Category: News

The Pentagon is preparing for weeks of limited ground operations in Iran, potentially including raids on Kharg Island and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz, according to United States officials quoted by The Washington Post newspaper.

The plans, which fall short of a full invasion, could involve raids by special operations and conventional infantry troops, the Post reported on Saturday, exposing US personnel to Iranian drones and missiles, ground fire, and improvised explosives.

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Whether President Donald Trump would approve any of those plans remains uncertain, according to the report.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the Commander in Chief maximum optionality. It does not mean the president has made a decision,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, responding to questions over the Post report.

The Trump administration has deployed US Marines to the Middle East as the war in Iran stretches into its fifth week, and has also been planning to send thousands of soldiers from the army’s 82nd Airborne to the region.

On Saturday, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said about 3,500 additional soldiers arrived in the Middle East on board the USS Tripoli.

The sailors and marines are with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and arrived in the region on March 27, along with “transport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as amphibious assault and tactical assets”, according to CENTCOM.

Officials speaking to The Washington Post said discussions within the administration over the past month have touched upon the possible seizure of Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub in the Gulf, and raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz to find and destroy weapons that can target commercial and military shipping.

According to the report, one person said the objectives under consideration would probably take “weeks, not months” to complete, while another put the potential timeline at “a couple of months”.

The Pentagon had not responded on Saturday to the Post’s requests for comment. Iran has yet to respond to the report.

The report comes as Pakistan, which shares a 900km-long (559-mile) border with Iran, mediates between Washington ‌and Tehran, hosting two days of talks starting on Sunday with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt.

Iranian threats

The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday the “enemy openly sends messages of negotiation and dialogue and secretly plans a ground attack”.

“Unaware that our men are waiting for the arrival of American soldiers on the ground to set fire to them and punish their regional partners forever. Our firing continues. Our missiles are in place,” the Tasnim news agency reported, quoting Ghalibaf.

“Our determination and faith have increased. We are aware of the enemy’s weaknesses, and we clearly see the effects of fear and terror in the enemy’s army.”

It was not clear whether Ghalibaf was responding to the Post report.

On Wednesday, Ghalibaf had warned that intelligence reports suggested that “Iran’s enemies” ⁠were planning to occupy an Iranian island with support ‌from an unnamed country in the region.

He said any such attempt would be met with targeted attacks on the “vital infrastructure” of the regional country – which he did not name – that assists in the operation.

Meanwhile, Iran’s navy chief Shahram Irani said on Sunday that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier would be targeted if it comes within range.

“As soon as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group comes within firing range, we will avenge the blood of the martyrs of the Dena warship by launching various types of sea-to-sea missiles,” Irani was quoted as saying by state TV, referring to an Iranian frigate sunk by the US on March 4.

On Wednesday, Tasnim quoted an unnamed military source as saying that Iran could open a new front at the mouth of the Red Sea if military action takes place on “Iranian islands or anywhere else in our lands”.

The source told Tasnim that Iran can pose a “credible threat” in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, ⁠which lies between Yemen and Djibouti.

Tasnim later quoted an “informed source” claiming that Yemen’s Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, are prepared to play a role “if there is a need to control the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to further punish the enemy”.

South African sprinter Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic 800-metres champion, says the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC’s) reinstatement of gender verification tests for the 2028 Los Angeles Games is “a disrespect for women”.

The hyperandrogenic athlete on Sunday also expressed her disappointment that the measure was taken under new IOC President Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe.

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“For me personally, for her being a woman coming from Africa, knowing how African women or women in the Global South are affected by that, of course it causes harm,” Semenya said in Cape Town on the sidelines of a sporting competition.

The IOC said on Thursday that only “biological females” will be allowed to compete in women’s events, preventing transgender women from competing.

The IOC had previously used chromosomal sex testing from 1968 to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics before abandoning it in 1999 under pressure from the scientific community, which questioned its effectiveness, and from its own athletes commission.

“It came as a failure, and that’s why it was dropped,” Semenya said.

“It’s like now we need to prove that we are worthy as women to take part in sports. That’s a disrespect for women.”

Semenya has become the symbol of the struggle of hyperandrogenic athletes, a battle on the athletics tracks and then in courtrooms, to assert her rights, which she has waged since her first world title in the 800m in 2009.

In 2025, she won a partial victory at the European Court of Human Rights in her seven-year legal fight against track and field’s sex eligibility rules.

The court’s highest chamber said in a 15-2 ruling that Semenya had some of her rights to a fair hearing violated before Switzerland’s Supreme Court, where she had appealed against a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It had ruled in favour of track’s international governing body, World Athletics.

The original case between Semenya and Monaco-based World Athletics was about whether female athletes who have specific medical conditions, a typically male chromosome pattern and naturally high testosterone levels, should be allowed to compete freely in women’s sports.

The European court’s ruling did not overturn the World Athletics rules that in effect ended Semenya’s career running the 800m after she had won two Olympic gold medals and three world titles since emerging on the global stage as a teenager in 2009.

IOC’s policy shift removes conflict with Trump

In a major shift of policy, the IOC is abandoning rules it brought in in 2021 that allowed individual federations to decide their own policy and is instead implementing a policy across all Olympic sports.

“Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females, determined on the basis of a one-time SRY gene screening,” the IOC said in a statement.

They will be carried out through a saliva sample, cheek swab or blood sample. It will be done once in an athlete’s lifetime.

“The policy we have announced is based on science and has been led by medical experts,” Coventry said.

“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat, so it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”

The new policy removes a potential source of conflict between the IOC and United States President Donald Trump as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics comes onto the horizon.

Trump issued an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sport soon after he returned to office in January 2025.

The US leader took credit for the IOC’s new policy in a post on his Truth Social network on Thursday.

“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump wrote. “This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”

2024 Olympic gender row

While sports such as swimming, athletics, cycling and rowing have brought in bans, many others have permitted transgender women to compete in the female category if they lowered their testosterone levels, normally through taking a course of drugs.

The IOC is bringing in the new policy after the women’s boxing competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics was rocked by a gender row involving Algerian fighter Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan.

Khelif and Lin were excluded from the International Boxing Association’s 2023 world championships after the IBA said they had failed eligibility tests.

However, the IOC allowed them both to compete at the Paris Games, saying they had been victims of “a sudden and arbitrary decision by the IBA”.

Both boxers went on to win gold medals.

Lin has since been cleared to compete in the female category at events run by World Boxing, the body that will oversee the sport at the Los Angeles Summer Games.

We are witnessing a war on humanity. This might sound hyperbolic to some, but it should not. What is unfolding across the globe is not a series of isolated events or crises. It is a coordinated assault waged through brute force against the international systems that sustain humanity. The goal is a world order that doesn’t just quietly practise “might makes right” but proudly proclaims it.

Yet we cannot understand this moment without understanding that Palestine – as both a place and a struggle – has emerged as the epicentre of it.

While the October ceasefire in Gaza offered some relief from the daily carpet bombing, shelling, drone strikes and targeted sniper fire, deadly violence continues to rain on Palestinians from the sky. In violation of the agreement, the Israeli regime also continues to severely restrict the entry of aid and food into the strip.

The Israeli army has divided Gaza in half with the so-called Yellow Line running from north to south and carving out more than 50 percent of Gaza’s pre-genocide territory. Supposedly temporary, this line in reality functions as a mechanism of permanent demographic reorganisation.

This daily violence is not incidental to the post-ceasefire arrangement – it is structural to it. We, therefore, need to be precise about what this arrangement is. It is a new phase of the genocide – one that allows the Israeli regime to pivot while enabling third states to claim progress when the core reality for Palestinians in Gaza remains largely unchanged.

Without a doubt, this moment is the apex of the Israeli regime’s plan to bring into being “Greater Israel” – a biblical project that would see Israel expand to Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and parts of Saudi Arabia.

The destruction of Gaza, the annexing of large swaths of the West Bank, the invasion of southern Lebanon and now the bombing of Iran all pave the way for the actualisation of that plan. With few consequences and little pushback despite the flagrant trampling of international law, the Israeli regime now realises it has more freedom than it could have possibly ever imagined to act however it wants and take whatever it wants.

None of this, however, can be understood in isolation from what has made it possible – nearly eight decades of unprecedented diplomatic, financial and military cover for the Israeli regime from the United States and European states. This refusal to hold Israel to account continues even as the Israeli government lays waste to the facade of the global rules-based order.

One of the starkest iterations of this dynamic came in November when the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2803, endorsing US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, including the creation of the Board of Peace.

This resolution was pushed through with extraordinary levels of political pressure and coercion. It mandates foreign administrative control over the Palestinian population in Gaza with no reference to the genocide or war crimes nor accountability mechanisms. It is, in effect, a resolution that launders impunity through the mechanisms of multilateralism.

Since then, the Trump administration has made it clear that it intends for the Board of Peace to be a global project – one that attempts to displace the UN and replace multilateral governance with a structure answerable solely to Washington. Clearly for Trump, Gaza is where this project will begin but it is not where it will end.

We have already seen it spread: the illegal attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty and the kidnapping of its president; the intensification of the siege on Cuba and its deliberate starvation; the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, which is still given diplomatic cover by many Western states; Israel’s assault on Lebanon, aimed at reoccupying parts of its territory.

Simultaneously, we are also seeing the rise of artificial intelligence companies that have been implicated in the genocide in Gaza and whose technology is now deployed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on the streets of US cities. We are seeing the private security sector, the surveillance industry and the military-industrial complex – whose profits peaked during the genocide and are repeaking now during the war on Iran – all expanding through conflict and all finding new markets, new laboratories and new populations to test on.

This is a profound moment, not just for the region, but also for the rest of the world. Trump’s comments about Spain after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s refusal to allow the US to use its military bases to conduct strikes on Iran demonstrate this par excellence. He said: “Spain actually said we can’t use their bases. And that’s all all right. We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it.” This shouldn’t be dismissed as Trumpian ramblings. It should be a warning to all sovereign nations.

Capitulation or appeasement manifested in agreements to grant access to ports and airspace and defence cooperation treaties won’t shield sovereign nations from danger – in fact, quite the contrary. Such entanglements bind them to the war-making machinery of the US and Israel, rendering sovereignty conditional. It is a pattern many countries know too well.

What is now clear is that what started in Gaza is continuing elsewhere in the world. The genocidal US-Israeli war machine is expanding, and by doing so, it is waging war on humanity itself.

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

World number one Aryna Sabalenka edges Coco Gauff in a tense three-set final to claim the ‘Sunshine Double’ in Florida.

Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka beat hometown favourite Coco Gauff 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 in the Miami Open final on Saturday to ⁠join an exclusive club by completing the coveted “Sunshine Double”.

Top-seeded Sabalenka, who reached the final without dropping a set, won 73 percent of her first-serve points and faced just two break points en ⁠route to victory in a rematch of the 2025 French Open final won by Gauff.

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Sabalenka is only the fifth woman to win the Indian Wells and Miami titles back-to-back, a feat known as the “Sunshine Double”, given the tournaments’ respective locations in California and Florida.

“I want to start with [Coco]. You’re a fighter, and you also ‌push me so hard to be a better player, and I like our rivalry,” Sabalenka, who improved to 7-6 all-time versus Gauff, said during the trophy ceremony.

Sabalenka raced out to a 2-0 lead, but Gauff, from nearby Delray Beach and appearing in her first Miami final, got on the board with a love hold and then repelled three break points in her next service game to get within 3-2.

But Sabalenka did not lose focus and eventually went up a double break ⁠on the world number four before closing out a dominant opening on her ⁠serve.

There was very little to separate the two players in the middle set, which remained on serve until Gauff broke Sabalenka for the only time in the match to force a third set. Sabalenka broke Gauff to open the decider, held ⁠at love in two consecutive service games to go 5-3 up and then sealed the victory with her fourth break of the match when Gauff ⁠sent a backhand wide.

Sabalenka is the first player to win back-to-back ⁠Miami titles since Ash Barty in 2019 and 2021. The 2020 edition was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Belarusian joins Iga Swiatek (2022), Victoria Azarenka (2016), Kim Clijsters (2005) and Steffi Graf (1994, 1996) as the only women to complete the Sunshine Double.

She also improved to 23-1 on the ‌year, her only loss coming in the Australian Open final at the hands of Elena Rybakina, whom she went on to beat in the Indian Wells final and Miami semifinals.

“Aryna, congratulations. We’ve had many ‌battles, ‌many finals and, yeah, I think you push me to be a better player,” said Gauff. “You’re a great fighter, and hopefully we can play many more. I think we will.”

For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country.

The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race.

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During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer to lead the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election.

The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees.

But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote.

It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll.

That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent.

Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy.

But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party.

Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box.

Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low.

The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump.

While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028.

That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican.

Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran.

Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025.

Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office.

But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party.

In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently won the CPAC straw polls.

Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition.

Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still garnered the most backing in 2021’s straw poll, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024.

Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised.

The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent.

Al Jazeera revisits major military, political and economic developments that took place in first month of the conflict.

One month into the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, the Middle East is starting to look significantly different — and the effects are being felt across the world.

Energy prices are soaring, violence is intensifying across the region, and efforts to reach a diplomatic off-ramp are offset by bellicose rhetoric and threats of further escalation by both sides.

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Experts say the past 28 days have also ushered in new political, security and economic realities. Many top-level leaders in Iran have been killed, and the US has been struggling to rally allies to its aid.

The death toll in Iran sits at more than 1,937 people, and more have been killed around the Middle East, including US military members.

Here, Al Jazeera revisits the events of the past four weeks to look at how the war has unfolded so far.

Week 1

The war started with enormous US-Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28, which the Pentagon said amounted to twice the firepower of the “shock and awe” campaign that kicked off the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Military developments:

• The opening Israeli strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who served as the country’s de facto head of state as well as the top spiritual authority for millions of Shia Muslims across the world.
• The initial attack also included the assassination of several top officials, including top general Abdolrahim Mousavi; Mohammad Pakpour, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); and Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Khamenei.
• The Iranian response was quick. Hundreds of missiles and drones were launched against Israel and US assets across the region, as well as civilian and energy targets in the Gulf.
• Tehran also succeeded in swiftly blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the global oil trade.
• After the initial onslaught, the US and Israel continued to strike Iran daily, with aides for US President Donald Trump saying that Washington was raining “death and destruction” on the country.
• The US military announced the first casualties from the war: Six soldiers were killed in an attack on a base in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.
• The US military said three US fighter jets were accidentally shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait.
• Less than 48 hours into the conflict, Hezbollah entered the fray by firing rockets at Israel, which it said was in response to the killing of Khamenei and daily Israeli attacks in Lebanon, in violation of a 2024 ceasefire.
• Israel started a bombing campaign and a ground invasion in Lebanon.

Political developments:

• Gulf states condemned the Iranian attacks as a violation of their sovereignty, stressing that they have been neutral in the war and emphasising their right to respond.
• Trump said the aim of the military campaign was to bring “freedom” to the Iranian people, but US officials later outlined more narrow goals, including destroying Iran’s military capabilities.
• Despite the decapitation of its leadership, the Iranian government did not collapse.
• Iran also did not see any major defections or antigovernment protests.
• In the US, Trump’s Democratic critics questioned the legality of the strikes, which were launched without congressional approval.
• Early public opinion polls suggested that only one in four people in the US supported the war.
• Trump said he would like to be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader, an assertion that was met with ridicule from Iranian officials.

Civilian cost:

• By the end of the first week of the war, US and Israeli attacks had killed 1,332 people in Iran.
• The most jarring attack was the bombing of a girls’ school in the southern city of Minab, which Iranian officials say killed more than 170 people, mostly children.
• The violence in Lebanon displaced hundreds of thousands of people and killed hundreds.

Economic impact:

• By the end of the first week of the war, the price of a barrel of oil had surpassed $90, up from about $70 before the conflict broke out.
• Civil aviation was scaled back across most of the region, which hosts some of the world’s largest airports.

Week 2

By the time the war had entered its second week, it was clear that the Iranian regime had not collapsed and that the conflict was not going to be a brief, one-and-done operation akin to the US abduction of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in January.

Military developments:

• A US military refuelling aircraft fell over Iraq, killing all six crew members. Iran-allied Iraqi groups took responsibility for downing the jet, but the US military said the crash was not “due to hostile fire or friendly fire”.
• The US and Israel continued to strike Iran, hitting oil storage depots in Tehran for the first time. The attacks caused huge plumes of smoke that produced black rain over the city of nine million people.
• Hezbollah and Iran launched coordinated rocket attacks against Israel.
• The Israeli military bombarded Beirut and its southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, as it deepened its invasion of southern Lebanon.
• Several vessels were targeted near the Strait of Hormuz as Iran solidified its control over the strategic waterway.
• Though Trump pledged escorts for tankers stalled near Hormuz, the US military acknowledged that it was not ready to accompany ships through the strait.
• Iran intensified its assault across the Gulf with an attack on Saudi Arabia, killing two people.

Political developments:

• Iran chose the late Khamenei’s son Mojtaba as its new supreme leader in a show of defiance against US demands, after Trump had rejected the 56-year-old as an option.
• In a written message, Mojtaba Khamenei said Iran would fight on against the US and Israeli attacks, emphasising the importance of closing the Hormuz Strait.
• Trump said the war would end “soon”, but Israeli officials stressed that the conflict has no limits.
• Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said his group is ready for a “long confrontation” with Israel, describing the war as “existential”.

Civilian cost:

• Iran said nearly 10,000 civilian sites were damaged in the US and Israeli attacks.
• The number of displaced people in Lebanon topped 800,000 as Israel issued forced evacuation orders for large parts of the country.
• Israeli attacks killed more than 770 people in Lebanon by the end of the second week of the war.

Economic impact:

• Oil prices spiked past $110 per barrel on March 8 before dropping to between $90 and $100 later in the week.
• The International Energy Agency agreed to release a record 400 million barrels of crude oil in response to the disruption to global fuel supplies.
• Trump suggested the US will benefit from rising oil prices since the country is a major energy producer, despite the increasing consumer costs and a risk of accelerating inflation.

Week 3

In its third week, the war saw major escalations beyond the routine air strikes and rocket attacks. Israel carried out major assassinations inside Iran and bombed a gasfield, risking an all-out energy war across the region.

Military developments:

• Israel assassinated Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani and the head of the Basij paramilitary force Gholamreza Soleimani.
• Two heavy missiles from Iran penetrated Israel’s multi-layered air defences, causing widespread damage in the southern cities of Dimona and Arad.
• Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gasfield in a major escalation that expanded the war to energy infrastructure.
• Iran responded by attacking energy facilities across the region, including the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas facility in Qatar and an oil refinery in Israel.
• The US said it deployed 10,000 interceptor drones to the Middle East to counter Iranian attacks.
• Iran-allied groups in Iraq struck a US logistics support camp near Baghdad in successive attacks.
• Hezbollah intensified its rocket fire against Israel, with one launch reaching more than 200km (125 miles) deep into Israeli territory.

Political developments:

• Trump distanced himself from the Israeli attack on the Iranian gasfield, saying that he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stem such strikes.
• Iran laid out its conditions for ending the war, which included assurances that the attacks would not be renewed, compensation for damages and recognising Iran’s “rights”.
• Before he was killed, Larijani issued a six-point message to Muslim-majority nations decrying the lack of support for Iran and reasserting that his country is not going to relent in its fight against the US and Israel.
• Qatar declared the Iranian embassy’s military and security attachés as personae non gratae after the Ras Laffan attack.
• Joe Kent, the director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, resigned in protest against the war. He argued that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US when the conflict erupted.
• Saudi Arabia said “the little trust that remained in Iran has been completely shattered”, after its energy infrastructure and military bases came under Iranian attack. Some strikes appeared to be targeted at US assets at the bases.

Civilian cost:

• The Iranian Red Crescent said at least 204 children were killed by the war, as the death toll exceeded 1,444 people.
• In Lebanon, the death toll from Israeli attacks climbed past 1,000, and the number of displaced people rose to more than one million.

Economic impact:

• Iranian ⁠attacks knocked out ⁠17 percent of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas export capacity, causing an estimated $20bn in lost annual revenue, QatarEnergy said. The losses threatened repercussions for energy markets in Europe and Asia.
• The price for one gallon (3.8 litres) of petrol in the US reached more than $3.90, nearly $1 more than before the war started.

Week four

The fourth week of the war saw the US claim it had been in diplomatic contact with Iran for the first time since hostilities began. The announcement signalled that Trump might be looking for an off-ramp as the war turns into a protracted conflict.

Military developments:

• Trump said he would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it fails to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, but he later extended the deadline by five days and then for 10 more days.
• The US moved thousands of troops to the Middle East, raising the prospect of ground operations inside Iran.
• Israel bombed Iranian steel factories and a nuclear reactor, prompting Iran to threaten industrial sites across the region.
• Qatar says seven people, including three Turkish service members, died after a military helicopter crashed due to a technical malfunction.
• Israeli forces attacked the Qasmiyeh Bridge, a key crossing that links Lebanon’s south to the rest of the country.
• Hezbollah said it hit dozens of Israeli tanks, claiming numerous attacks daily against invading troops.

Political developments:

• Trump insisted that Iran is “begging” to reach a ceasefire deal, but Iranian officials denied direct contact with Washington.
• The US sent a 15-point ceasefire plan to Iran, but Tehran rejected the proposal as maximalist.
• Qatar called for resolving the conflict through diplomacy, saying that “total annihilation” of rivals in the region “is not an option”.
• The United Arab Emirates took an increasingly confrontational tone against Iran, with Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed saying that his country will “never be blackmailed by terrorists”.
• Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that “the new Israeli border must be the Litani River”, suggesting that his country would annex about 20 percent of Lebanon’s territory.
• Yemen’s Houthi group, which has remained on the sidelines, said it is ready to join the war if the Red Sea is used to stage attacks against Iran or if the conflict escalates further.

Civilian cost:

• The death toll in Iran approached 2,000, with 25 deaths across the Gulf.
• In Israel, Iranian and Hezbollah attacks killed 20 people in the first month of the war.
• Israeli attacks killed at least 121 children in Lebanon as the country’s death toll reached 1,116, according to its Health Ministry.
• United Nations experts warned that Lebanon, where the Israeli invasion and bombardment have displaced more than 1.2 million people, is facing the risk of a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

Economic impact:

• Oil prices surpassed $112 per barrel, the highest since 2022, amid supply fears.
• The US stock market sank amid economic uncertainty linked to the war, with major indexes, including the S&P 500 and NASDAQ, seeing major losses.

France’s sports minister has called the International Olympic Committee’s decision to introduce genetic testing for women’s ⁠events a “step backwards”, warning it raises major ethical, legal and scientific concerns, while US President Donald Trump praised the IOC’s new policy.

France “takes note” of the decision to require athletes to undergo testing based on the SRY ⁠gene, but opposes any broad use of genetic screening, Marina Ferrari said in a statement on Friday.

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“On behalf of the French government, I wish to express our deep concern regarding this decision,” she said. “We oppose a generalisation of genetic testing that raises numerous ethical, ‌legal and medical questions, particularly in light of French bioethics legislation.”

The IOC said on Thursday that only biological female athletes would be eligible for women’s events from the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics onwards, following a one-time gene test designed to identify male sex development. The move essentially bars transgender athletes from competing in the female category.

The rule is in line with an executive order by Trump from February 2025 that banned transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.

“Congratulations to the International Olympic Committee on their decision to ban Men from Women’s Sports,” Trump said late on Thursday on the Truth Social platform.

“This is only happening because of my powerful Executive Order, standing up for Women and Girls!”

However, Ferrari said that: “These tests, introduced in 1967, were discontinued in 1999 ⁠due to strong reservations within the scientific community regarding ⁠their relevance. France regrets this step backwards.”

She added that the policy risked undermining equality by specifically targeting women.

“This decision raises major concerns, as it specifically targets women by introducing a distinction ⁠that undermines the principle of equality,” she said.

Ferrari also warned that the approach failed to reflect biological diversity, particularly among intersex ⁠individuals.

“It defines the female sex without taking into ⁠account the biological specificities of intersex individuals, whose sexual characteristics present natural variations, leading to a reductive and potentially stigmatising approach,” she said.

New Zealand’s Olympic Committee said on Friday that the IOC policy would bring greater “clarity” and “fairness” to future Games.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard became the first openly transgender woman to compete in the Olympics at Tokyo in 2021.

NZOC chief executive Nicki Nicol said the organisation recognised the “extensive consultation and expert input that has informed this policy”, particularly from athletes.

She said it would bring “greater clarity, consistency and fairness to eligibility for the female category at the Olympic level”.

“This is a complex and sensitive area that directly affects people, not just policy,” she added.

After competing in 2021, Hubbard, who failed in all of her lifting attempts in Tokyo, said she was aware of the controversy surrounding her participation.

Friday’s NZOC comments did not refer to Hubbard, who has kept a very low profile since her games appearance.

Also reacting to Thursday’s IOC announcement, Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman said the IOC had comprehensively investigated what he called a “complex issue”.

“Without doubt, this is a challenging and complex subject, and at the AOC we approach it with empathy and understanding.”

He added: “This decision provides clarity for elite female athletes who compete at the highest level and demonstrates a commitment to fairness, safety and integrity in Olympic competition, all of which are fundamental principles of the Olympic Movement.

“As the IOC has stated, at the highest level of sport, the smallest margins can determine outcomes, and clarity around eligibility is critical for female athletes to continue to compete on a level playing field.”

The meeting held in Washington, DC reviewed the ‘close strategic cooperation’ between Doha and Washington, Qatar’s foreign ministry said.

Qatar’s prime minister has held talks with senior US officials in Washington, DC, amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran and fallout across the Gulf.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who also serves as Qatar’s foreign minister, met US Vice President JD Vance and US Secretary Scott Bessent, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

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They reviewed ways to strengthen the “close strategic cooperation” between Doha and Washington, “especially the defence partnership in light of the conditions the region is experiencing”, the ministry said.

Both sides stressed “ensuring the sustainability of energy supplies and maintaining the continued flow of liquefied natural gas from the State of Qatar to global markets”, in a way that “supports global energy security”, it added.

Vance hailed the “robust strategic partnership”, praising Qatar’s “active role in promoting regional stability and enhancing global energy security”.

The Gulf has been in a state of heightened tension since February 28, when the US-Israeli war on Iran began, which has killed more than 3,000 people across the region, a vast majority of them in Iran and Lebanon.

Tehran has since launched drone and missile attacks aimed at Israel, as well as Jordan, Iraq, and Gulf states. Iran insists it is targeting US assets in the Gulf, but the region’s leaders have urged Iran to cease attacks as they endanger civilians.

Qatar, earlier this month, said Iranian missile attacks on the Ras Laffan Industrial City, the country’s main gas facility, caused “significant damage”.

The war has created an unprecedented global energy crisis as Iran has effectively closed off the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

Meeting with Hegseth

On Thursday, Sheikh Mohammed also held a meeting in Washington with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the Foreign Ministry said.

“The meeting took place in Washington on Thursday and focused on ways to support and develop defence and security collaboration amid regional challenges,” it added.

“Both sides stressed the importance of continued coordination and consultation on regional issues to promote security and stability locally and internationally.”

On Wednesday, the Qatari Cabinet renewed its condemnation of Iranian attacks on Qatar and its neighbours, calling for an immediate halt.

A United States judge has said that he will not dismiss the drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges brought against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

But in a Thursday court hearing, Judge Alvin Hellerstein questioned whether the US government has the right to bar Venezuela from funding Maduro’s legal expenses.

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The hearing was the first for Maduro and his wife since a brief January arraignment, where they pleaded not guilty.

Maduro and Flores have sought to have the charges against them thrown out. Hellerstein declined to do so, but he pressed the prosecution on some of the issues Maduro’s legal team raised in its petition to dismiss the case.

Among them was a decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump to prevent the Venezuelan government from financing Maduro’s defence.

Federal prosecutors argued that national security reasons prevented the US from allowing such payments. They also pointed to ongoing sanctions against the Venezuelan government.

But Hellerstein pushed back against that argument, noting that Trump had eased sanctions against Venezuela since Maduro’s abduction on January 3. He also questioned how Maduro might pose a security threat while imprisoned in New York.

“The defendant is here. Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Hellerstein. “I see no abiding interest of national security on the right to defend themselves.”

Hellerstein emphasised that, in the US, all criminal defendants have the right to a vigorous defence, as part of the US Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.

“The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel,” he said.

Maduro, who led Venezuela from 2013 to 2026, has been charged with four criminal counts, including “narco-terrorism” conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, the possession of machine guns and the conspiracy to possess machine guns and other destructive devices.

He and his wife were taken into US custody on January 3, after Trump launched an attack on Venezuela.

The Trump administration has framed the military operation as a “law enforcement function”, but experts say it was widely considered illegal under international law, which protects local sovereignty.

Maduro has cited his status as the leader of a foreign country as part of his push to see the case dismissed.

When he last appeared in court, on January 5, he told the judge, “I’m still the president of my country.”

In a February hearing, his defence team sought to dismiss the charges on the basis that preventing Venezuela from paying his legal fees was “interfering with Mr Maduro’s ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice”.

In an interview with the news agency AFP on Thursday, Maduro’s son, Venezuelan lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Guerra, said that he trusts the US legal system but believes that his father’s trial has been mishandled.

“This trial has vestiges of illegitimacy from the start, because of the capture, the kidnapping, of an elected president in a military operation,” Maduro Guerra said in Caracas.

Protests and counterprotests took place in front of the New York City courthouse on Thursday, with some condemning the US’s actions and others holding signs in support of the trial with slogans like, “Maduro rot in prison.”

Trump himself weighed in on the proceedings during a Thursday US Cabinet meeting, hinting that further charges could be brought against Maduro.

“He emptied his prisons in Venezuela, emptied his prisons into our country,” Trump said of Maduro, reiterating an unsubstantiated claim.

“And I hope that charge will be brought at some point. Because that was a big charge that hasn’t been brought yet. It should be brought.”

Trump has had an adversarial relationship with Maduro since Trump’s first term in office, when he issued a bounty for the Venezuelan leader’s arrest. He has frequently repeated baseless claims that Maduro intentionally sent immigrants and drugs to the US in a bid to destabilise the country.

Those claims have served as a pretext for Trump claiming emergency powers in realms such as immigration and national security. On Thursday, Trump emphasised that, while he expected a “fair trial”, he expected more legal action to be taken against Maduro.

“I would imagine there are other trials coming because they’ve really sued him just at a fraction of the kind of things that he’s done,” Trump said. “Other cases are going to be brought, as you probably know.”

The Central American nation is the latest to sign a ‘third-country’ deportation agreement as part of Trump’s mass-deportation campaign.

Costa Rica has announced it will accept 25 migrants deported from the United States per week as part of an agreement to assist with President Donald Trump’s policy of deporting immigrants to “third countries”.

The Central American nation joins a growing number of countries across Africa and the Americas that have signed contentious, often secretive agreements with the US to accept deportees from other countries.

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In many cases, critics say migrants who previously hoped to seek asylum in the US are left in a legal “black hole” in foreign countries where they don’t speak the language.

Countries that have agreed to receive third-party migrants include South Sudan, Honduras, Rwanda, Guyana and several Caribbean islands like Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis.

“Costa Rica is prepared to see this flow of people,” said Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero in a video statement on Thursday.

Costa Rica’s government signed the pact on Monday during a visit from US special envoy Kristi Noem, who was recently named to oversee the so-called “Shield of the Americas”.

Noem, who was fired earlier this month from her role as secretary of Homeland Security, has been travelling through Latin America, with recent stops in Guyana and Ecuador.

“We are very proud to have partners like President [Rodrigo Chaves] and Costa Rica, who are working to ensure that people who are in our country illegally have the opportunity to return to their countries of origin,” Noem said on Monday.

Costa Rica’s government has called the pact a “non-binding migration agreement”.

It also said the deal allows the Trump administration to transfer foreign nationals – who are not Costa Rican citizens – to the Central American nation.

The Costa Rican government also reserves the right to accept or reject proposed transfers.

It said the deportees will be processed under Costa Rica’s migration laws under a special migratory status and that the country will avoid returning people to countries where they might face the risk of persecution.

Such “third-country” transfers have been sharply criticised for putting vulnerable populations further at risk and, in some cases, sending them to dangerous nations or where they face risk.

Costa Rica has already faced controversy for its treatment of the 200 deportees from countries like Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan it received last year.

The deportees, almost half of whom were minors, had their passports seized and were locked up for months in a rural detention facility near the Panama border, an incident that fuelled lawsuits and accusations of human rights abuses. The country’s supreme court ordered their release last June.

Many deportees who said they were too scared to return to their home country were later given temporary permits to stay in Costa Rica. Panama, which locked up hundreds of deportees around the same time, came under similar criticism.

Zamora on Thursday made assurances that the new round of deportees would be held in better conditions.

He added that the Costa Rican government would work with the US to return migrants to their countries and with the United Nations International Organization for Migration to house deportees. He didn’t immediately detail where they would be held or for how long.

“This will ensure they remain in the best possible conditions while in Costa Rica and guarantee their safe return to their countries of origin,” Zamora said.

At least seven African nations have signed deals with the US to facilitate deportations of third-country nationals, which legal experts said are effectively a way to circumvent laws that forbid countries from sending people to places where their lives would be threatened.

Many deportees received legal protection from US judges shielding them against being returned to their home countries, their lawyers said.

The Trump administration has spent at least $40m to deport about 300 migrants to countries other than their own, according to a February report by the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.