Read the daily news to learn English

Middle East crisis live: Trump ‘surprised’ Iran has targeted Gulf countries and claims US ‘decimated’ Kharg Island

Russia is supplying Iran with Shahed drones to use against the US and Israel, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN in an interview excerpt aired on Saturday. Zelenskyy told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that it is “100% facts” that Iran has used Russian-made Shaheds to attack US bases. Shahed drones have been linked to other attacks on countries in the region, although their manufacturers are not always clear. Iran pioneered the Shahed drone, a much cheaper alternative to expensive missiles. They first saw mass use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where thousands of them have been launched by Russian forces since fall 2022, according to the Ukrainians. Although Iran initially provided the drones, Russia now manufactures its own Shaheds. The armed forces of other countries have since adopted Shahed-type drones, including the US military, which has said they are part of the current campaign against Iran.

President renews call for allies to secure strait of Hormuz – as it happened

This blog is now closed. Thank you for reading. Our live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran continues here:

Ukraine war briefing: six people killed as Russia unleashes missile and drone attacks, officials say

Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones on Saturday, killing six people and inflicting damage across several regions of the country, Ukrainian officials said. Five of those killed were in the Kyiv region outside the capital, where Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces targeted energy infrastructure but also damaged residential buildings, schools and businesses. Fifteen people were injured. The Ukrainian president said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions were also targeted in an attack that included about 430 drones and 68 missiles, most of which were downed by air defences. “The main target for the Russians was the energy infrastructure of the Kyiv region, but unfortunately, there were also direct hits on and damage to ordinary residential buildings, schools, and civilian businesses,” Zelenskyy said. A Russian strike later in the afternoon on a residential area in the Zaporizhzhia suburbs killed one and wounded 18, including two children, the local administration said. Reuters footage showed emergency crews at work amid piles of rubble and twisted metal. Windows and frames on balconies were smashed. Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine have left swathes of major cities without power or heating, part of a campaign to weaken resolve as Moscow’s troops press a battlefield offensive and demand Kyiv cede more territory in the east. Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Saturday that people in six regions were without electricity after the overnight strikes and Russian shelling of frontline areas. Saturday’s attack also prompted Nato member Poland to scramble jets to protect its airspace, but no violations were observed, Warsaw’s military said. In Moldova, on Ukraine’s western border, the foreign ministry denounced what it said was an intrusion by a Russian drone into its airspace in a border district, saying Moscow’s actions undermined regional security and posed a danger to its citizens. Zelenskyy repeated his call for Kyiv’s partners to boost production of air defence weapons, stocks of which have been diminishing as the US and its allies in the Gulf, fending off Iranian strikes. The UK’s prime minister Keir Starmer may send thousands of interceptor drones to the Middle East, the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Military officials are examining whether the “Octopus” interceptor anti-drone drone system, which is manufactured in the UK for Ukraine to use against Russia, can also be used to bolster British defences against Iran’s Shahed drones, the report said. Russian air defence units downed 65 Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow throughout the day on Saturday, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Sobyanin, writing on Telegram, said the drones were intercepted over an 11-hour period beginning around noon. Crews were examining the fragments at the sites where they fell. The governor of the Bryansk region on the Ukrainian border, Alexander Bogomaz, said on Telegram that units in his region had downed 128 drones. He gave no time frame.

Trump says US may strike Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub ‘just for fun’

Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States may carry out more strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub “just for fun”, saying that while Tehran appears ready to make a deal to end the conflict, “the terms aren’t good enough yet”. He said the US strikes had “totally demolished” most of Kharg Island, telling NBC News that “we may hit it a few more times just for fun.” During that same interview with NBC, Trump questioned, without attribution, whether Iran’s new supreme leader “is even alive”. Trump also said it’s not clear whether Iran has dropped mines in the strait of Hormuz in the 30-minute telephone call with NBC. “We’re going to be sweeping the strait very strongly, and we believe we’ll be joined by other countries who are somewhat impeded, and in some cases impeded from getting the oil,” he added. Trump’s comments come as he renewed his call Saturday for other nations to help secure the strait of Hormuz and said the US will coordinate with them amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. “The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both Militarily, Economically, and in every other way, but the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait must take care of that passage, and we will help – A LOT,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. He added that “the US will also coordinate with those Countries so that everything goes quickly, smoothly, and well. This should have always been a team effort, and now it will be – It will bring the World together toward Harmony, Security, and Everlasting Peace!” Trump’s assertion that “this should have always been a team effort” could be seen as somewhat of a pivot from his earlier stances that Operation Epic Fury was a unilateral (plus Israel) show of force that didn’t require international permission. With the current disruption of global oil supplies, it is increasingly falling onto the international community to help manage the effects. At the same time, Trump has long argued that the US pays too much to protect global trade routes (like the strait of Hormuz) that he says primarily benefit other countries like China or European nations.

Pentagon identifies six US service members killed in aircraft crash over Iraq

The names of the six US service members who died when a military refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq on Thursday have been released. The Pentagon on Saturday identified the crew members as Maj John “Alex” Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; Tech Sgt Ashley Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky; Capt Seth Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana; Capt Curtis Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio. Klinner’s family said that he had recently been promoted to major and been deployed less than a week. His brother-in-law, James Harrill, said Klinner leaves behind three small children: seven-month-old twins and a two-year-old son. “It’s kind of heartbreaking to say: he was just a really good dad and really loved his family a lot – like a lot,” Harrill told the Associated Press. “Over the past 24 hours my family has experienced an unimaginable loss,” Harrill said in a post on Instagram. “He was the kind of man who made everyone around him feel steady and safe. A devoted husband, an incredible father, and someone who lived with a quiet strength and humility that is hard to put into words.” He added: “The grief is deep, but so is the pride. Alex served his country with courage and conviction, and the way he loved his family was even more extraordinary.” In a statement obtained by WCMH-TV in Columbus, Simmons’s family said it was saddened beyond measure to hear of the fatal crash. “Tyler’s smile could light up any room, his strong presence would fill it. His parents, grandparents, family and friends are grief stricken for the loss of life,” they said. The Ohio air national guard’s 121st air refueling wing said in a Facebook post that three of the dead were service members who served in the Columbus-based unit. “We share in the sorrow of their loved ones, and we must not forget the valuable contributions these Airmen made to their country and the impact they have left on our organization,” the post said. The Pentagon has said the loss of the KC-135 Stratotanker was not caused by hostile or friendly fire. US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has said the crash occurred in western Iraq on Thursday following an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace”. The other tanker involved in the incident landed safely in Israel. The crash brings the US death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members, with the seven others killed in combat. About 140 US service members have been injured, including eight severely, the Pentagon said earlier this week. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth described the lost air crew as heroes. “War is hell. War is chaos,” Hegseth said at a news conference on Friday. “And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them.” The KC-135 has been in service for more than 60 years. In civilian terms, it is the Boeing 707 passenger plane, retired from US passenger service in 1981. The tanker has been involved in several fatal accidents, most recently in 2013, in central Asia. It is used for mid-air refueling but can also be deployed to transport wounded personnel during medical evacuations or conduct surveillance missions. According to the Congressional Research Service, the air force last year had 376 KC-135s, including 151 on active duty, 163 in the air national guard and 62 in the air force reserve. While details of the incident are not yet public, questions are being asked about why the air crew are not believed to have been issued parachutes. A 2008 news release from an air refueling unit said the air force was pulling parachutes from KC-135s, noting that it was statistically safer to stay with the aircraft, “especially when flying over enemy territory”. “Removing parachutes from military aircraft may sound peculiar, but KC-135s are not like other aircraft,” the news release stated. “They seldom have mishaps, and the likelihood a KC-135 crew member would ever need to use a parachute is extremely low.”

Iran threatens to escalate war after Trump says ‘many countries’ will send warships to strait of Hormuz

Iran threatened on Saturday to further escalate the war raging in the Middle East by targeting any facility in the region with US ties, after Donald Trump predicted “many countries” would send warships to support a US bid to reopen by force the strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway closed to virtually all maritime traffic by Tehran since the beginning of the war. Iran has responded to the joint US-Israeli offensive, which is entering its third week, with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, as well as against Israel. Both continued on Saturday with salvoes fired by Iran at Israel and a barrage of ballistic missiles directed at the United Arab Emirates. Some oil-loading operations have been suspended in the UAE’s Fujairah emirate, a global ship-refuelling hub, industry and trade sources said on Saturday, with TV footage showing plumes of dark smoke rising into the air. An Iranian military spokesperson called on people in the UAE to evacuate ports, docks and “American hideouts”, saying US forces had targeted Iranian islands from those areas. Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on Saturday night that the country had a right to defend itself in the face of “terrorist aggression”. “The UAE has the right to defend itself against this imposed terrorist aggression, but it is still prioritising reason and logic, continuing to exercise restraint and seeking a way out for Iran and the region,” he wrote on X. US planes bombed Iran’s main oil export hub, Kharg Island, on Friday and continued to launch waves of attacks in Iran on Saturday. Speaking to NBC News on Saturday night, Trump said US strikes had “totally demolished” most of the island but “we may hit it a few more times just for fun”. He added that he wasn’t ready to make a deal with Iran because “the terms aren’t good enough yet”. Israeli warplanes also launched dozens of raids. At least 15 people were killed when an airstrike hit a refrigerator and heater factory in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, the semi-official Fars news agency said on Saturday. The Israeli air force said it was seeking to degrade Iran’s ability to launch missiles and also targeting the security forces of the regime. In the latest flurry of social media posts, Trump wrote on Saturday on Truth Social that “many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe.” The US president, seemingly in an attempt to bolster domestic and international support for the war, added: “Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area.” The US has yet to present a coherent strategy to reopen the strait of Hormuz which usually carries a fifth of global supplies of crude oil and liquefied fossil gas. On Friday Trump said that US forces “obliterated” military targets in the raid on the Kharg island and warned that crucial oil infrastructure there could be next. “For reasons of decency, I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island,” Trump wrote on social media. “However, should Iran, or anyone else, do anything to interfere with the Free and Safe Passage of Ships through the strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.” Last week, Trump called the leaders of Iran “deranged scumbags” and said it was an honour to kill them. Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told a press conference in Washington that Iranian leaders were “desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground”. Hegseth also said that Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, was wounded and probably disfigured. Iranian officials have admitted Khamenei was hurt in the Israeli strike that opened the conflict but say the 56-year-old’s injuries are not serious. The flow of oil and gas from Iran and the Gulf has moved centre stage in the ongoing conflict in recent days. Kharg lies about 15 miles (25km) off Iran’s coastline and is the main facility for exporting the country’s oil. Iran has effectively closed the narrow strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices surging and raising the prospect of major damage to economies worldwide. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesperson for Iran’s joint military command, warned of attacks on “all oil, economic and energy infrastructures belonging to oil companies across the region that have American shares or cooperate with America”, while Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called on Saturday for neighbouring countries to expel US forces from the Middle East. The US security umbrella in the region “has proven to be full of holes and inviting rather than deterring trouble”, the top diplomat posted on X, adding that Iran called on its neighbours “to expel foreign aggressors”. Iran’s strategy of hurting US allies in a bid to force Trump to halt the offensive appears to have had little concrete success so far, though its efforts to cause economic pain across the world may be having greater impact. Tehran is taking “the global economy hostage” as a means of “putting pressure on Trump”, said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at International Crisis Group. “The regime seems pretty intact, despite the fact that it has lost some very senior leaders,” and that allows Tehran to roll out a “three-part strategy”, Vaez said. “First, ensure survival. Second, keep enough retaliatory capacity to be able to stay in the fight. And then third was to prolong the conflict” so that “you can end it on your terms”. Meanwhile, the US embassy in Baghdad said Americans should leave Iraq immediately, after an overnight missile attack on the embassy building. In an alert on social media, the embassy warned of Iran-aligned terrorist militia groups along with the risk of missiles, drones and rockets in Iraqi airspace. Between 1,400 and 1,800 people are reported to have been killed in Iran, where residents report relentless bombing. Thirteen have been killed in Israel, and about 20 in total in the Gulf. Trump has declined to publicly give an end date for the conflict, telling reporters: “It’ll be as long as it’s necessary.” Analysts have suggested that Trump will seek to end the conflict soon to prevent a full blown global economic crisis and soaring fuel prices causing discontent among US voters. Trump’s comments on Saturday marked the first time he has publicly suggested the US may not be able to reopen the strait of Hormuz on its own, and without international support. Experts told the Guardian earlier this week that military actions directed toward Kharg would lead to a further dramatic increase in oil prices, already surging since the war began on 28 February. “We may see the $120 (£90) a barrel price we saw on Monday heading to $150 if Kharg were attacked,” said Neil Quilliam of the Chatham House thinktank. “It’s too vital for global energy markets.” In Lebanon, the humanitarian crisis deepened, with more than 800 people killed and 850,000 displaced, as Israel launched waves of strikes against Hezbollah and warned there would be no letup. Lebanon’s health ministry says 31 paramedics have been killed by Israeli strikes. Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of using civilian ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, without credible evidence. Concerns that the US may seize Kharg rose when officials in Washington said that 2,500 more marines and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli had been ordered to the Middle East. Marine expeditionary units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialise in bolstering security at embassies, evacuating civilians and disaster relief. The deployment does not necessarily indicate that a ground operation is imminent or will take place. US forces have suffered casualties, including the deaths of all six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq.

‘A lot of the hate happened in Australia’: why the Christchurch mosque attack still awaits a full reckoning

When he was 14, a boy in South Australia downloaded more than a dozen videos of the terrorist attack committed by an Australian man on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 15 March 2019. He was sentenced in 2025 for possessing documents with information for terrorist acts and extremist material, according to the magistrate’s remarks, which included having the shooter’s manifesto on his devices. Two years earlier, a 16-year-old in South Australia was sentenced for several terrorism offences. The judge commented on his activities on the chat platform Discord, which included sharing material from Islamic State and “modern-day Nazi groups”, as well as death scenes, including images of the Christchurch killings that left 51 people dead. As a journalist whose job includes tracking such cases, it is always confronting to see the Christchurch terrorist’s propaganda continue to surface in the Australian legal system, especially in cases involving young people. Courts have heard about animated recreations of the Christchurch mosque shooting; about police finding the attacker’s video on a red USB storage device. But this growing legal record and the continued reach of the Christchurch attack is at odds with how the man who committed the atrocity – an Australian – is confronted in his home country. That is, hardly at all. In 2020, the terrorist pleaded guilty to 51 murders, 40 attempted murders, and engaging in a terrorist act. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. New Zealand held a royal commission. With a coronial inquiry still under way, New Zealand continues to confront what happened that day, and to ask what could have prevented it. In Australia, meanwhile, there has been little public accounting of what, if anything, could have been done here to identify the terrorist or stop the attack – despite the terrorist’s known interactions with local far-right groups. Australians care about what happened at Christchurch, said Rita Jabri Markwell, legal advisor to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, but the country’s leaders have failed to help us remember it together. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email “To grieve what happened, together. And that grieving is so important, because it validates our shared humanity,” she said. In the United States too, court records show the terrorist, his manifesto and the digital propaganda of his livestreamed attack on the Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre remain pervasive. When Dallas Humber, one of the leaders of the white supremacist Terrorgram network, was charged in 2024 for soliciting hate crimes and the murder of federal officials, among other offences, the indictment detailed how she helped create a publication that celebrated “white supremacist attackers as heroes of the white race”. Their so-called Saint Encyclopedia sat between two stills from the livestreamed massacre. Humber was sentenced to 30 years in prison, and Terrorgram has since been listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. Hank Teran, chief executive of Open Measures, an open-source threat intelligence and social media research platform, also tracks the spread of such material. He suggested the terrorist’s propaganda continues to be spread because it was intentionally framed under the guise of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory: the claim that there is a plot to take over white European countries with immigrants – or generally, “the other”. “In the Christchurch context, that ‘other’ was … Muslims,” Teran said. “The Poway synagogue shooting in California a few weeks after the Christchurch shooting, it was Jews. The El Paso shooting in Texas, it was Latinx.” For Teran, the public response can’t just be content moderation or de-platforming, or even age restriction on social media “and hoping it all goes away”. “It’s more about disrupting that pipeline from passive exposure to active planning,” he said. “That typically requires some proactive education amongst parents, community stakeholders to understand the intricacies of some of these complicated communities that they’re likely not in on a regular basis.” The significance of the Christchurch terrorist’s roots in Australia are still not properly recognised or addressed, said Jabri Markwell, even as the Muslim community continues to be painted by politicians and others in positions of power as a group “to fear or hate”. “He was socialised in his attitudes growing up in Australia,” she said. “A lot of his online activity was in Australia. A lot of the hate that he developed happened in Australia. Those views are not shaped in a few weeks, they are shaped over years. “There has been no accountability since that horrible day for the role that official language had in that Australian’s radicalisation.” Alaa Elzokm OAM, imam of Elsedeaq Heidelberg mosque in Melbourne, will be travelling to Christchurch for a commemoration of the attack. He will be speaking with Sakinah Community Trust, which is led by widows, mothers and daughters who lost family members on that Friday in 2019. Elzokm said dealing with Islamophobia in Australia, as with all forms of racism, is not only about showing sympathy but firm action so that everyone can feel safe when they worship. “We don’t want the incident to be forgotten with time,” he said. “Words are no longer enough.”

Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher and sociologist, dies aged 96

The influential German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas has died at the age of 96, his publisher has said. Habermas, a towering figure in the intellectual history of postwar Germany, is best known for his theory of political consensus-building. Widely considered one of most influential philosophers of the 20th century, he also helped to shape the discourse around European integration and the formation of the EU. In spite of his background in the neo-Marxist Frankfurt school and his reputation as a court philosopher of the Social Democratic party, his influence cut across party lines. German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, described him as “one of the most significant thinkers of our time”. “His analytical acuity shaped democratic discourse far beyond our country’s borders and served as a beacon in a stormy sea,” Merz said in a statement. “His voice will be missed”. Habermas’ career, which spanned seven decades, focused on the foundations of social theory, democracy and the rule of law. His belief that the formation of public opinion was vital for democracies to survive explains why Habermas continued to write books and newspaper articles deep into old age. In a 2015 interview with the Guardian, he criticised the then chancellor Angela Merkel for “gambling away” Germany’s postwar reputation with her government’s hardline stance during the Greek debt crisis. More recently, such interventions invited criticism from younger intellectuals. In 2022, he criticised Germany’s then Green party foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, for her “aggressively self-confident” and “shrill” condemnations of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. His pronouncement that Israel’s war on Gaza following the 7 October Hamas attacks was “justified in principle” was met with disbelief by many philosophers following in the footsteps of the Frankfurt school’s “critical theory”, who published a condemnatory letter. His most recent work, Things Needed to Get Better, was published in December last year. In it, he refuses to “let defeatism have the last word”, arguing it is possible to “confront the crises of the present aggressively and finally overcome them after all”. His publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. He is survived by two of his three children. Born on 18 June 1929 to a bourgeois family in Dusseldorf, Habermas underwent two surgeries after birth and in early childhood for a cleft palate, which resulted in a speech impediment. This impediment is often cited as having influenced his work on communication. Habermas said he had experienced the importance of spoken language as “a layer of commonality without which we as individuals cannot exist” and recalled struggling to make himself understood. He was raised in a staunchly Protestant household. His father, an economist who headed the local chamber of commerce, joined the Nazi party in 1933 but was no more than a “passive sympathiser“, Habermas said. He himself joined the Hitler Youth at the age of 10, like most German boys at the time. At 15, as the second world war was drawing to a close, he managed to avoid being drafted into the military by hiding from military police. Later, he said he wouldn’t have found his way into philosophy and social theory if he hadn’t experienced confronting the reality of Nazi crimes as a young man. He recalled that “you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived”. Educated at the University of Bonn, where he met his wife, Ute, he first rose to prominence as a journalist and an academic in the 1950s. He belonged to the second generation of the Frankfurt school of intellectuals, following in the footsteps of Marxist thinkers like Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. In the 1980s, Habermas was a prominent figure in the historikerstreit, or historians’ dispute, an intellectual debate where conservative historians, most prominently Ernst Nolte, argued that the atrocities of Nazi Germany were not unique and similar crimes had been committed by other governments. Habermas and other opponents of this perspective contended that the conservative historians were trying to lessen the magnitude of Nazi crimes through such comparisons. Defending the uniqueness of Third Reich atrocities, Habermas believed that Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or coming to terms with the past, had to be central to Germany’s identity. His wife, Ute Habermas-Wesselhoeft, died last year. The couple had three children: Tilmann, Judith and Rebekka, who died in 2023.