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‘It would be an earthquake for France’: is Marseille about to vote in the far-right?

Nathalie, a market trader in her 40s, had woken early to prepare a pan of paella rice. She was spooning it into tubs at a market in southern Marseille last week when a crowd of far-right canvassers approached, promising cleaner and safer streets if she voted for them in the local elections. “Our cash tin was stolen right here at Christmas time,” Nathalie said. “I’ve had a bag stolen too. It tends to happen at the end of the day, around 7pm. I worry for the elderly grandmas. I had a necklace ripped off me in the city centre once.” Nathalie said she usually voted for the traditional right but felt Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) was now a good choice. “We’ve never tried them, so now we can give them a chance. I hope they can do something on security,” she said. Suzanne, 80, a retired pharmacist doing her shopping in a southern neighbourhood of the Mediterranean port city said she had also spent a lifetime supporting the conservative parties of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, but, like many of her affluent neighbours, was shifting to the far right. “I’ve never voted RN before, but I’m going to try it,” she said. “They are more energetic and efficient than the others.” On Sunday, France will vote in the first round of local elections seen as a test of the political temperature ahead of next year’s crucial presidential election. With Emmanuel Macron’s two terms in office coming to an end, it is uncertain who will head Europe’s second-largest economy. With its multicultural history of immigration and 5 million tourists a year, Marseille, France’s second city, has become a key focus of the campaign after its leftwing mayor, Benoît Payan, warned the far right was polling so high it could take city hall. “If Marseille falls into the RN’s hands, it would be an earthquake for France,” said Payan, whose Printemps Marseillais group, a leftwing coalition including Socialists and Greens, won the city in 2020 after 25 years of the traditional right. “Victory is possible,” said Jordan Bardella, the RN party head and potential 2027 presidential candidate, as he toured Marseille last week. The RN has focused on municipal policing and security in the face of Marseille’s deadly drug-trafficking gangs, which the far-right has likened to a South American-style mini narco-state. “This is about bringing back order,” said Franck Allisio, the RN’s mayoral candidate as he canvassed in Marseille’s southern 9th arrondissement. Allisio, 45, a member of parliament for a constituency west of Marseille, was a ministerial adviser on the traditional right during Sarkozy’s presidency, before joining Le Pen in 2015. His suggestions for Marseille include a special timed-access pass to local beaches for families and older people, designed to keep out “delinquents ... listening to loud music and smoking joints”. That the RN is the main opposition challenger in Marseille for the March vote is significant because French local elections – particularly in large cities – are not typically the far right’s strength. For the past 20 years, the biggest city run by the RN has been Perpignan, near the Spanish border, with a population of 121,000. Winning Marseille, with a population of almost 900,000, would be hailed by the party as a step towards taking the French presidency next year. But Marseille – unlike Paris – has been building a sizeable far-right vote for many years. In the 2024 snap general election, the RN and its far-right allies tripled their seats in Marseille, winning three of the city’s seven parliament positions. Marseille remains one of the most segregated cities in France, with a large income gap between its wealthy neighbourhoods and the low-income communities on high-rise estates or in decaying city centre buildings. More than one in four people in Marseille live below the poverty line. More than 13% of main residences are classed as slums. Politicians on all sides are describing the close mayoral race as a battle for Marseille’s identity. Historically the city has welcomed immigration from north Africa, Italy, Armenia and Comoros; it has a large Muslim community and one of the biggest urban populations of Jewish people in Europe. The left says the RN is an anti-immigration party that is racist and xenophobic and at odds with the city. The leftwing city hall recently renamed a boulevard in honour of Ibrahim Ali, a 17-year-old Marseille high school student who was shot dead on his way home from a rap rehearsal in 1995 by an activist putting up posters for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s Front National, since renamed as the RN. In northern Marseille, the densely populated 13th and 14th arrondissements are made up of a patchwork of historic village-style neighbourhoods and high-rise housing estates. Like Paris, Marseille has a city mayor, and several smaller district mayors. In this area, the far-right Stéphane Ravier won the district mayor position for the Front National in 2014 and held the position until 2017. He was convicted on appeal this year for an illegal conflict of interest in hiring his son to the mayor’s office and is now appealing to France’s highest court. His niece, Sandrine D’Angio, who took over from him and was also convicted of favouritism in office, denies the charges, and is appealing against the verdict. She is currently the local candidate for the RN. “The RN already ran this sector of Marseille – daily life didn’t get better, on the contrary it got worse,” said Tina Biard-Sansonetti, candidate for district mayor for Printemps Marseillais. Agnès, a local childminder and centrist voter, said: “There’s feeling of disgust towards all politicians in general that could affect voter turn-out.” Mohamed Arouel, 21, a law student, who grew up here, is running as a councillor for Printemps Marseillais. “The RN’s values are the absolute antithesis of this very mixed neighbourhood,” he said. He felt it was crucial that younger voters did not abstain. The Marseille mayoral race reflects broader problems across France, namely access to public services. Five years ago, Macron announced the state would invest €5bn (£4.3bn) into a special Marseille plan to address gaps in services, including the city’s dangerously dilapidated school buildings and patchy public transport, as well as police and justice resources against drug crime. Printemps Marseillais says 27 schools have been built or fully renovated, while the municipal police have been doubled to 700 officers. The RN is far from certain to win Marseille. Much depends on who makes the second round runoff, and whether Payan’s left would come to an understanding with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left La France Insoumise to take an anti-RN position. The RN has benefited so far from a poor campaign by the traditional right. But Marseille is just one of several southern French towns and cities targeted by the far-right. Along the coast, in Nice, France’s fifth biggest city, Éric Ciotti, who quit as leader of the traditional right’s party, Les Républicains (LR), to join forces with Le Pen in 2024, is hoping to win the city from his bitter rival and one-time rightwing ally, Christian Estrosi. Vincent Martigny, professor of politics at Côte d’Azur University, said a key factor in Marseille and Nice was a union of the right and far right coming from grassroots voters. “Voters from Les Républicains party – whose party leadership has taken positions that are increasingly radical and closer to the RN – are thinking: ‘There’s no problem voting RN because in any case the LR leadership for the past decade has been very strongly radicalising, so we’re pretty close on the most important issues’.” Martigny cautioned that local votes reflected local issues, not national political ideology, but said the RN would describe any potential Nice or Marseille win as a sign of a “national dynamic” or “stepping stone” to the presidency. Back in northern Marseille, Monique Cordier, a former teacher and optician canvassing for Marseille’s leftwing mayor, said: “An RN win is not at all a given. I frankly don’t think they’ll win. It’s not in the Marseille mentality to be racist.”

The escalation trap: how the Iran war could become more costly and complex

In its current phase, the Israeli-US war against Iran and its proxies has become a proving ground for two competing concepts of military escalation, each of which threatens to become a trap. On one side, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have failed thus far in their ill-defined and shifting strategic aims. Despite killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and other key leaders in the opening salvo of the campaign, the clerical regime remains and Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is unsecured. Airstrikes are intensifying and hitting a greater number of targets. Tehran’s counter is a “horizontal escalation”, one long prepared by the regime, that is intended to widen the conflict geographically, with strikes on the Gulf states, and also in terms of the costs to Washington and the global economy, not least in energy supplies. The coming days and weeks are likely to reveal important lessons, not least about the potency of US military power in an increasingly fragile and multipolar world. Experts point in particular to the risks of an escalation trap – whereby the attacker is drawn into an ever more complex, protracted and costly conflict than envisaged at the outset – from a widening disparity in the US-Israeli campaign between the tactical and strategic level. Put simply, the tactical level involves specific military tasks – such as airstrikes hitting their intended targets – where the campaign has been successful. The strategic level defines whether the political and national security aims of the war are being achieved and at what cost. “The are several stages to the escalation trap,” said Robert Pape, a US historian who has studied the limitation of air power and has advised a number of US administrations. “What we saw with the initial attack was tactically almost 100% success,” he said. “The problem is that when that doesn’t lead to strategic success … you get to second stage of the trap. “The attacker still has escalation dominance, so there is a doubling down, which then moves up the escalation ladder and that still does not lead to strategic success. Then you reach stage three, which is the real crisis, where you are contemplating far riskier options. I would say we are stage two, and on on the cusp of stage three.” He said the Trump administration had become mesmerised by the initial attack and had an “illusion of control” based on the accuracy of its weapons. All of this has pushed Tehran towards its own model of escalation, one with a far wider global economic and political impact, Pape and other critics say. By targeting the Gulf states and shipping in the strait of Hormuz, Iran has demonstrated it can escalate the costs of the war for Washington far beyond its military capabilities to meaningfully counter the US-Israeli attack directly. Iran’ strikes “are designed to create wedges between the US and the Gulf states by in turn creating wedges between the Gulf states and their societies,” Pape said. “They are forcing the publics in the Gulf to ask: ‘Why are we paying the price of a war that appears driven by expansionist Israeli policies?’” Israel has signalled another escalation. Its defence minister, Israel Katz, said on Thursday that he had ordered the military to prepare for expanding operations in Lebanon, where it is fighting the Iran-backed Hezbollah, and that it would “take territory” if Hezbollah rocket fire did not stop. Robert Malley, a former US envoy to Iran and lead negotiator in the nuclear talks with Tehran, said how the US proceeded in the conflict – and what level of escalation or de-escalation was adopted – was likely to be defined less by clearly delineated strategic considerations than by Trump’s psychology. “A some point, I assume there will be an exit ramp, but I could imagine the escalation reaching levels we really wouldn’t have contemplated even a month ago … troops on the ground, going after basic infrastructure, taking over parts of Iran, working with Kurdish or other ethnic groups. All of that is escalatory in a different way. “But that could trigger reactions on the Iranian side, and then who knows what happens. I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw terrorist attacks against soft targets, soft, quote-unquote, American targets. If that were to happen, whether it was directed by Iran or not, who knows how the president then reacts? “But at this point, what we should fear is that the escalatory ladder is the one that Trump is most comfortable on, because I don’t think the Iranians are going make life any easier for him. I don’t think they’re going to offer him the victory on a platter that he wants and say: ‘Okay, we stop shooting.’” Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute argues that the trajectory of the conflict is being driven by a series of debates: between US defence policy professionals and Trump’s inner circles; between the US and Israel; and between political and military echelons in Iran, not least the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps seeking revenge. “There is a view in the US strategic community, if not in Trump circles, that sees a risk of state-on-state conflict with China in the near future,” he said. From that point of view there has been a desire in the US to avoid the risk of other simultaneous threats and conflicts – involving Russia, Venezuela and Iran – and this has led to a split between those who envisaged the war as a narrow set of achievable objectives to degrade Iran, and Trump’s desire for “coercive control” over the country’s future. For Iran, he said, the pattern of retaliation in the Gulf was not simply about reciprocal strikes but also re-establishing deterrence in the region. He cautioned that if Iran struggled to maintain its current intensity of missile and drone strikes, it would not necessarily mark the end of Tehran’s horizontal escalation if it transitioned to a longer-term threat against shipping through the strait of Hormuz. The US author and foreign affairs specialist Robert D Kaplan pointed to another risk, which, while not immediately escalatory, could lead to the same end point – “the slippery slope of incrementalism”. “If a civil war, or something akin to it, breaks out in Iran, the [Trump] administration may feel compelled to send special forces and advisers to aid one side,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “And the risks of escalation spiral from there. The war in Vietnam took years to evolve into a middle-sized war … The situation in Iran might follow a similar trajectory.”

Middle East crisis live: Iran warns of retaliation after Trump says military targets on Kharg Island ‘obliterated’

Iraq has downed a drone targeting a US diplomatic centre near Baghdad Airport, Iraqi security sources told Reuters. This follows reports earlier that a missile struck a helipad inside the US Embassy compound in the capital.

Oil targets in spotlight as Iran war enters second week – as it happened

Thank you for tuning in to our live coverage of events in the Middle East. We will continue to keep you posted about the latest development in a new blog. Iran’s Armed Forces threatened to destroy US-linked oil infrastructure if Iran’s energy facilities were attacked. The warning came after president Donald Trump said the US had bombed Iran’s oil hub of Kharg Island, and “totally obliterated” every military target there. Trump said he had chosen not to wipe out the oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, which serves as the export terminal for 90% of Iran’s oil shipments. But he added: “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.” Explosions rocked Iraq’s capital Baghdad on Saturday after two strikes targeted the powerful Iran-backed group Kataeb Hezbollah, killing two members including a “key figure”, security sources told AFP. At least 12 medical personnel were killed in an Israeli strike on a healthcare center in the town of Borj Qalaouiya in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese state news agency reported, citing the health ministry. Israeli strikes have killed more than 100 children in Lebanon, according to the latest data from the Lebanese health ministry. A total of 773 people have been killed since Israel’s first strikes on the country on 2 March, with a further 1,933 people wounded, the ministry said in its daily report. It said 103 children had now been killed in the strikes, and a further 326 children have been wounded. Qatar’s interior ministry said it was evacuating a number of “key areas” as Iran presses its retaliatory air campaign against Gulf countries. In Doha’s central Musheireb district some residents received phone alerts telling them to “evacuate the area immediately... to the nearest safest place as a temporary precaution”. The US energy department said it expects initial deliveries of oil from its strategic petroleum reserve will begin moving to the market by the end of next week. Members of the 32-nation International Energy Agency, announced earlier this week they would unlock 400m barrels of oil in an effort to bring down prices. The Pentagon is moving additional Marines and warships to the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly approved a request from US Central Command for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit (MEU). There are differing reports about the size of the contingent to be deployed, but the group typically consists of several warships and 5,000 Marines and sailors. The UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, called for humanitarian aid to be allowed to pass safely through the strait of Hormuz as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues to disrupt one of the world’s most vital shipping routes. In a statement, Tom Fletcher said this will make it harder and more expensive to deliver critical supplies, including food and medicine. Only 77 ships have so far crossed through the critical waterway this month.

Ukraine war briefing: War in the Middle East is bad news for Ukraine, says Zelenskyy

It is understandable the world’s attention has shifted to the Middle East, but the situation is “not good for Ukraine”, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Paris. “There is nothing good for Ukraine in the war in the Middle East. ... It’s understandable that the attention of the world [is] moving to [the] Middle East. It’s not good for us,” the Ukrainian president said during a speech to students at the Sciences Po university on Friday. Kyiv is worried the war in the Middle East is drawing international attention away from the conflict in Ukraine – particularly from its urgent need for anti-aircraft missiles, which are used in large numbers in the Gulf to counter Iranian missiles and drones. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the son of Iran’s last shah that Iran must not cooperate with Russia, as the pair met in Paris on Friday. The Ukrainian president posted on X: “Ukraine truly wants to see a free Iran that will not cooperate with Russia or destabilize the Middle East, Europe, and the world.” Reza Pahlavi lives in exile in the United States and has offered himself as a transitional leader for Iran should the Islamic republic fall. Zelenskyy said: “I am grateful to the Crown Prince for his clear assurances of support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” adding that their teams would “remain in communication”. Zelensky said it was “crucial that the Iranian regime gains nothing” from the conflict and that the Iranian people have the right to “determine their own fate”. The US had sought a postponement of the latest round of three-sided talks on a settlement to Ukraine’s four-year-old conflict with Russia, Zelenskyy was quoted as saying on Friday. The comments, quoted by various Ukrainian media outlets at the end of the France visit,claimed the US side said its negotiators were not permitted to leave the US in view of circumstances in the Middle East. He said Russia had not wanted to hold the talks in the US and had proposed alternative sites in Switzerland or Turkey. The US is temporarily easing some of its sanctions on Russian oil, reflecting global worries about sharply higher oil prices due to supply shortages stemming from the Iran war. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on X the country would lift sanctions on Russian oil that is already aboard tankers for 30 days. That means customers in other countries can buy it without worrying about sanctions punishment. The move, intended to soothe jittery markets over the disruption of Middle Eastern oil and gas supplies, underlines how the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports, a pillar of the Kremlin’s budget as it presses its invasion of Ukraine. The Trump administration earlier had granted a 30-day reprieve to refineries in India. Russian shelling killed one person and wounded six in southeastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the regional governor said on Friday. Oleksander Ganzha, the head of the region’s military administration, said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked two sites in the region. Further southeast, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said that four people were injured in a Russian attack near the region’s main town, also called Zaporizhzhia. Just over the Russian border in the Belgorod region, the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said one resident died in a Ukrainian strike on a village just inside the border. Russia has named the US-based great-granddaughter of a Soviet leader a “foreign agent”, a term with connotations of spying that Moscow applies to people it views as engaged in anti-Russian activity. Nina Khrushcheva, 62, is a professor at The New School university in New York and has continued to make research trips to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Her ancestor, Nikita Khrushchev, led the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, when he was ousted by fellow members of the ruling politburo. Contacted by Reuters, Khrushcheva said she was not surprised to be added to Russia’s “foreign agent” list, which, as of Friday, contains 1,164 names, including politicians, journalists, artists, NGOs and media organisations. “It would have been sloppy on their part not to do this sooner or later,” she said, adding that it was too early to say what the practical impact would be.

Trump says US forces destroyed military targets on Iranian island handling oil exports

Donald Trump said Friday that US forces have “obliterated” military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island and warned that the 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.” Within hours of Trump’s announcement, the Iranian armed forces said any attack on Iran’s oil and energy infrastructure will lead to attacks on energy infrastructure owned by oil companies cooperating with the United States in the region, Iranian media reported. The small island in the Persian Gulf is the primary terminal through which Iran’s oil exports pass. Until Friday, the island had been spared during US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Just a day before, the speaker of the Iranian parliament said such a strike would provoke a new level of retaliation. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf warned in a Thursday social media post that attacks on the islands on Iran’s southern maritime frontier would cause Iran to “abandon all restraint”, underscoring how central they are to the country’s economy and security. Trump announced the action as he prepared to fly to Florida for the weekend. The president answered questions from reporters traveling with him before he boarded Air Force One, but he did not mention the latest US military operation against Iran. Axios reported last week that administration officials were weighing seizing the 5-mile coral island. Experts told the Guardian earlier this week that military actions against Kharg Island are likely to increase oil prices, already surging since the war began on 28 February. “We may see the $120 a barrel price we saw on Monday heading to the $150 if Kharg were attacked,” said Neil Quilliam of the Chatham House thinktank. “It’s too vital for global energy markets.” Earlier Friday, a US official told the Associated Press that the American military had ordered 2,500 marines and the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli to the Middle East. Marine Expeditionary Units are able to conduct amphibious landings, but they also specialize 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. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, as well the Tripoli and other amphibious assault ships carrying the Marines, are based in Japan and have been in the Pacific Ocean for several days, according to images released by the military. The Tripoli was spotted by commercial satellites sailing alone near Taiwan, putting it more than a week away from the waters off Iran. Earlier in the week, the navy had 12 ships, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and eight destroyers, operating in the Arabian Sea. Should the Tripoli join this flotilla, it would be the second-largest ship behind the Lincoln in the region. Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting

Trump calls Iran leaders ‘deranged scumbags’ as Middle East violence spirals

Donald Trump has said Iran will be hit “very hard” in the coming days, describing leaders of the regime as “deranged scumbags” who it was a “great honor” to kill, as Tehran residents reported relentless bombing and violence continued to spiral across the Middle East. The US president’s comments, which signaled an intensification of the US-Israeli campaign, came as Israeli and US warplanes launched successive waves of attacks on the Iranian capital and elsewhere on Friday. One strike reportedly hit close to a square near Tehran University where crowds were gathered in support of Iran’s regime. The area is home to many government buildings. Video published by the semi-official Tasnim news agency showed a plume of grey smoke rising as demonstrators screamed “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!” Across the region, there was more chaos, bloodshed and destruction, with further Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where 800,000 people have been displaced; new missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah and Iran on targets in Israel; and fresh Iranian attacks on civilian infrastructure in Gulf states. The US said six servicemen were killed in an accident involving a tanker plane used for mid-air refuelling, which crashed in Iraq. Also in Iraq, a French soldier was killed in a drone strike by a pro-Iranian militia group. In a post on social media, Trump wrote: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today … They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” Late on Friday, Trump said that US forces had “obliterated” military targets on Iran’s Kharg island and warned that the oil infrastructure there could be next. The small island is the primary terminal for Iran’s oil exports. In a post on Truth Social, he said: “The United States Central Command executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the History of the Middle East and totally obliterated every MILITARY target in Iran’s crown jewel, Kharg Island.” He added: “I have chosen NOT to wipe out the Oil Infrastructure on the Island. 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.” Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, told a press conference in Washington earlier on Friday that Iranian leaders were “desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground”. Hegseth said Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who issued a defiant statement on Thursday pledging to continue fighting, had been “wounded and likely disfigured”. “He put out a statement yesterday – a weak one actually – but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement. He called for unity … apparently killing tens of thousands of protesters is his kind of unity,” Hegseth said. Iranian media published videos showing some of the members of the country’s regime at the demonstration in Tehran, including Ali Larijani, who heads the Supreme national security council, and Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the hardline cleric who heads the country’s judiciary. The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, was seen walking in the city’s streets. Residents of Tehran said there had not been a “day without the explosions” since the war began with an Israeli strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ruler for 37 years. “The buildings are shaking … There’s rubble everywhere and people are still risking their lives to go to work,” a 66-year-old retired professor said. “Please stop this. I am begging the world to act now before the entire city is destroyed. I can’t leave the city, and have sick family members. Even those who want to flee, can’t. They are not giving us enough petrol to even drive far enough. We are trapped.” A shopkeeper from the centre of Tehran said she had counted six explosions within the past hour. “We’ve taped the windows with newspapers. I am hardly even sleeping. They have bombed all night. I am scared to step out. These are some powerful bombs because I don’t even hear the drones any more. That’s how continuous today’s explosions have been. It’s cold and the power keeps going off and on. We won’t have electricity soon I fear,” the 42-year-old said. Israel had earlier announced another wave of strikes in Iran targeting infrastructure, and said its air force had hit more than 200 targets in the past 24 hours, including missile launchers, defence systems and weapons production sites. Hegseth said that more than 15,000 “enemy targets” had been struck, which is more than 1,000 a day since the war began. After steep drops on Thursday, stock markets rallied as oil prices fell slightly. About a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies travel through the narrow strait of Hormuz, which Iran has now in effect blocked by attacking shipping there. The US is “dealing with” Iran’s attacks in the strait of Hormuz, Hegseth said, claiming Iran had not yet mined the crucial waterway. The Financial Times reported that European countries, including France, have opened talks with Tehran seeking to negotiate a deal to guarantee safe passage for their ships through the strait, although Italy denied the report. Iran has responded with daily attacks on oil and other infrastructure around the Gulf region, and on Friday, Saudi Arabia said that it had downed nearly 50 drones sent in multiple waves. In Oman, two people were killed when two drones crashed in an industrial area in the region of Sohar, the Oman news agency reported. A building at the Dubai International Financial Center sustained damage when hit with debris from what authorities described as a “successful interception”. DIFC is an economic free zone for banks, capital traders and wealth managers, home to exclusive restaurants and nightclubs. Late on Friday, the Israeli military said it had launched a new wave of strikes on Tehran, and Qatar’s interior ministry issued evacuation orders for parts of Doha before explosions were heard in the centre of the city. Qatar’s defence ministry subsequently said it had intercepted a missile attack. Iran said earlier this week that it would target banks and financial institutions, after an airstrike hit a bank in Tehran, and the Revolutionary Guards announced on Friday that they had launched new salvoes of missiles and drones at Israel in coordination with Hezbollah, which has a close, decades-old relationship with Tehran. The guards said in a statement that the operation was part of their annual al-Quds Day, which is intended to show support for the Palestinian cause. In Lebanon, at least eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on the southern coastal city of Sidon, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Nine others were wounded, the ministry added. Israel’s military also hit the Zrarieh Bridge, spanning Lebanon’s Litani River early on Friday, claiming it was being used by Hezbollah militants to move between Lebanon’s north and south. The military provided no evidence for the claim. Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said the strikes so far were “just the beginning” and that Lebanon’s government would “pay an increasing price for the damage to Lebanese national infrastructure used by Hezbollah”. More than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants began, the health ministry said. Iranian authorities say that more than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran, and Israel has reported 12 deaths. The US has lost at least 13 service members, while another eight have suffered severe injuries. In northern Israel, nearly 60 people were wounded after Hezbollah said that it fired several rocket salvoes toward the area and at Israeli troops in southern Lebanon. Almost all the injuries were described as minor.

Bolivia arrests alleged drug kingpin accused of putting hit on Paraguayan prosecutor

Sebastián Marset, an alleged Uruguayan drug trafficker and one of South America’s most wanted criminals, has been arrested in Bolivia. Marset, 34, is accused of trafficking tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe, and also of having ordered the murder of a Paraguayan prosecutor who was shot dead as he honeymooned on a Colombian beach in 2022. Marset was also wanted by Washington for allegedly laundering money through US banks, and Bolivia’s interior minister, Marco Antonio Oviedo, said on Friday that he was already being extradited to the US. The arrest marks the end of Marset’s criminal career as the self-anointed “King of the South” – a moniker he had stamped on bricks of cocaine. It also signalled a return to law enforcement cooperation between Bolivia and the US under the centrist government of Rodrigo Paz, almost 20 years after his leftwing predecessor Evo Morales expelled both the US ambassador and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Marset was first arrested for drug trafficking in 2013 and spent years in prison in Uruguay, where he allegedly built connections with Primeiro Comando da Capital – the First Capital Command – one of Brazil’s most powerful organised crime groups, and Italy’s ’Ndrangheta mafia. On his release in 2019 he moved to Paraguay on a fake Bolivian passport in the name of Gabriel de Souza Beuner, where he allegedly built the networks to traffic drugs from Bolivia, which is both a cocaine producer and key transit hub for Peruvian cocaine, and on to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. In 2021, Marset was detained in Dubai while travelling on a fake Paraguayan passport, only to leave the United Arab Emirates legally within days after Uruguayan authorities issued him a new passport. The resulting scandal led to the resignations of several Uruguayan officials. But as investigators in various countries closed in on him, Marset moved to Bolivia in 2022, now using a Brazilian passport and the name Luis Paulo Amorim Santos. Around this time, Marcelo Pecci, the Paraguayan prosecutor in charge of dismantling Marset’s network in that country, was murdered while on his honeymoon in Colombia. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, accused Marset of having ordered the assassination. Meanwhile in Bolivia, Marset hid in plain sight. He bought a second-division football team and installed himself in its starting lineup, appearing in matches shown on local TV. Yet when Bolivian authorities raided Marset’s mansion in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in July 2023, he was already gone, apparently tipped off ahead of time. Marset had been on the run ever since, periodically posting videos in which he mocked Bolivian authorities, and even once flying a Uruguayan TV presenter in by helicopter to interview him in his hideout. In the end, Bolivian police found him in the same city where he first eluded them two years ago.