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Frozen in time: Antarctic ice cave to be used to save melting glacier samples

Last month the Ice Memory Foundation opened the first ever sanctuary for mountain ice cores in Antarctica, where samples will be stored for centuries to come. The cores, typically 10cm in diameter and a metre or more long, are stored in a specially excavated ice cave. The first to be laid down came from two Alpine glaciers that are rapidly shrinking. The samples were transported by sea, arriving at Concordia station, a joint French-Italian base high on the Antarctic plateau, after a 50-day journey. The average temperature at Concordia is -52C, with a daily maximum in January of -12C. It is even colder inside the ice cave, which is not warmed by the sun. The Ice Memory Foundation aims to collect, save and manage ice cores from disappearing glaciers, preserving the information they contain for generations to come. Ice cores, which record thousands of years of history, contain tiny bubbles of atmosphere from the past, showing the changes over the centuries. They also have traces of pollen, showing how plant life shifts, and can reveal events such as the surge in lead pollution during the Roman empire. As the climate crisis intensifies and glaciers recede, scientists are rushing to gather cores from endangered glaciers worldwide and store them safely in the ice sanctuary before it is too late.

Firefighters in Sicily rescue 400 rare books from library after landslide

Firefighters in Sicily have rescued about 400 rare books from a library in Niscemi that hangs on the edge of a mudflow, after a devastating landslide in January tore away an entire slope of the town and carved a 4km chasm. The library stands on the lip of the precipice gouged out by the landslide, with part of the building in effect hanging in mid-air. The recovery operation, which began on Monday, was preceded by a detailed study of floor plans and interior photographs to map the position of the books. Firefighters drilled through the wall of a building behind the structure and entering for minutes at a time, strapped the bookcases together and hauled them backwards to reach the books. The library holds about 4,000 books of literature, history and general nonfiction, including a number of rare editions dating from before 1830 on Sicilian history. Among its most precious treasures is a 16th-century book. “It was like pulling off a bank heist,” said Salvatore Cantale, the provincial commander of the fire brigade in Caltanissetta. “We had to be quick and try to take away as much as we could.” A drone streamed live aerial images to a monitor on the ground, while laser sensors fixed to the section teetering over the drop were used to detect the slightest movement. A separate device monitored vibrations and subtle shifts in the building’s tilt. The landslide began on 25 January when the ground started to shift, cracking asphalt and tearing through buildings. Some later collapsed into the void, along with a stretch of road where cars and vans had been parked. More than 1,600 people have been evacuated from the town. Many of the volumes remain in the basement, which is considered the most at-risk area. Officials are weighing up the use of robots, though none suitable are available in Niscemi. “If we can find the robot, we’ll use it immediately. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait,” Cantale said. “The problem is that this building is effectively a single reinforced-concrete structure. If it collapses, it will go all at once.” Cantale said the geologists working next to the firefighters expected the landslide’s front to retreat by another 10 to 15 metres, dragging further buildings down the slope with it, including the library. He said: “According to the geologists, rather than crumbling, the library is more likely to slide downhill as a single block. If that happens, we have already assessed that it may actually be easier to recover the remaining books once it has fallen.” Some of Italy’s most famous writers had urged authorities to recover the collection, which lies in the “black zone”. Stefania Auci, the author of the bestselling novel The Florios of Sicily, told the news agency Adnkronos: “I don’t know whether our appeal truly helped ensure that some of those ancient volumes were saved, but I like to think it played at least a small part.”

North Korea’s ‘most beloved’ child: what the key congress revealed about Kim Jong-un’s succession plans

When North Korea’s ruling party held a top-level meeting this month there were predictable boasts of unstoppable nuclear development and, more unexpectedly, a suggestion by Kim Jong-un that his country and the US “could get along” – provided that Washington recognised North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power. But for many North Korea watchers, the Workers’ party congress – held over several days just once every five years – was a rare opportunity to speculate over the identity of the country’s future leader. The received wisdom is that Kim has already decided that his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, will succeed him to become the fourth-generation leader of the dynasty that has ruled the country with an iron fist since it was founded in 1948. But dissenting voices have emerged in recent weeks among experts who say that North Korea’s immutable gender politics could yet block Kim Ju-ae’s path to power. “The most immediate and insurmountable barricade for Kim Ju-ae is the deeply ingrained patriarchal nature of North Korea,” Mitch Shin, who covers the Korean peninsula for the Diplomat, wrote this month, adding that North Korea functioned “more as a Neo-Confucian monarchy” than as a socialist state. There is little to suggest that the country’s ranks of ageing generals would accept a woman as “supreme leader”, Shin said. “For these men, many in their 60s and 70s, the concept of swearing absolute and life-and-death loyalty to a young woman is more than a cultural shift. It is a structural anomaly that threatens the internal logic of the regime.” Instead, Kim may be using his daughter as a “human shield” for the actual successor, Kim Jong-un’s long-rumoured oldest child. “In this way, his son can be shielded from the prying eyes of international intelligence.” Other experts, though, argue that the patriarchy permeating North Korean society will always be superseded by the non-negotiable principle that a successor must be a direct-line descendant of the Mount Paektu bloodline – a reference to the sacred North Korean peak used to confer legitimacy on the Kim dynasty. Shreyas Reddy, a correspondent for NK News, also cast doubt on the notion that Kim Ju-ae’s future role as leader was fait accompli, describing her prominence as more performative than political. “State media’s portrayal of Kim’s affection toward his daughter aligns with a growing push to depict him as a loving ‘father’ figure to the entire nation,” Reddy wrote. “For now, the best course appears to be waiting and watching, rather than declaring North Korea’s next leader before the regime is ready to do so.” In the absence of official statements confirming Kim Ju-ae’s status as leader-in-waiting, a consensus has formed about her future based on her public profile and proximity to her father, and even her wardrobe. Despite her increased visibility, North Korean state media have never published her name, referring to her only as the leader’s “respected” or “most beloved” child. There are also disagreements about how to pronounce her given name. Much of the momentum behind Kiim Ju-ae’s presumed ascension has come from South Korea’s national intelligence service, which this month claimed that Kim Jong-un was close to naming her as the country’s future leader. Even if that may one day be the case, for now Kim Ju-ae’s main role is as a daughter, according to Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “She is probably not yet old enough to participate in the congress with an official party title,” he said. There is nothing about mood music coming from the North to suggest that Kim Jong-un will one day spring a surprise on the world similar to his own rapid rise as leader, said Lee Sung-Yoon, a principal fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. Kim Jong-un has “already established beyond a reasonable doubt that he is grooming his teenage daughter as his successor”, Lee said, pointing to Kim Ju-ae’s presence alongside her father at dozens of official events. His decision to position his daughter in the centre of the front row on his New Year’s Day visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun – a sacred Kim dynasty mausoleum – should “remove any doubt” that she was being positioned as heir to her 42-year-old father, Lee said. In 2023, South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers that Kim and his wife also probably have an older son and a younger third child, whose gender is unknown. “Kim Jong-un has not told any foreign interlocutor that he has a son,” Lee said, adding that the claim had been based on “flimsy intelligence reports” of boys’ toys and nappies being delivered to the Kim family mansion in Pyongyang several years ago. Since making her first public appearance, at a long-range missile test in November 2022, Kim Ju-ae has accompanied her father on an increasing number of events, including weapons tests, military parades, factory openings and, last year, on a family visit to a coastal resort. She also travelled with her father to Beijing last September for his summit with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. Her prominence triggered speculation that Kim Jong-un was preparing to add political weight to her symbolic role. The recent congress ended with no sign of the teenager, but she accompanied her father at a military parade in Pyongyang to mark the end of the meeting. Wearing matching leather coats, father and daughter chatted constantly, pointing at parade formations and singing along with performers. Kim Ju-ae watched as her father and senior military officials saluted fighter jets flying over an illuminated Kim Il-sung Square. The analyst Lim Eul-chul said the jackets were more than a fashion statement. “In North Korea’s political symbolism, that look carries weight – it’s tied to the image of the leader as the ultimate guarantor of national security and future prosperity. “So when that same symbolic attire is put on his young daughter, it’s hard to see it as accidental.” With Agence France-Presse

‘A living, moving exhibition’: Ukraine Museum opens in Berlin air-raid bunker

Descending into the windowless basement of a second world war air-raid bunker built for civilians in central Berlin is arguably an eerie enough evocation of what it means to endure life in a conflict. But in a modern twist, before they have even walked into the first room of the city’s new Ukraine Museum inside the bunker, visitors are “targeted” by a Russian drone just before its operator prepares to release the lethal shot, and see themselves in the firing line on the screen of the weapon’s camera. “We want to show people something of the physical reality of the conflict,” says Wieland Giebel, one of the museum’s curators. “We hope to bring it home to them that this is a war going on here and now in Europe, and that we ignore it at our peril.” The museum opened in the same week as the fourth anniversary of the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It has been created from remnants of the war, and assembled with the help of the National Military History Museum in Kyiv and frontline troops from the 7th Rapid Response Corps in Pokrovsk. Alongside demolished equipment and images of the destruction and death, it chronicles the invasion, taking in its historical origins and weaving in accounts of the lives of those it has irrevocably affected. It also pays homage to Ukrainians and their resilience. “People are in danger of getting tired of the war,” Giebel says. “This is a living, moving exhibition which aims to jolt them out of doing so.” The only museum of its kind in the world outside Ukraine, and privately funded, it will remain for at least as long as the war lasts, he says. “Every anniversary is one too many.” Giebel and his fellow curator Enno Lenze founded the Berlin Story Bunker, which holds historical event exhibitions, in 2014. Built in 1942, it was so solidly constructed that it remains an indestructible part of the cityscape. The men travel regularly to Ukraine, delivering aid and equipment, including bullet-proof vests for children, and bring back new objects and pieces of information for the museum. One such item, placed at the centre of the museum, is a silver-grey Fiat Scudo with shattered windscreen, a large tear in its roof and blood-spattered seats. It had served as a “social taxi” evacuating elderly people in Kherson, and delivered children to hospitals before a Russian drone hit it in April 2025. Footage from the Russian drone recorded before the impact, which was traced on a Russian Telegram channel by Ukrainian intelligence, shows how the van was deliberately targeted, killing Oleg Salnyk, a 28-year-old aid worker. His bloodied face was used in the resulting Russian propaganda footage, marked with red lines. His friend and colleague Oleg Degusarov, who was also in the van, survived the attack, but has shrapnel lodged in his neck. Twenty Russian drones collected with the help of Ukraine’s military hang from the ceiling of the museum. They include the Molniya, the cheapest, built for about €100 (£87) using common items such as duct tape, poles and a disposable camera, which have been used to drop grenades and kill civilians. The largest missile in the exhibition has been reconstructed in eight parts by a 3D printer “as we were not allowed to import the original”, Lenze says. He wanted to show “just how big a cruise missile is when it’s flying towards you”. It is flanked by a large photograph of the block of flats in Kyiv that was badly damaged by the original missile. The former TV anchor turned frontline reporter Roman Sukhan, who has contributed to the exhibition, explains that the missile killed a friend of his, a doctor who lived in the flats. “The war is always very close,” he says. He would like to think the exhibition will also bring home to Germans “just what a threat Putin poses to everyone”. Germany is one of Kyiv’s biggest suppliers of weapons, a key supporter diplomatically and hosts about 1.3 million Ukrainian refugees, but division over the extent to which the German taxpayer should continue to fund arms deliveries is rife. The curators admit they are not neutral in warning of jeopardy over the rise in support that Russia-friendly parties are receiving. Their exhibition also points unforgivingly to a range of Putin apologists amongst the political elite, highlighting the “dangerous” role they have played and continue to play in public debate by downplaying the threat posed by the Russian president. “Help or be an arsehole” is one of the slogans on the wall. Lenze and Giebel are not ones for subtle gestures. They were celebrated for persuading erstwhile reluctant authorities to let them place the wreck of a Russian T72 tank in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin on the first anniversary of the invasion in 2023, which had been towed from the outskirts of Kyiv. Hanna Maliar, a former Ukrainian deputy defence minister until 2023 who assisted the museum, said: “My advice to Germany is whatever you do, don’t get rid of your bunkers.”

Pakistan bombs Kabul after intensifying border clashes with Afghanistan

Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul and two other provinces on Friday, hours after a cross-border attack, the latest escalation of violence between the volatile neighbours who signed a Qatar-mediated ceasefire in 2025. Following months of tit-for-tat clashes, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in what the Taliban government said was retaliation for earlier deadly air strikes. Hours later, at least three explosions were heard in Kabul on Friday morning, but there was no immediate information on the exact location of the strikes in the Afghan capital, or of any potential casualties. Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday his country’s armed forces could “crush” aggressors and the nation stood “shoulder to shoulder with its armed forces”, while the country’s defence minister proclaimed “open war” with its neighbour. In a post on X Friday, defence minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said that Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Nato forces and expected the Taliban to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability. Instead, he alleged, the Taliban had gathered militants from around the world and begun “exporting terrorism.” “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us,” he said. There has been no reaction from Afghan government officials to Asif’s comments. Relations between the neighbours have plunged in recent months, with land border crossings largely shut since deadly fighting in October that killed more than 70 people on both sides. Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to act against militant groups that carry out attacks in Pakistan, which the Taliban government denies. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, urges both sides to protect civilians as required under international law and “to continue to seek to resolve any differences through diplomacy,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. Commenting on the Friday airstrikes, Pakistan’s interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said the strikes on Afghanistan were a “befitting response”. “Pakistan’s armed forces have given a befitting response to the Afghan Taliban’s open aggression,” said Naqvi. Government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Pakistan also carried out airstrikes in Kandahar to the south and in the south-eastern province of Pakistan. Afghanistan said its military launched its attack across the border into Pakistan late on Thursday in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas on Sunday, and claimed to have captured more than a dozen Pakistani army posts. Efforts to produce a lasting agreement between the two nations had failed, with negotiations and an initial ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey in October looking increasingly shaky. Afghanistan’s defence ministry said 55 Pakistani soldiers had been killed in the attack on Thursday, including some whose bodies had been taken into Afghanistan, while “several others were captured alive”. It put its own casualties at eight killed and another 11 wounded. The Pakistan information minister, Attaullah Tarar, however, said the number of Pakistani soldiers killed stood at two, with three wounded. He said 36 Afghan fighters had been reported killed. Mosharraf Ali Zaidi, spokesperson for Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, denied that any Pakistani soldiers had been captured. Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 2,611km-long border known as the Durand Line, which Afghanistan has not formally recognised. Afghan authorities were evacuating a refugee camp near the Torkham border crossing after several refugees were wounded and 13 civilians, including women and children, killed, authorities said. On the Pakistani side of the border, local police said residents were also evacuating to safer areas, while some Afghan refugees who had been waiting to cross back into Afghanistan were also moved to secure locations. . Tension has been high between the two neighbours for months, with deadly border clashes in October killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. The violence followed explosions in Kabul that Afghan officials blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad, at the time, conducted strikes deep inside Afghanistan to target militant hideouts.

Ukraine war briefing: IMF approves $8.1bn loan for Kyiv

The International Monetary Fund said its executive board had approved an $8.1bn, four-year loan for Ukraine, of which $1.5bn would be disbursed immediately. The IMF said on Thursday the new extended fund facility arrangement for Ukraine would help anchor a $136.5bn international support package for the war-torn country, which this week marked the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. The IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said the loan would resolve Ukraine’s balance of payments problem and restore medium-term external viability while boosting prospects for reconstruction and growth after the war ended and helping to facilitate Ukraine’s steps to join the EU. Ukrainian and US officials met in Geneva on Thursday for talks on postwar reconstruction despite a deadlock in negotiations with Russia, and officials in Kyiv hoped to finalise key details of a settlement at a trilateral meeting early next month. Top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said the participants at the meeting spoke to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after its conclusion. Zelenskyy, who spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, on Wednesday, said trilateral talks would probably take place in Abu Dhabi in early March and would aim to prepare the way for a meeting of Ukraine and Russia’s leaders. Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, also held talks with US officials in Geneva on Thursday, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency reported. Dmitriev declined to comment on the outcome of the meeting, RIA said. Umerov said negotiators were working on economic and security issues to “make the next trilateral meeting involving the US and Russia as substantive as possible”. Romania scrambled fighter jets on Thursday when a drone breached its national airspace during a Russian attack on Ukrainian infrastructure near the border, the defence ministry said, in the second airspace breach in as many days. The EU and Nato member shares a 650km land border with Ukraine and has had drones breach its airspace and fragments fall on its territory repeatedly since Russia began attacking Kyiv’s ports across the Danube. Ukrainian missiles struck the Russian town of Belgorod, inflicting serious damage on energy installations and disrupting power, water and heating, the regional governor said early on Friday. The attack on Belgorod, 40km from the Ukrainian border, and the surrounding district was the second in five days to cause serious damage. Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday its air defence units had downed 220 Ukrainian drones over a nine-hour period, including 24 headed for Moscow. The latest ministry statement said 53 drones were intercepted and destroyed in a three-hour period ending at 11pm. Many of the drones were intercepted over regions in central Russia. The ministry said 12 had targeted Moscow.

Oman says US-Iran talks end with ‘significant progress’ but no deal reached – as it happened

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended without a deal, as Donald Trump weighs military action on a scale that would signify the US’s largest intervention since its invasion of Iraq in 2003. The world remains on edge as Trump has yet to decide on whether he will start a war with Iran. We haven’t heard from the US side, but Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said “good progress” was made on the nuclear issue and sanction relief, and said the two sides had begun to discuss “the elements of an agreement”. He described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations”, and confirmed that negotiations would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna. A reminder that on 19 February Trump issued a 10-15 day deadline for Tehran to reach a “meaningful deal” with Washington, which would bring us to next Friday, 6 March. But despite the hopeful take from the Iranians and from the Omani mediators, there was no immediate evidence that the dial had shifted on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks. A reminder that the US is demanding permanent Iranian guarantees on uranium enrichment and inspection mechanisms so that Tehran will never be able to build a nuclear weapon, a goal it has always denied. Thank you for reading along. We’re pausing our live coverage now, and I’ll leave you with Patrick Wintour and Andrew Roth’s report.

US-Iran nuclear talks end without a deal as threat of war grows

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday without a deal, as the White House weighs a military operation that would mark its largest intervention in the Middle East in decades. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, claimed “good progress” had been made at the talks and Omani mediators predicted negotiations would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna. But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks. Nonetheless, the Iranian and Omani mediators sought to cast the talks in a hopeful light, likely seeking to avert a US threat to launch strikes from its fleet of aircraft and warships that have massed in the region. Araghchi described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations”. He confirmed that further contacts would take place in less than a week. The indirect talks in Geneva were held in two sessions, with reports that the US team led by Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had been disappointed by the proposals put forward by Iran. The brevity of the second session of talks appeared ominous, observers said. Iranian officials rounded on reports in US media that suggested Tehran would be required to end enrichment and allow its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to leave Iran. At one point, to the frustration of Tehran’s team, Witkoff had to break off his talks with Araghchi, to drive across the Swiss city to meet Ukrainian negotiators. The Omani mediators rejected the suggestion of a breakdown, claiming new and creative ideas were being exchanged with an unprecedented openness in what was being billed as a third decisive round of indirect consultations. The US is demanding permanent Iranian guarantees on uranium enrichment and inspection mechanisms that will satisfy Washington that Tehran will never be able to build a nuclear weapon. Iran has always denied having such a goal. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has also said Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile programme is a problem, prompting Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, to complain about inconsistencies in the US negotiating demands. The talks are being held against the backdrop of Trump’s unprecedented buildup of US assets in the region, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, attack aircraft, plane-refuelling equipment and submarines equipped with Tomahawk missiles. At heart of the talks is whether the US will try to debar Tehran from almost all uranium enrichment. The right to enrich uranium domestically has long been seen as a symbol of Iranian national sovereignty, and was conceded by the US in the 2015 nuclear deal. Some of the dispute about enrichment can be deferred since Trump claimed that Iran’s three main nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been obliterated by US bombs last June, making it technically impossible to enrich uranium in high quantities for the foreseeable future. Tehran refused to allow the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the scale of the damage to the sites since the US attack. Rubio said on Wednesday: “They’re not enriching right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.” A US demand that the three facilities be permanently dismantled would conflict with Iran’s proposal that low-level enrichment should be permitted under UN supervision, possibly after three to five years. The US did not previously object to such a plan. A further impasse lies in the fate of Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity, close to nuclear weapons grade. The IAEA says Tehran has yet to identify the whereabouts of a stockpile of 400kg –enough to build five to six bombs similar in power to the one that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945. The IAEA also estimated in May last year that Iran had 8,000kg of uranium enriched to 20% or below. The highly enriched stockpile could be down-blended in Iran, as Tehran proposes, or exported to Russia or the US. It would be a major Iranian concession for its entire 8,000kg stockpile to be sent to the US, even if it led to many US and UN economic sanctions being lifted. One Iranian official in Geneva insisted: “The principles of zero enrichment for ever, dismantling of nuclear facilities and transferring uranium stocks to the US is completely rejected.” Trump now has the military assets in place to strike Iran either as part of an extended assault designed to enforce regime change, or to carry out a more targeted strike designed to force Tehran into a more flexible negotiating position. Trump’s coercive negotiating deadlines have always been flexible, but his military commanders will not want to keep such a large and expensive concentration of forces on a leash for much longer. Trump is under domestic pressure to show that he has not taken the US down a negotiating blind alley, with Democrats demanding a vote in Congress on what they are describing as his war of choice. An Associated Press poll this week found that 56% of Americans did not trust Trump to make the right decision to use military force outside the US. The director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, has moved centre stage in the talks since his imprimatur is needed to convince Washington that Iran’s guarantees on future low-level enrichment can be technically verified. Tehran is also insisting it will not negotiate on non-nuclear issues. It has ruled out making its ballistic missile programme or its support for “resistance groups” across the Middle East part of the discussions. It describes its ballistic missiles, some with a range of 1,300 miles (2,000km), as purely defensive. Rubio said on Wednesday that the ballistic missile programme would have to be addressed at some point, an admission that the subject may not be on the immediate agenda, but could not be disbarred from later talks. He said: “Iran refuses to discuss the range of its missiles with us or anyone else, and this is a big problem for us. Iran has missiles that increase their range every year, and this could be a threat to the United States because the range of the missiles may reach American soil.” Its short-range missiles could also hit US bases in the region, he noted.