Browsing: Region
Fourteen soldiers were killed yesterday during operations to defuse unexploded ordnance in Iran’s northwestern Zanjan province, local media reported.”Following enemy airstrikes using cluster bombs and aerial mines, parts of Zanjan province, including about 1,200 hectares of agricultural land, were contaminated by bombs,” Fars news agency reported, citing the country’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.Revolutionary Guards specialists were working to clear the areas, and had neutralised more than 15,000 items, it added.”However, today, during one of these missions, 14 of these dedicated forces were martyred and two were injured,” it said.Iran has previously accused the US and Israel of using cluster munitions, which explode in mid-air and scatter smaller bomblets – some of which fail to explode, creating a danger that can last for decades.Israel has also accused Iran of using the munitions in its missile strikes on Israeli cities.Iran, Israel and the US have all declined to join the more than 100 countries that are party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits their use, transfer, production and storage. Related Story Source link
The war in the Middle East has forced the Gulf monarchies to rethink their oil and trade routes, but rerouting them will be no simple task, experts say.Faced with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the only maritime entry point to the Gulf, the region’s Arab nations are looking for ways to bypass Tehran’s stranglehold on their exports.Badr Jafar, the UAE’s special envoy for business and philanthropy, wrote in the *Financial Times in early April that the Gulf states would never “return to a posture of strategic dependence on a narrow strait controlled by an unpredictable neighbour”.He insisted that new pipeline and port capacity would be built and “the power grids, water systems and trade corridors connecting the region’s economies… formalised”.Economics, politics and regional diplomatic rivalries are likely to get in the way, however , experts told AFP.While Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have no coastline outside the Gulf and no alternative to the strait for seabound oil and gas, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates both have pipelines allowing them to ship at least some of their output from ports beyond Hormuz – and plan more.Nevertheless, these pipelines only cover a fraction of the two nations’ pre-war exports and would need to be expanded if either country wanted to completely end their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz.Robert Mogielnicki, of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Paris, said that building new pipelines “will take time” and such infrastructure would “still possess vulnerabilities”.”Diversifying energy export supply routes is nevertheless going to be crucial in the years ahead,” he added.For liquefied natural gas (LNG), of which Qatar is by far the dominant producer in the region, the dependency on Hormuz is even greater.Yet, as Frederic Schneider, a senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, explained, building alternative natural gas infrastructure would likely prove economically unattractive.”The idea of a trans-Arabian gas pipeline has occasionally been floated but never progressed,” he said. “The distances, political complexity, and cost make it unattractive against LNG tankers in normal conditions, and normal conditions are what pipeline economics are built on.”The Gulf’s major container ports are mostly located on its southern shores, including Dubai’s Jebel Ali, the region’s main logistical hub.With the Strait of Hormuz off limits, ships have been diverted to Oman and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast with containers then shipped onwards overland.However, overland capacity is limited while costs are “significantly higher” said Schneider.One possibility for boosting land-based transport capacity would be the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC)’s planned rail network.Yet the project, which is supposed to link all six member states by 2030, has been plagued by delays.Another possibility could be the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor project, launched in 2023, which partially aimed to bypass both the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal, using rail links across the Middle East to connect European and Indian shipping routes.However, the idea remains “tenuous, if not hypothetical” said Schneider, not least because the project would involve linking Saudi Arabia with Israel at a time when Riyadh has cooled on establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.While Gulf governments talk about integration, analysts warned that their own self-interest may get in the way.”Tensions around the strait will generate some tailwinds supporting regional integration projects, but these will also have to contend with some serious economic headwinds and governments that will be super focused on their domestic fronts,” said Mogielnicki.The budgetary pressures created by the war, which have not only halted oil and gas exports but also hit tourism, aluminium and fertiliser production, may also make coordination less likely.”This fiscal crisis only intensifies the intense, beggar-thy-neighbour, zero-sum economic rivalry that has marked GCC national economic policies for years,” said Schneider.Previous conflicts in the Gulf, he pointed out, did not lead to more regional integration, even if there were bilateral deals, he said.While the shock of closing Hormuz is much greater, he said, “I would be cautious about treating a geopolitical shock as a substitute for the political will and institutional capacity that have been missing so far”. Related Story Source link
Two people were killed and several others were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting the town of Choukin in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA).According to NNA, the mayor of Choukin was among the wounded, adding that the strike also destroyed several residential buildings and caused extensive damage to a neighborhood.Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike earlier in the day on the town of Adshit in the Nabatieh District, while a drone strike targeted a vehicle on the Kfarjuz-Nabatieh road, causing material damage.Israeli artillery shelling also resumed on the outskirts of the towns of Froun, Ghandouriyeh, and Wadi al-Slouqi, alongside heavy machine-gun fire at dawn targeting the vicinity of Ramyeh and Qawzah.Separately, the towns of Zawtar al-Sharqiya and Zawtar al-Gharbiya, as well as the river area between Zawtar and Deir Siryan, were hit by a series of intense airstrikes overnight.Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health had earlier said that the death toll from ongoing Israeli aggression on the country since March 2 has risen to 2,618, with 8,094 people injured. Source link
An undated handout photo released by Britain’s Metropolitan Police in London yesterday, shows the custody photograph of Abdullah Sabah Albadri. (AFP) A man who last year tried to enter Israel’s London embassy armed with two knives and carrying a “martyrdom note” was yesterday convicted in a London court of preparing an act of terrorism.Abdullah Albadri, 34, a failed asylum seeker from Kuwait, attempted to breach the embassy’s perimeter in April 2025 because he wanted to send a message about “the killing of children”, prosecutors said at his trial this month.Albadri denied charges of preparing an act of terrorism and possession of two bladed articles, telling police he had the knives because he was homeless, but a jury found him guilty yesterday.The verdicts came two days after two Jewish men were stabbed in north London in what police described as a suspected terrorist incident, adding to heightened fears within Britain’s Jewish community.Last month, a pro-Iranian group claimed online that it targeted the embassy with drones carrying “dangerous substances”. Police later said they found no hazardous substances.Albadri was arrested by two armed officers as he tried to scale the fence outside the embassy in west London last April. Prosecutors said he later told police he wanted to send a message about stopping the war, a reference to the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza.”The prosecution say that Mr Albadri’s intention was to use or threaten serious violence against the Israeli government, to exact revenge for its alleged murder of children,” Catherine Pattison told jurors at the Old Bailey.Pattison said Albadri had arrived in Britain via a small boat on two occasions and most recently entered the country in April last year, when he applied for asylum, claiming he faced risks in Kuwait as a human rights activist.However, exchanges on his phone showed his asylum claim was rejected later that month, after which his intention began to shift to “far more sinister matters” and he started searching for the location of the Israeli embassy, Pattison said.Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said the Israeli embassy has faced a number of security alerts but police “continuously review and strengthen protective security plans to ensure the site and the wider community is kept as safe as possible”. Related Story Source link
Officials in Occupied Jerusalem have warned of what they describe as a “serious and systematic escalation” at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, citing increased activity by settler groups in recent weeks. In a statement, the Jerusalem Governorate said attempts were being made to impose new realities in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, including efforts to bring in what it referred to as “animal sacrifices” and an increase in incursions during religious and political occasions. The statement said there had been eight documented attempts since the start of the year to bring sacrificial animals to the mosque or its surroundings during the Passover period. It described this as the highest number recorded since 1967. In three cases, individuals were able to reach entrances near the site before being stopped, it added. The authority also warned of two upcoming dates in May which it said could see further escalation. These include May 15, marking “Jerusalem Day”, commemorating Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967, and May 22, coinciding with the Jewish festival of Shavuot ( the Feast of Weeks). It said such occasions are often accompanied by increased visits to the site and attempts to bring in ritual items, including plant and animal offerings. Related Story Source link
A displaced Palestinian girl eats outside a tent at a camp sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, April 28, 2026. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas TPX IMAGES OF…
An Israeli soldier stands on tank, on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel April 29, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone.…
Organisers of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Thursday said Israel’s army had “kidnapped” 211 activists including a Paris city councillor in a raid in international waters off Greece.Helene Coron, a spokeswoman for the Global Sumud France, told an online news conference that the operation had taken place near the Greek island of Crete, at an “unprecedented” distance from the Gaza coast.Yasmine Scola, an activist on board the flotilla, said her colleagues had been “kidnapped” by Israel.Israel’s foreign ministry had earlier put the number of those detained at 175.Coron said those intercepted included Paris Communist local councillor Raphaelle Primet and another 10 French nationals.”We don’t have the information for the other nationalities, but the boats were mixed in terms of nationality, so there were crew members from all 48 delegations,” she said. Rome, in a government statement, called for the immediate release of “all the unlawfully detained Italians”. Some ships still on route -The organisers of the latest flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists seeking to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza announced early on Thursday that their boats had been surrounded by Israeli military ships while off the coast of Crete.”At the time of publishing this statement that at least 22 of the flotilla’s 58 boats have been stormed by Israeli forces in complete violation of international law,” the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement. According to an AFP verification, based on tracking data from the organisers, the boats were intercepted in the Greek exclusive economic zone (EEZ).Around thirty boats from the flotilla are still en route, most now in Greek territorial waters south of Crete, according to the same source.Coron said the operation had taken place over 1,000 kilometres from the Gaza Strip. The longest such operation to date had been 185 kilometres in June 2025, she said. Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed the initiative as a “condom flotilla” after prophylactics were found in a previous convoy, adding that more than 20 of the ships were “now making their way peacefully to Israel”.Scola said her ship had been carrying school supplies and food.The flotilla set sail in recent weeks from Marseille in France, Barcelona in Spain and Syracuse in Italy.Overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the flotilla said its boats had been “illegally surrounded” by Israeli vessels. Related Story Source link
Nine people were killed and 13 others wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling that targeted several towns in southern Lebanon.The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli warplanes carried out airstrikes Thursday morning, killing three people in the municipality of Jibchit and wounding seven others, in addition to destroying a residential building.Another airstrike on the municipality of Toul killed four people and wounded six others, also destroying a residential building.In the municipality of Harouf, two people were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a residential building, which was completely destroyed.In a related development, Israeli warplanes attacked the municipality of Sultaniyeh, while artillery shelled the outskirts of the municipalities of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah and Mayfadoun.This escalation constitutes a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which came into effect on April 16 and was later extended for three weeks. Source link
Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani and his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Al Safadi discussed during a phone call current regional developments and bilateral cooperation.During the call, the two sides discussed the repercussions of Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz on maritime navigation and global trade.Views were also exchanged on continuing cooperation and consultation in international forums, especially in the Security Council, along with a number of issues of common interest. Source link