evade sanctions through an oil-for-gold scheme. Trump also moved to lift sanctions on its fellow NATO member stemming from Turkey’s purchase of a sophisticated Russian missile system.

“I really don’t think Turkey would like to become the next country helping Iran to evade sanctions right now,” said Riccardo Gasco, an analyst at the IstanPol think tank in Istanbul.

Iran is a vital import source for Iraq and retains influence there through allied political factions and armed groups. Baghdad has sought closer economic and security ties with Washington. Since it invaded Iraq in 2003, the U.S. has significant control over the nation’s foreign currency reserves because they are housed in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Oman, a frequent intermediary between Washington and Tehran, has found its balancing act suddenly precarious. Trump threatened Oman last week over its ongoing negotiations with Iran on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz.

One easy route for goods slipping past sanctions on Iran would be ports like Gwadar near the Persian Gulf in Pakistan, said Peter Harrell, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University.

“Ship an intermodal container of drone parts to one of the ports in western Pakistan and unload it onto a truck and have it driven across the border into Iran,” he said.

While Pakistan, a key ally and economic partner of China in the region, wants to increase trade with Iran, it faces competing pressures. It is serving as a key mediator between Tehran and Washington and has deep security ties with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s longtime regional rival.

Caspian Sea trade route alternatives unlikely to grow quickly

With the Strait of Hormuz mostly blocked and Russia’s war with Ukraine endangering ships on the Black Sea, Iran has sought to develop a “road of life” on the Caspian Sea, said Nikita Smagin, an independent analyst and a former Russian state news agency correspondent in Tehran.

Russia reportedly sent drones to Iran this year, repaying Tehran’s favor after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also rerouted exports to Iran via Caspian Sea ports like Astrakhan. Agricultural products make up 80% of Russia and Iran’s reported trade.

“Both economies are exporting natural resources and have little to offer each other,” Smagin said.

The other countries that border the Caspian — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan — probably won’t rush to join in, said Umud Shokri, a fellow at George Mason University.

Yet Russia and Iran are already in an “axis of the sanctioned,” said Mark Galeotti, executive director of the Mayak Intelligence firm. For decades the pair have collaborated to thwart trade restrictions, and increasing bilateral trade in both “strategic goods” and contraband like military technology, microchips and Gucci handbags could be a next step.

“Pomegranates and tomatoes only go so far,” he said.

Chehayeb and McNeil write for the Associated Press. McNeil reported from Brussels. AP writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

US trade officials downplay French language dispute, calling claims fabricated.

Canada’s top trade negotiator with the United States, Dominic LeBlanc, says he “welcomes” a shift in the US position on “discoverability”, “labelling” and “measures to promote French language and Canadian culture” not being subject to US tariffs.

LeBlanc praised the move in a post on Thursday on X and added that Canada is looking “forward to further constructive U.S. clarifications on their other positions, which would create the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade agreement”.

Al Jazeera reached out to the White House for comment, but it pointed to an interview with US Trade Representative Jamison Greer on the Canadian broadcaster CBC in which Greer said French language discoverability on streaming services “is not something where we push hard or condition or red-line”.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick echoed those comments at a news conference on Thursday outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

“Do I care about how the Quebecois speak? I mean, what could matter less to America? We don’t care. So the fact is we never brought those words up. This is manufactured, and that’s why the president put out a [post on Truth Social] saying it was a complete lie, right? It was manufactured,” Lutnick told reporters.

The comments come on the heels of tit-for-tat tariffs between Washington and Ottawa.

Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20bn of US goods ranging from 15 to 50 percent that will go into effect on September 8. Those levies were in response to 50 percent tariffs announced by Washington on Canadian goods as negotiations collapsed over the weekend.

US President Donald Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Canada in recent days, including signing an executive order on Thursday to rename Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the five Great Lakes, which borders Ontario, to Lake America.

On Saturday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said US officials made “threats to the French language” as well as threats to the culture of Canada and Quebec specifically.

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs are to hit hundreds of consumer products, including ice skates, dishwashers and construction materials. However, on Wednesday, Ottawa scaled back some tariffs, including those on fish and other seafood products.

“Based on feedback, we have made select adjustments to protect against economic harms, including removing seafood and fish products from our list of counter-tariffs,” Canada’s Department of Finance said in a post on X.

“We are continually working with Canadian industries to assess the effectiveness of these measures, with a primary focus on industries that have been targeted by US tariffs.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is experiencing a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced missile interceptors in Europe largely driven by President Trump’s war with Iran, a U.S. defense official in Europe and a NATO official told the Associated Press, raising concerns about vulnerabilities in NATO countries to a potential Russian attack.

The U.S. defense official said the most concerning shortfall involves Patriot missile interceptors, which can shoot down Russia’s high-speed ballistic missiles. The NATO official confirmed the low inventories of Patriots among American and NATO forces in Europe. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

In the event of a Russian ballistic missile assault on, for example, a military headquarters or power plant, NATO could be in a similar position to Patriot-starved Ukraine and be forced “to take punch after punch in the mouth,” the U.S. defense official said.

In Europe, the American military “definitely” does not have enough Patriots to stop any possible sustained ballistic missile attack and would have “very limited” capability to defend against a single ballistic missile strike or a stray Russian missile that goes off course, the U.S. official said.

It illustrates the cascading fallout from Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran, a conflict that reaches the six-month mark on Friday. U.S. missile stocks in Europe have been moved to the Middle East, where U.S. and Gulf allies have fired off significant numbers of interceptors, including Patriots, to thwart Iran’s drones and missiles. Some of those attacks have killed and wounded American troops.

Though a Russian ballistic missile attack against NATO countries is not imminently expected, CIA Director John Ratcliffe went to Moscow this week to warn Russia not to attack, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump played down the significance of the rare and secretive trip, saying it was “sort of semi-routine.”

European and NATO officials say Russia could be in a position to attack countries in the alliance by 2030. Patriot stockpiles are projected to rebound by then. In the meantime, Russia’s war in Ukraine could hinder its ability to carry out any missile attack on Europe as it would be a challenge for Moscow to fight an air war on two fronts.

U.S. Patriot transfers to Ukraine played a role in the drawdown, but the Iran war wasn’t expected

The Patriot missile shortage is most acutely felt in Ukraine, where officials are begging for more air defense support and where previous U.S. transfers also have drawn down some supply. Kyiv says only U.S.-made Patriots can stop Russia’s advanced ballistic missiles, which increasingly are getting through Ukrainian defenses, including as part of a barrage overnight into Thursday.

The U.S. supplied hundreds of Patriot missiles to Ukraine over the course of the 4 1/2-year-long conflict, but the Iran war was the tipping point for shrinking inventories, said Ed Arnold, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank in London.

The supply to Ukraine was planned for and reasonably measured, he said, whereas stocks in the Middle East have been unexpectedly and quickly drained, exposing supply chain constraints.

The U.S. military in Europe also is grappling with critical shortages of the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, a medium-range ballistic missile designed to strike behind enemy lines, the two officials said. But the overall munitions picture in Europe is less dire than on air defenses alone because some European militaries have their own offensive missiles, such as the Taurus and Storm Shadow, which are both long-range air-launched bunker-busting missiles.

U.S. Army Col. Martin O’Donnell, a senior NATO military spokesperson, said it is “simply not the case” that the number of Patriot missiles in Europe is beyond critical.

NATO, he said, is able to “block punches” and has enough air defense munitions available to defend itself as well as to donate to Ukraine.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Thursday that claims of U.S. munition shortages “are false.”

“We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing,” Parnell said. “Across multiple combatant commands, we have already executed successful operations while maintaining a deep, ready arsenal to defend our people and our interests.”

Europe has few alternatives while stocks are low

The dearth of Patriot interceptors in Europe would leave few alternatives for shooting down Russia’s more advanced ballistic missiles, which can be combined with swarms of inexpensive drones to overwhelm defenses, experts say.

Ukraine and some allies already use systems that can destroy slower-moving drones without expensive missiles. But ballistic missiles are a challenge because they dive steeply toward targets at more than five times the speed of sound, leaving little time to stop them.

The Patriot system tracks the missile, predicts its path and launches within minutes, all while carrying out complex calculations to ensure the interceptor finds its target. One Patriot battery can only cover a limited area: for example, a small military base but not a whole city.

One alternative could be France and Italy’s SAMP/T NG air defense system. France has promised to speed up the delivery of the system — the upgraded version of the current SAMP/T — to Ukraine, which the manufacturer says is better able to counter ballistics.

The new iteration, however, has not yet been battle tested and the current version of the SAMP/T has a smaller range than the Patriot.

While U.S. and European militaries have warships that can serve as mobile air defense, they may be too far from a target to protect it and could risk getting sunk.

Patriot stocks have plunged during the Iran war

Ukraine has received Patriots from American and European stockpiles since Russia’s 2022 invasion, with the U.S. providing about 600 of the interceptors during the Biden administration, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel who is now senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

But the greatest expenditure has been during the Iran conflict, which has used up 65% of U.S. Patriots, amounting to roughly 1,500 of the nation’s 2,330 interceptors, CSIS says. About 600 missiles, including those destined for Europe, should be made this year, with a production goal of 2,000 Patriot missiles a year set for 2030, Cancian said.

NATO says Europe’s first Patriot missile production facility is expected to open in Germany in September, with deliveries possibly beginning early next year. The first deliveries should go to countries that have already placed orders, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain, the U.S. defense official said.

But for now, that means some countries, such as Germany, have bought expensive Patriot systems but are in the “ridiculous” position of not having any ammunition to fire from them, said Arnold of the London think tank.

Germany’s defense ministry said it does not comment on stockpiles.

Russia also has limitations

Moscow likely cannot carry out a sustained air assault on a NATO target while it launches almost nightly attacks on Ukraine, Arnold said.

Ukraine’s recent strikes into Russia also have exposed weaknesses in Russia’s air defenses, which could prompt Putin to think twice about provoking a retaliatory attack.

“The uncomfortable truth is possibly the best air defense that we have is Russian constraints,” Arnold said.

Burrows and Finley write for the Associated Press. Burrows reported from London. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

Ratko Mladic, a war criminal convicted over the first genocide on European soil since the second world war, has died prison in The Hague at the age of 84.

Earlier this year, Serbia requested that Mladic be allowed to receive medical treatment outside prison, saying his health condition was “serious” and that he “required serious medical treatment”.

The United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said that Mladic was receiving adequate medical care while in detention.

Known as the “Butcher of Bosnia”, Mladic was one of the best-known and most notorious military commanders of the wars that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.

International courts convicted him of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was sentenced to life in prison

The most notorious part of his criminal legacy is linked to the genocide in Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Serbia.

Bosnian Serb forces under Mladic’s command seized Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the UN declaring the municipality a “safe area”. After the enclave fell, more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed by Mladic’s forces in the days that followed.

Some of the civilians were captured and executed at locations in and around Srebrenica. Others were killed after attempting to flee through the forests towards territory controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The bodies of victims were later discovered in numerous mass graves, while many were identified years after the war. The remains of around 1,000 victims are still being sought. International courts established that the killings constituted genocide.

Srebrenica has remained a symbol of one of the gravest crimes committed in Europe since the second world war.

From the Yugoslav army to commander of the army of Republika Srpska

Mladic was born in the village of Bozanovici near Kalinovik, about 40km (25 miles) south of Sarajevo.

He began his military career in the Yugoslav People’s army and gradually rose through the military’s command structure.

When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia in the spring of 1992, following Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnian Serbs established their own political and military structures and proclaimed Republika Srpska, which controlled territory covering roughly half of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time.

In May 1992, Mladic was appointed commander of the Republika Srpska’s army. Over the next three and a half years, he sought to seize parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the capital Sarajevo, devastating areas in his path. However, his forces failed to achieve major territorial gains in several key areas.

The political and military leadership of Republika Srpska sought to separate Serb-controlled territories from Bosnia and Herzegovina and create a separate, territorially contiguous Serb state within the country. Republika Srpska would formally become one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s two entities under the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement.

Mladic’s forces were involved in a large number of atrocities across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In addition to the Srebrenica genocide, international courts found Mladic responsible for a campaign of terror against Sarajevo’s civilian population, the hostage-taking of UN peacekeepers and other crimes.

The Siege of Sarajevo

Sarajevo was surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces for almost 44 months. From positions on the surrounding hills, they shelled the city and used snipers against its residents.

More than 11,500 people from all ethnic groups were killed, while many others were wounded or displaced.

The Sarajevo Siege, which Mladic directed, became one of the defining episodes of the Bosnian war and one of the longest sieges of a capital city in modern history.

After the war ended in 1995, Mladic evaded arrest and spent almost 16 years in hiding. He became one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives accused of war crimes.

He was arrested in Serbia in May 2011 in the village of Lazarevo, near Zrenjanin, at the home of a relative. Several days later, he was transferred to The Hague, where his trial began before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

His arrest was one of the key conditions set by the international community for Serbia’s progress towards closer relations with the European Union. Belgrade faced political and financial pressure from Western countries to cooperate with the tribunal and transfer Mladic to The Hague.

In 2017, the tribunal sentenced him to life imprisonment. The courts established his individual criminal responsibility for a number of crimes.

Mladic in Serbia

Although his convictions were final, Mladic continues to have support among sections of the Serbian public and political circles in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Banja Luka, Belgrade and other areas with predominantly Serb populations, murals depicting him can still be seen. Some members of the public continue to portray him as a military hero rather than a convicted war criminal.

That attitude towards Mladic is part of a broader problem of confronting the legacy of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While international courts have established facts concerning the genocide and other crimes, political and social divisions over the country’s wartime past remain deeply entrenched.

Denial of the Srebrenica genocide and the glorification of convicted war criminals remain serious problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to data from the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, 149 cases of public denial of the Srebrenica genocide were recorded during the first quarter of 2026, including statements by public figures. That represents an increase compared with 2025, when 99 such cases were recorded.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in May 2024 establishing July 11 as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica.

The resolution was intended to preserve the memory of the victims and promote a culture of remembrance, while also reaffirming the importance of confronting genocide denial and preventing the recurrence of such crimes.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is due to visit Tehran on Thursday for talks on de-escalating tensions and reviving dialogue between Iran and the United States.

A spokesman for Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the visit in a statement on X on Wednesday.

Majed al-Ansari said Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, will meet with “a number of Iranian officials” in Tehran to “discuss ways to de-escalate tensions” and “create the conditions conducive to dialogue”.

“The visit comes in line with the State of Qatar’s firm position that the diplomatic path is the best means of resolving differences & promoting security & stability in the region,” he added.

Iran also confirmed the visit, saying the discussions will cover “the continuation of Qatar’s mediation efforts and initiatives, as well as other regional developments”.

Qatar has served as a back-channel negotiator between Washington and Tehran and helped secure a memorandum of understanding in June that briefly paused hostilities. The agreement collapsed in July, and the conflict is now nearing its sixth month, with fighting largely paused but no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.

The US has, meanwhile, promised to increase economic pressure on Tehran by sanctioning its trade partners.

US President Donald Trump told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that he was in “no hurry” to resume talks with Iran, saying that he believed economic and military action against Tehran were both effective.

“I have no time schedule; whatever it takes,” he said.

‘Economic terrorism’

Iran has continued to denounce the economic pressure campaign.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote to the United Nations on Wednesday calling the new sanctions an “act of state and economic terrorism” and urging member states not to implement them.

“The sanctions deliberately harm civilians by restricting access to food, medicine, medical equipment, energy and other essentials, violating rights including the rights to life, health, food and an adequate standard of living”, he said.

The two sides also remain at odds over the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the US-Israel war on Iran began in February.

Iran wants control over the strait, while the US wants it to remain an international waterway that is free for all. That disagreement in part led to the collapse of the memorandum signed in June.

Oil flows through the strait have since fallen to a three-month low, with just 5 million barrels per day (bpd) transiting on Monday. Before the war, the strait carried roughly 20 million bpd of crude oil.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said Sheikh Mohammed will also discuss the waterway in his meetings in Tehran on Thursday, focusing on “the need for it to return to the status quo prior to February 28”.

Regional diplomacy

Sheikh Mohammed’s visit comes two days after Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi met his Iranian counterpart, Araghchi, in Tehran.

Following those talks, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, said the two countries had agreed on a new temporary route for shipping in the strait.

But he insisted that the waterway will not reopen until the US fulfils its commitments under the June deal, including the lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, also visited Tehran earlier in the week in a bid to “end the stalemate” in the conflict, with Islamabad reporting “significant progress” in those talks.

Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Tehran, said that regional countries were pushing for dialogue because “they believe that the situation is moving towards escalation”.

“They know that if war breaks out, it would be a fully-fledged war and the fire would spill over into the entire region and beyond, leaving a detrimental impact on the global economy,” he said. “So there are hectic diplomatic moves on the part of these countries.”

Syria has been in talks on the fate of Khmeimim and Tartous bases, which Russia used to support ousted Assad regime.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa have held discussions, including on the fate of Russia’s military bases in the Middle Eastern country.

During a telephone call on Wednesday, Putin affirmed Moscow’s support for Syria’s territorial integrity and reiterated Russia’s rejection of Israeli attacks and violations of Syrian sovereignty, reports Syrian news agency SANA.

The Kremlin stressed that the discussion also concerned deepening political dialogue and cooperation in trade, among other areas.

The talks were aimed at further development of bilateral relations and strengthened cooperation, SANA noted.

However, the status of the Khmeimim airbase and Tartous naval base, which are highly strategic for Russia, remains the key topic between Damascus and Moscow.

The Kremlin said that Russia-Syria relations will continue through continued contact “at various levels” and that “both sides underscored the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding On the Reorganisation of the Khmeimim Air Base and the Tartus Material-Technical Support Point, signed on August 9”.

Syria announced earlier this month that a deal had been agreed after 18 months of negotiations that will see Khmeimim and Tartous turned into “joint training and capacity-building centres”, with Syria to take control of civilian facilities at both bases.

Russia backed former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad throughout Syria’s 13-year civil war, intervening militarily to keep him in power and expanding the Russian footprint at the Khmeimim air base and Tartous naval base on the Mediterranean coast.

Since al-Sharaa led the ouster of the a;-Assad regime, Putin has worked to build relations with the new Syrian government and to secure the future of the bases, which are key to Russian efforts to maintain influence across the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Sudan’s army has had a good summer. Last month, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) recaptured several towns along the strategic Export Road, known locally as Sadirat, which connects the central Nile valley to the country’s west, and pushed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) into a defensive crouch across much of the centre of the country.

On the back of these gains, SAF leaders are now speaking more confidently of defeating the RSF entirely, rather than merely containing it.

But look east, to Sudan’s Blue Nile state, and the picture inverts. In mid-August, the RSF and its ally, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (led by Abdulaziz al-Hilu), retook Kurmuk and seized Geisan within days, in attacks that Sudanese military sources said were launched from across the border in Ethiopia. Drone attacks on multiple army-controlled cities this month also showed that the RSF’s reach extends well beyond Darfur, its main territorial stronghold.

The lesson of the summer, then, is not that the SAF is on the verge of decisive victory. It is that military victory and political resolution are becoming two very different things. Even a full RSF defeat may not end Sudan’s war so much as fracture it into several smaller conflicts.

A look at the coalitions doing the fighting helps explain why. The anti-RSF coalition is coordinated and led by the SAF, but the army also relies on allied armed movements, including Darfuri factions that signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement (JPA). These include Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi. The JPA required their forces to be integrated into Sudan’s military and security services, but they have been reluctant to give up the military autonomy that underpins their political leverage.

Yasser al-Atta, then assistant commander-in-chief and now army chief of staff, announced in March that the army would activate mechanisms to organise and integrate allied irregular groups into the formal military and security services, but little has happened since.

Al-Atta wasn’t even the first to promise to address the problems of the proliferation of weapons and armed groups. Two years earlier, deputy commander-in-chief Shams al-Din Kabbashi told a graduation ceremony for Minni Minnawi’s Sudan Liberation Movement fighters that the army had “begun enacting a law and structures to control the many popular resistance groups”, warning that the array of semi-autonomous militias, tribal coalitions and volunteers backing the SAF’s war efforts, the “popular resistance” as it is called, would “become the next danger if we continue this way”.

More than two years on from Kabbashi’s speech, the underlying problem remains largely unresolved.

Then there is the RSF’s own coalition, which is actively fragmenting. A string of senior figures, al-Nour al-Qubba, al-Savanna, and more recently, the RSF-appointed governor for the Kordofan region, Hamad Khalifa, have defected, amid reports of Saudi financial inducements as well as tribal grievances.

When al-Nour al-Qubba left, he took dozens of combat vehicles and a large contingent of fighters with him. Given that the RSF is a franchise more than a unified fighting force, these defections should worry the SAF as much as they comfort it: defectors often arrive as intact forces loyal to their commanders, not soldiers used to reporting to a chain of command. In a way, the SAF inherits the RSF’s structural weakness with each defection.

Another example is Abu Aqla Keikel, an SAF-trained officer who initially fought on the army’s side after the war erupted in 2023, before defecting to the RSF later that year and then back to the SAF in October 2024. His Sudan Shield Forces remain, in practice, more under his own command than the army’s, even as he appears alongside SAF leadership and Darfuri commanders at recent battlefield-victory photo ops.

Many commanders inside the anti-RSF camp maintain a fairly wide margin of operational independence and consequently their own political calculations. This will become far more apparent once the war ends and there is no longer a common enemy to paper over the differences.

Sudan’s Islamists, meanwhile, occupy a strange position. Brigades like al-Baraa ibn Malik, affiliated with Sudan’s Islamic Movement, which underpinned Omar al-Bashir’s former ruling National Congress Party (NCP), supplied thousands of fighters and were instrumental in retaking Khartoum from the RSF. The United States has sanctioned al-Baraa ibn Malik, while the European Union has sanctioned its leader, al-Misbah Abu Zaid. Amid this international pressure and SAF battlefield gains, some Islamist fighters and leaders have begun pulling back, in what one Sudan Tribune report described as a “tactical withdrawal”. Al-Misbah recently posted that “we have returned to our civilian lives”.

But retreating from the battlefield is not the same as retreating from politics. Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the former ruling NCP, told Reuters news agency last year that the Islamic Movement could support an extended period of army rule, with an eye towards returning to government through “the ballot box”, as Haroun put it.

Indeed, another potential flashpoint for the SAF is that the war has given fighters in Islamist brigades like al-Baraa ibn Malik years of battlefield experience. There is little reason to think fighters who helped recapture the capital will disarm and disband the moment the war is over, at least not without a political settlement that creates a path for demobilisation.

This is the context in which SAF chief and de facto president General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s recently announced national dialogue should be read, less as a comprehensive resolution to the country’s militia problem than as a political process that could convert the army’s wartime alliances into post-war influence.

Burhan has explicitly ruled out the return of RSF leaders to power, promising there would be no “incomplete peace” that allowed Hemedti or other RSF leaders back into government. Given the RSF’s abysmal human rights record during the war, the exclusion is defensible, but the broader armed-group problem remains unresolved: namely, how the RSF’s remaining forces would actually be dismantled or integrated, particularly in Darfur, and how the SAF’s own allied militias would be brought under a single chain of command once the shooting slows down.

Another structural problem that is older than this war reinforces why claims of total victory remain elusive. The Sudanese army has long struggled to project sustained power across the country’s peripheries. Under Omar al-Bashir, the government relied on Janjaweed militias to help the army fight the rebellion in Darfur. In 2013, many Janjaweed fighters were brought into the newly created RSF.

There is little reason to think a hollowed-out, cash-poor SAF, dependent on volunteer recruits, Islamist militias and Juba Peace Agreement signatory forces, can now succeed where the pre-war state repeatedly struggled: in Darfur, a region roughly the size of France, where the RSF continues to use cross-border supply routes.

Even if the RSF is somehow eventually broken, its weapons and its fighters will not simply disappear. They will pass to whichever political entrepreneur is best positioned to pick them up. Meanwhile, in Khartoum, the questions of the day after will pry open conflicts that the war has, for now, kept closed.

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

A top Iranian official says Iran and Oman have agreed on a new temporary route for shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but insisted that the waterway will not reopen until the United States fulfils its commitments under an interim peace deal signed in June.

The remarks by Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, came on Tuesday, after Iran and Oman’s top diplomats held talks in Tehran to finalise the details of a phased framework for managing the strait.

Iran and Oman, both coastal nations on the strait, have been in on-and-off talks for weeks about controlling traffic through the strategic waterway, which handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the US-Israel war on Tehran began in February.

Most ⁠shipping in the strait has been shut down since then.

Gharibabadi, speaking on state television, said Iran and Oman had agreed the new route’s entry “would be through our territorial waters, and part of the exit route would also be through our territorial waters”.

The transit corridor would be seven miles (11.3km) wide, he said.

“The agreed-upon transit route with Oman is a temporary route,” he added.

Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with his Omani counterpart, Badr Albusaidi, in Tehran to discuss the temporary navigation corridor as well as a project to clear mines from the strait, according to a joint statement.

Albusaidi said on X he hoped the countries would “soon announce” the corridor, adding that “future management of the strait and a permanent solution will follow in due course.”

Technical talks are planned to develop a long-term arrangement, including mechanisms for information sharing and navigational and security services, according to the statement.

Mines in Hormuz

The Strait of Hormuz became a flashpoint after Tehran responded to the US-Israel war by closing the waterway. It then announced a new shipping route through its territorial waters, bypassing the internationally recognised Traffic Separation Scheme adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1968. Tehran said that route had been mined.

Then in June, when Iran and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to end the war, Oman and the IMO announced a new transit corridor in the Strait of Hormuz – backed by the US – that hugged the Omani coast.

Iran said the so-called southern route violated the MoU and launched attacks on ships using the corridor, resulting in the collapse of the interim deal.

Diplomatic efforts towards a broader peace deal have since stalled, and passage through the strait remains dangerous. An oil tanker was disabled by an unidentified projectile on Tuesday near Oman’s Ash Shishah, close to the strait’s entrance, the United Kingdom’s maritime trade watchdog said.

Gharibabadi, in his comments on Tuesday, said Iran would not consider the strait open despite the agreement with Oman.

He also dismissed a claim by US President Donald Trump that all mines had been cleared from the strait’s international waters, saying it was “only aimed at calming the markets”. He warned that US mine-detection vessels would become “very good targets” if they entered the area.

Gharibabadi insisted the US must fulfil its commitments under the MoU – including sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets – if it wants a return to the diplomatic track.

He also urged countries to resist US pressure over sanctions on Iran.

Trump had announced last week the “most crushing economic operation ever” against Iran, and threatened sanctions against any country that does business with it.

“We are urging countries not to succumb to American pressure regarding the sanctions that Washington wants to impose on us,” Gharibabadi said, adding that Washington was “mistaken about its ability to enforce its sanctions against our neighbours”.

He said an earlier US sanctions campaign under Trump had failed to achieve its goals and predicted new measures would meet the same fate.

“The new American sanctions are doomed to failure, and we have our own methods to counter them,” he added.

Trump says all mines have been cleared from Strait of Hormuz’s international waters and that Tehran received warnings that ships laying new mines will be ‘destroyed’.

In a brief online elegy for Dolly Parton, with whom she’d worked on the women-empowering film “9 to 5,” actor and famed liberal activist Jane Fonda made it a point to note that Parton cared about her queer fans.

“To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you,” Fonda wrote. “You know that without me telling you.”

Indeed, we do.

Dolly meant something special to the LGBTQ+ community, in part because she represented an America where we are accepted — not just in big blue cities, but in one-room cabins in East Tennessee and in every rural, American-flag-flying corner of this big country.

Dolly was colorful and vivacious and unapologetic, and had more than a bit of drag queen in her. But she was also an unabashed ally with a country twang — a friend from the part of America where many queer people still instinctively put their guard up.

Of course, a country twang and queer acceptance can go hand in hand, and often do.

The Human Rights Campaign just last week cited a new U.S. Census Bureau analysis showing a record-high 12% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender diverse.

That’s more than 25 million people, and they live all across the country. Many sound like Dolly. Many are surrounded by loving, supportive family too.

Yet it remained important, particularly as LGBTQ+ rights have come under increasing attack, that Dolly — big, beloved, down-home Dolly — had our back too.

She wrote and sang the Oscar-nominated song “Travelin’ Thru” from the 2005 movie “Transamerica,” about a transgender woman and her son. She collaborated with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus on “Rainbowland,” a tribute to gay pride. And she made no secret of where she stood.

“I have some of everybody in my own immediate family and in my circle of employees. I’ve got transgender people. I’ve got gays. I’ve got lesbians,” she said in 2023. “I know and love them all, and I do not judge.… That’s who they are. They cannot help that any more than I can help being Dolly Parton.”

The LGBTQ+ community has watched in recent years as corporations and other supposed allies have backed away and gone quiet amid shifting politics and the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion and the transgender community.

But not Dolly. We saw her stand her ground, next to us. And that meant something. Dolly showed that you can appeal to the whole of America without throwing LGBTQ+ people under the bus.

She showed that you can stand behind LGBTQ+ people without twisting into socially awkward or politically damaging positions, no matter your audience. Sometimes it just takes plain language about accepting everyone as they are.

She showed that holding onto faith, patriotism and the American way of life doesn’t mean you can’t also hold space for LGBTQ+ people to live their own happy lives.

She showed that we are all more alike than we are different, and that it’s easier to see eye to eye when you aren’t looking past one another.

Dolly showed that a country star and all-American icon, beloved as much in rural dive bars as big city queer clubs, could transcend the bogus narrative that LGBTQ+ lives are a political issue rather than a part of our collective humanity — and that all of us can too.

Dolly represented the America that LGBTQ+ people love and remain loyal to, the open-armed, diverse, compassionate, take-people-as-they-come version of America that is still all of ours to enjoy if we just work for it a little — just like Dolly did.

Dolly loved LGBTQ+ people, and we loved her — in part because she showed us that our country still loves us too.

The US move would be a major sanctions relief for Syria, aiming to boost post-war reconstruction.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa hailed the United States’ removal of his country from the “state sponsors of terrorism” list, a major sanctions relief step for a country aiming to boost post-war reconstruction.

“Today, Syria shakes off a dark stain and tears away a painful chapter of its past to embark on a path of development, reconstruction and rebuilding,” al-Sharaa said in a speech.

Washington’s decision on Monday rescinded a decades-old designation that came with severe economic restrictions, marking another step in warming ties between the countries following the 2024 ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Al-Sharaa expressed his “many thanks to the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, and to all the friendly and supportive nations that stood by us”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement that Monday’s move “will help foster additional investment in Syria to promote political and economic stability”.

But the Treasury stressed that its removal of restrictions on Syria “does not change Treasury’s posture with regards to countering global terrorism and our commitment to hold bad actors in Syria accountable”.

The US listed Syria as a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 1979, accusing the country, then under the rule of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, of supporting Palestinian fighter groups and other armed movements in neighbouring Lebanon.

Monday’s move gave Syria “a path to prosperity”, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The action “eliminates the final major barriers for private sector investment in Syria and promotes Syria’s economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy,” he said in a statement.

The World Bank estimates post-war reconstruction to cost more than $216bn.

Several countries welcomed the US move. Turkiye, a key backer of Syria’s new authorities, said the decision will “lend momentum to efforts to strengthen Syria’s ties with the international community and to establish lasting security and stability in the country”.

“At this stage, we call on the international community to unite its efforts toward the goal of a prosperous Syria and to fulfill its responsibilities to bring an end to aggressive actions that jeopardize this vision,” Ankara said.

Qatar and Jordan also welcomed the US decision, saying the move would support stability and recovery efforts in the country.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the step “supports the path of a political settlement in line with international legitimacy resolutions and the aspirations of the Syrian people”.

Jordan’s Foreign Ministry also welcomed the US decision, calling it “an important step” towards supporting Syria’s reconstruction, recovery and development.

Welcoming the move, Saudi Arabia wished Syria “further security, stability, and prosperity, and continued progress in its reconstruction and development efforts” in a way that would benefit the “aspirations of its people”.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X that Ukraine had consistently supported Syria’s new government and people since the ouster of the Assad regime in their efforts to achieve recovery, peace and development.

In another sign of Syria’s growing international reintegration, Damascus also moved to expand its diplomatic outreach on Monday by launching an English-language social media account for its foreign media department.

Syrian Airlines will also begin operating regular direct flights from Damascus to Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, and Austria’s capital, Vienna, on September 21, Syria’s civil aviation authority announced.

Omar al-Hosary, head of Syria’s General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport, told the SANA news agency that the new routes are part of continuing efforts to expand the national carrier’s international network and strengthen air links between Syria and Europe.

TORONTO — Canada struck back at the United States on Tuesday with retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment, as the trade war between the once-friendly neighbors escalated sharply.

The tension threatened one of the world’s largest trading relationships. The new tariffs extended well beyond industrial goods, hitting everyday purchases such as seafood, cheese, clothing, cosmetics and toilet paper, with some facing duties as high as 50%.

“We did not choose this conflict, but when our economic integration is used as a weapon rather than the foundation for a win-win partnership, we need to stand up,” Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said in French, calling the situation “an unprecedented challenge imposed on Canada.”

Canada’s retaliation came after the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs over the weekend on Canadian goods following the collapse of trade negotiations. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accused Washington of trying to subordinate Canada and said U.S. demands during the failed talks showed that Americans wanted to “destroy our major industries.”

President Trump intensified the confrontation Monday, telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs and threatening new 50% tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel.

Trump added another provocation Tuesday, saying the United States was giving “serious consideration” to renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” in a feud with Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Such a change would be reminiscent of the Republican president’s unilateral action last year by executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The tariffs will take effect Sept. 8 at rates of 15%, 25% and 50%, with Canada matching the corresponding U.S. tariff rate on more than 700 products such as pulp and paper and electronics. The tariffs on many American products would double from 25% to 50%, with the largest share of the new measures affecting steel and aluminum.

Canadian officials said the goal is not to raise revenue but to protect Canadian companies and reduce U.S. imports.

U.S. steel imports, for example, have already fallen 30% since Canada imposed a 25% tariff, and the new 50% rate is expected to cut them further, Canadian officials said.

Goods facing 50% tariffs include some steel and aluminum products, furniture and clothing. Appliances, dairy products including cheese, fish and seafood, and certain steel and aluminum derivatives will face 25% tariffs. Existing Canadian countertariffs on U.S. autos will remain in place.

Canada also announced a support package for workers and businesses affected by the dispute worth $7.5 billion in Canadian dollars ($5.4 billion in U.S. dollars).

Canadian officials acknowledged the counter tariffs will raise costs for some businesses and consumers but said they expect the overall economic effects to be moderate.

They said the government has provided more than $30 billion Canadian dollars (US$21.7 billion) in tariff-related support since the beginning of 2025 — far more than it has collected in retaliatory duties — as it tries to cushion the blow from the trade fight.

Canada and the United States have deeply integrated supply chains across autos, energy, agriculture and manufacturing, making a prolonged trade fight potentially costly for businesses and workers on both sides of the border.

Businesses and consumers are caught in the middle, facing uncertainty about how much prices may increase.

Michael Howard II, owner of a furniture business in Warren, Michigan, outside Detroit, said the tariffs will hamper the “ability for us to put food on the table for our family” and affect “the ability for us to give back to our community.”

Howard and his wife started their business a decade ago. They make and sell everything from dining room tables to bookcases.

“To say that we don’t need Canada is just disingenuous,” he said. “It’s dishonest. And it’s just absolutely not truthful. We need our neighbor, but also they need us.”

Carney said Monday that Canada may need to move away from matching U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar and instead use more targeted retaliation aimed at protecting Canadian workers and businesses.

“An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States” is “not something we’re going to accept,” Carney said.

Carney was even more blunt in French.

“We learned during the negotiations that the Americans want to destroy our major industries, including autos, steel and aluminum,” Carney said. “That was one of the main reasons we said no. It was a bad deal.”

On Monday, Carney said U.S. negotiators had raised the discoverability of French-language content on streaming platforms, along with French-language labeling rules, as trade irritants. He rejected the idea that those protections were negotiable, saying in French: “For the Americans, questions about the French language, Quebec culture, francophone culture and Canadian culture are irritants. Here in Quebec, here in Canada, they are rights.”

In a social media post early Tuesday, Trump wrote: “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French! In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing. This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec. I love French Canadians!”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Seung Min Kim in Washington and Mike Householder in Warren, Mich., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed it is aware that Iranian state media has aired a video that appears to threaten the life of Barron Trump, President Trump’s youngest son.

“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the video and investigates anything that can be perceived as a threat toward our protectees,” Secret Service spokesman Nate Herring said in a statement. “Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence.”

Since the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian media have on multiple occasions circulated content threatening the president and family members. The assassination came at the start of the war in Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel.

CNN previously reported that the Secret Service had knowledge of the Barron Trump threat.

Ukraine hits Russia’s Afipsky oil refinery and gas plant in latest attacks targeting energy infrastructure.

A fire broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region following a drone attack, local authorities have said.

At least two people were killed and two others were injured due to falling drone debris at the Afipsky railway station, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has been targeting Russia’s oil refineries and ⁠other infrastructure, attempting to undermine ⁠Moscow’s war efforts and reduce financial revenue.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck facilities at Afipsky.

It said its forces also hit a gas processing plant in Russia’s Astrakhan region overnight.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had struck a cargo vessel carrying goods for the Ukrainian army in the port of Pivdennyi near Odesa, as well as port infrastructure facilities used for unloading military cargo.

The ministry said Russian air defences shot down 148 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Ukraine has ramped up attacks on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, escalating a fuel crisis in the country.

Amid the continuing attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday that would allow the state to take temporary control of critical infrastructure found to be inadequately protected from attack.

The attacks come after a meeting in Kyiv where Ukraine’s allies pledged to continue supporting the country during the ongoing war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the assembled leaders in an evening address that he wanted to “raise production” of drones and missiles to wage “more attacks” on Russia, matching its strikes on Ukraine.

The meeting was attended by 30 leaders of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, including British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who called for negotiations with Russia, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who participated remotely and predicted that “NATO countries will be targeted and the provocations will multiply”.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb was also in attendance, urging Ukraine’s allies to help expand its ability ⁠to strike deeply inside Russia.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Burnham and Stubb belonged to the “party of war”.