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US and Israel launch major attack on Iran as Tehran retaliates across the Middle East – live

The New York police department says it is strengthening security at sensitive locations around New York City in response to the conflict in Iran. “The NYPD is closely monitoring events in Iran and the Middle East and coordinating with our federal and international partners,” the department wrote on social media. “As is our protocol and out of an abundance of caution, we will be enhancing patrols to sensitive locations throughout the city, including diplomatic, cultural, religious, and other relevant sites.”

France, Germany and UK urge Iran to ‘negotiate solution’ after attack

European leaders have urged Iran to seek a “negotiated solution” as they attempt to end the outbreak of war between the US, Israel and Iran through diplomatic means. They also clarified that they did not participate in the strikes. In a rare joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany and UK called on the Iranian state to allow its people to determine their own future and condemned Tehran’s retaliatory attacks on US army bases in the region. The statement by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said: “France, Germany and the United Kingdom have consistently urged the Iranian regime to end Iran’s nuclear program, curb its ballistic missile programme, refrain from its destabilising activity in the region and our homelands, and to cease the appalling violence and repression against its own people. “We did not participate in these strikes, but are in close contact with our international partners, including the United States, Israel and partners in the region.” The leaders reiterated their commitment to regional stability and to the protection of civilian life. “We condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms. Iran must refrain from indiscriminate military strikes. We urge the Iranian leadership to seek a negotiated solution. Ultimately, the Iranian people must be allowed to determine their future,” the statement said. The EU said it is exploring “diplomatic paths” with Arab nations, and has called on all parties to exercise “maximise restraint” to protect civilians and respect international law. The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen described the developments in Iran on Saturday morning as “greatly concerning” and said the EU was in “close contact” with its diplomatic partners in the region. “We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to safeguarding regional security and stability. Ensuring nuclear safety and preventing any actions that could further escalate tensions or undermine the global non-proliferation regime is of critical importance,” she said. She reassured EU citizens in the region that they could count on the EU’s “full support”. The EU’s Aspides naval mission remains on high alert in the Red Sea and “stands ready to help keep the maritime corridor open”, she added. Macron called for an urgent meeting of the UN security council, saying the war has “serious consequences” for international peace and security. “The current escalation is dangerous for everyone. It must stop. The Iranian regime must understand that it now has no other option but to engage in good-faith negotiations to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as its actions to destabilise the region,” Macron said on X. In the United Kingdom, Starmer chaired a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee to discuss how Britain will respond to the attacks. A government spokesperson said the UK stood ready to protect its interests and had recently bolstered its range of defensive capabilities in the region but did not wish to see further escalation into a wider regional conflict. “Iran must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and that is why we have continually supported efforts to reach a negotiated solution,” the spokesperson said. In the Middle East, where the US has a number of military bases, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain said Iranian ballistic missiles that targeted sites within their borders were a “flagrant violation” of national sovereignty and international law. Both countries said they were affirming their right to respond to this escalation by safeguarding their sovereignty. Qatar also said it had downed missiles targeting the country and that it had a right to respond. Saudia Arabia also condemned the Iranian attacks on the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait “in the strongest possible terms”. The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said he supported the US acting to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and threatening international security. Russia demanded an immediate halt to US and Israeli strikes on Iran. The foreign ministry said the situation must be “returned to the path of political and diplomatic settlement” and that Russia was ready to assist in efforts to find peaceful solutions based on “international law, mutual respect and a balance of interests”.

Iran vows ‘no leniency’ as it launches reprisal attacks on Israel and US air bases

Iran has launched a barrage of retaliatory missiles aimed at Israel and US bases across the region, denouncing the two countries’ airstrikes as a breach of the UN charter and an act of flagrant aggression designed to end any possibility of a diplomatic resolution. Iran’s foreign ministry called on Muslim and non-aligned states to demand an urgent meeting of the UN security council, pointing out that the US-Israeli strikes on Saturday were the second such attack in a year while Iran was in the middle of sensitive negotiations over its nuclear programme. The talks were designed to set up a verifiable process whereby Iran could not acquire the materials for a nuclear bomb. The chief mediator in the talks, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, had said on Friday that he believed peace was in reach. After the first wave of Israeli attacks in Tehran on Saturday morning, officials insisted the leadership, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Masoud Pezeshkian, were safe, despite an attempt to assassinate them in the bombings. Khamenei’s office in the capital looked to be a charred ruin, according to satellite images. Despite rumours that the commander-in-chief of the army, Maj Gen, Amir Hatami, had been killed, it did not initially appear that the attacks had managed to target its leadership on the same scale as it did last June. But the fate of the Revolutionary Guards commander, Mohammad Pakpour, was in doubt, and the home of the leading reformist and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was badly damaged. Forty schoolchildren in a girl’s elementary school in Minab Hormozgan province were reportedly killed and 48 injured. Ambulances were seen taking injured people to hospital in central Tehran. Pictures showed numerous Revolutionary Guards weapons warehouses had been hit, as well as missile sites. The foreign ministry issued a statement, saying the country “will not hesitate” in its response. In a statement posted on X, the ministry said: “The time has come to defend the homeland and confront the enemy’s military assault.” The national security council called on the public to relocate away from cities under attack, and the government information council insisted “people should not worry about shortages or deficiencies”. The instruction to leave Tehran and other cities may reflect a desire to prevent the accumulation of protesting crowds, and was the opposite of the message being issued by Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who ruled Iran before the revolution that brought in it current theocracy. Pahlavi said he would soon be asking for the protesters to return to the streets. Donald Trump addressed Iranian civilians in his speech announcing the US attack: “Bombs will fall everywhere. When we finish our work take control of your government,” he said. It is unclear whether the Iranian security apparatus will be in any position to suppress any renewed street protests, or whether the attacks will reforge a sense of national cohesion, which had been lost amid the unprecedented state repression and economic malaise. The supreme national security council claimed: “Essential goods and fuel and medicine are abundantly available in the country. 24-hour medical services, centres and pharmacies will continue. Today is a test of national resistance for Iranians and despite all complaints and grievances we are united and in unison against foreign aggression,” Pezeshkian’s son, Youssef, said on Telegram: “As far as I know this time the assassination attempts were unsuccessful and other officials are also safe. We will probably have a longer conflict and it will be a war of attrition. Endurance and patience are essential to get though these days.” A senior spokesperson for the armed forces warned: “We will give a lesson to [Israel and the US] that they have never experienced in their history. Any base in the entire region that helps Israel will be a target of the sacred system of the Islamic republic and we will show no leniency.” The Iranian military confirmed that it had sent drones and fired short-range missiles at al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, the Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait,al-Dhafra airbase in the United Arab Emirates, the Prince Sultain airbase in Riyadh, the US base in Erbil, northern Iraq, the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Jordan, and the US Fifth fleet base in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia and the UAE issued statements condemning Iranian violation of their sovereignty, and warning of their right to take reprisals. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in a call with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq, sought to justify Iran’s actions by saying the Gulf states had a responsibility to try to stop the US from using their bases to mount an illegal attack on Iran. Reza Nasri, a lawyer close to the foreign ministry, said in a message to the American people: “This is not your war. But you will pay for it with your soldiers’ lives, your national interests and your standing as Americans around the world .You will pay for it through the rise of anti-American sentiment globally, the tarnishing of your name, your flag and the hostile world your children will inherit.”

‘Iron river’: Mexico’s cartel violence fuelled by trafficked firearms from US

Mexico was rocked this week by a wave of brutal violence after the capture of the drug lord Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, AKA “El Mencho”, as members of his powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel blew up trucks, fired on police stations and engaged in gun battles with Mexican security forces. The chaos eventually calmed but not before 62 people had been killed, including a pregnant woman caught in the cross fire. The scale of the carnage, as well as the arsenal involved, has underscored a key element of Mexico’s struggle against organised crime: cartels are armed to the teeth, and most of their weapons are trafficked from the US. As the smoke from the burning blockades cleared, Mexico’s defence minister, Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, said the vast majority of weapons seized after El Mencho’s capture – including a Barrett rifle, a rocket launcher, grenades and mortar rounds – had come from across the border. Since the start of the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, Trejo said, Mexican authorities had seized 23,000 weapons, of which 80% came from the US. “The ability of criminal groups to exercise this type of power and exercise this type of violence is closely linked to firearms trafficking,” said Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, an expert on Mexican organised crime. “If we want to see less violence in Mexico, this is a very important conversation.” Mexico has extremely strict gun ownership laws: the country only has two gun stores, both run by the Mexican military, which enforces strict regulation on the purchase of weapons. But in the US, loose gun legislation and a national obsession with firearms mean guns are readily available to buy and traffic south of the border. “Our country’s lax gun laws have created a deadly, vicious cycle of firearms trafficking that’s riddled with violence and chaos,” said the Democratic senator Dick Durbin last year as he announced a bill to tackle arms smuggling. “Our gun laws and gun industry practices fuel an iron river of firearms trafficking that supplies Mexican drug cartels.” Durbin’s bill, introduced with the Democratic congressman Joaquín Castro, has yet to come up for a vote. Conservative estimates suggest 135,000 guns are trafficked into Mexico annually, though some studies suggest as many as 730,000 American firearms are smuggled into Mexico every year. That would mean 2,000 US guns crossing the border every day. While large gun stores are important suppliers of firearms that end up in Mexico, 83%of these weapons come from independent gun dealers in border states such as Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and California. The most powerful guns also come from these smaller stores, including .50-caliber sniper rifles and 7.62mm assault-style weapons. At times, these powerful weapons are smuggled across the border en masse: last year, US authorities arrested a father and son in Texas who together were attempting to smuggle “300 rifles and pistols as well as various caliber ammunition and magazines” into Mexico. But the vast majority of weapons are trafficked into Mexico piecemeal, with guns and ammunition divided up among multiple smugglers, making it difficult for authorities on either side of the border to find and seize the weapons. “It is very easy to hide a gun in a vehicle without being detected and it is very difficult to stop every single car and every single truck,” said Ieva Jusionyte, a professor at Brown University who has studied arms trafficking to Mexico. “It’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” Still, analysts say the main problem is not at the border: it is in Washington, where a well-funded gun lobby has halted progress on any meaningful regulation for years. “Certainly, Mexico and Mexican customs need to do much more to prevent those guns from coming into Mexican territory,” said Arturo Sarukhán, a former Mexican ambassador to Washington. “But at the end of the day it’s the loopholes in how you can buy guns in gun shows and gun shops in the US that are allowing proxy purchases of firearms that are then illegally trafficked over international borders.” Mexico is keenly aware of the problem: Sheinbaum has repeatedly called on the US to do more to halt the southbound flow of weapons. “The topic always comes up in meetings, and I’ve brought it up in phone conversations with President Trump,” she said earlier this month. “The issue of weapons entering Mexico from the United States.” In 2021, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against eight gun manufacturers, accusing them of “negligent marketing, distribution and sales”. The US supreme court ruled unanimously last year to reject the suit, based on a 2005 law that shields gunmakers from liability if their weapons are misused. Still, the Trump administration appears to be stepping up its efforts to stop the weapons from entering Mexico. Last week, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said it had seized 4,359 guns and 648,975 rounds of ammunition “bound for Mexico” since January last year. But even by conservative estimates, that means US authorities seized just 3% of the guns being trafficked across the border. “It is a minuscule amount,” said Jusionyte. “The technologies are evolving, both how the guns are being hidden in vehicles as well as the scanners that can detect them, but it’s a cat and mouse game that is stacked against [the authorities] because of how profitable it is to smuggle guns into Mexico.”

Caribbean countries pledge humanitarian support for Cuba amid rising tensions with US

Caribbean countries have pledged to support Cuba through a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by a US fuel embargo, after a leaders summit defined by regional divisions over Washington’s policies. The decision to send humanitarian assistance to Cuba was announced during a press conference on Friday to mark the end of the four-day Caribbean Community (Caricom) meeting in St Kitts and Nevis, which secretary of state Marco Rubio attended to discuss US relations with Caribbean governments. The summit was held amid escalating tensions between Cuba and the US after the arrest of the Caribbean nation’s key ally, the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, by US forces and the Trump administration imposed an oil blockade on Cuba in January. At the opening of the conference there were calls for dialogue to de-escalate the tensions between Cuba and the US, with Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holness raising concerns about the “severe economic hardship, energy shortages and growing humanitarian strain” and its potential consequences on the wider region. On Friday, the chair of Caricom, St Kitts and Nevis prime minister, Terrance Drew, said that the 15-country bloc will be responding “in a significant way to help the humanitarian situation in Cuba” within a month. Asked whether there will be a joint Caricom statement condemning the US military intervention in the region, which has included deadly military strikes against suspected drug boats in the area killing at least 151 people without providing evidence of wrongdoing, Drew told reporters that the body was investigating and gathering information to “ensure … a complete and comprehensive response”. Caribbean political analyst Peter Wickham said a disagreement among members about the US policies may be the reason for Caricom’s lack of a clear position on the matter. At the meeting’s opening session, Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has continuously praised Trump’s military attacks in the region, challenged calls from fellow leaders to protect the Caribbean as a zone of peace. Crediting the US military intervention for a reported reduction in crime in Trinidad and Tobago, she said: “Don’t talk to me about a zone of peace when … Trinidad and Tobago, 1.4 million people, we recorded 623 murders in one year, in 2024. And 40% of those murders … were gang-related, driven by narcotics, by firearms smuggled in from Venezuela, and gangs coming out of Venezuela and mingling and mixing with gangs in Trinidad.” This staunch support of the Trump administration may have made it difficult for a Caricom consensus on US military interventions in the region, Wickham said. “The reality is that America believes it’s legal. Trinidad and Tobago, who is an ally, believes it’s legal. Everyone else has reservations about the legality. But Caricom has to speak from everybody’s perspective. So once Trinidad and Tobago is in the room and they hold a different view, there’s absolutely nothing that you can do to get a common position in that regard. And I think that that’s what was probably needed,” he added. David Abdulah, a Caribbean politician and regional executive committee member of civil society organisation, the Assembly of Caribbean People, has also called for a clear position from Caricom on the matter. Referring to an open letter from the Assembly sent to Caricom ahead of the meeting and urging it to “defend Cuba’s sovereignty and its right to self determination”, he said “it is very clear that the Caricom leaders withered”. “This was what we were concerned about, that Rubio’s visit and meeting with the heads of government would further split and divide Caricom, so that Caricom would not be able to take a strong common position,” he added. Pointing to Trump’s invitation to only Persad-Bissessar and Guyana’s president Irfaan Ali from Caricom to his meeting with Latin American leaders, he said: “It’s very clear that what Trump and Rubio are doing, is to divide Latin America and the Caribbean into those who are supporting them, and this is going to pose very grave dangers to the sovereignty of our individual countries and to the wellbeing of our citizens going forward.” In Friday’s press conference, Drew addressed the concerns about disunity in Caricom. “Caricom does not have a homogeneous … or a single foreign policy – that is left up to sovereign states. Caricom might seek to coordinate but each state, as was mentioned before, has the opportunity to determine what would be its foreign policy agenda” he said, adding that Caricom is not a political union and that “Trinidad and Tobago or any other country being invited to a meeting does not fragment Caricom”. Drew also said that Caricom and the US will work out a new cooperation agreement to strengthen their relationship and guide migration, security, trade and investment, disaster recovery, human development and technical assistance. The new framework, he said, will supersede agreements such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative, launched in 1983 to manage economic relations between the region and the US.

Islamic State emerges from rubble of north-east Syria to exploit discontent with al-Sharaa

On the surface, all that remains of Islamic State in the Syrian town of Baghuz are discarded tubs of whitening cream, spent RPG motors and children’s backpacks, with an old grenade nestled in the frayed pink nylon. It was here nearly seven years ago that IS made its last stand. Its most zealous followers were obliterated along with the blood-soaked caliphate they fought to defend. Their bodies were collected and buried next to the town graveyard, while bulldozers came and sealed the entire area under a layer of heavy yellow earth. Today, nothing grows on the former battlefield. The ground remains barren despite the heavy winter rains that have sent green shoots sprouting in the furrowed fields just metres away. Yet while the graveyard lies undisturbed, residents say the town is deeply uneasy once more. IS is stirring again, its members living among the people of Syria. “They are our neighbours. It’s known who in the village is with IS. They feel nostalgic for the days of the caliphate, and for sure they would readily join IS if it came back,” said an activist in Baghuz, asking to remain anonymous out of fears for his security. The sense of unease is shared across Deir ez-Zor, a long neglected rural province of Syria that was a stronghold of IS during the height of its control of Syria. “You can see them in the streets. It’s clear who is sympathetic to them from their dress and habits,” said Deeban Harwil, a civil society activist in Deir ez-Zor. This week, the group lurched back into the open. Its spokesperson Abu Hudhayfah al-Ansari released a speech more than 30 minutes long – the first time in two years that IS has put out such a public display to its followers. In the speech, the spokesperson took aim at the new Syrian government, decrying President Ahmed al-Sharaa as an apostate and a puppet for the west. Fighting Syria’s new government, al-Ansari claimed, was a duty for followers of IS. Its followers quickly answered the call. At least nine attacks were launched against government checkpoints across the north-east of the country this week, including one gun battle in Raqqa that killed four members of the Syrian security forces. Unknown gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint in Baghuz on Tuesday. The attacks were unprecedented, the most serious activity seen in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad just over a year ago. It is part of what analysts say is a strategic “rebrand” for the radical group in an attempt to recruit a new generation of followers and reconstitute itself. “They want to change the perception of the group in order to revive it. They want to cancel the mistakes they committed in 2014, when you would see mass killings and walk through the countryside and see beheaded people,” said Bashar Hassan, an IS analyst from Deir ez-Zor who was imprisoned by the group. When the group controlled vast parts of Iraq and Syria, its rule was marked by brutality. The group kept sex slaves and published videos of its members burning enemies alive. Residents of Raqqa, once the capital of the group’s so-called caliphate, still shudder when they walk by the clock tower square, where severed heads were mounted on stakes after public executions. IS has since calculated that the shocking violence it became known for led people to reject it. The group has instead decided to focus more on winning hearts and minds at the local level in Syria. To do that, Hassan said, the group is trying to exploit more radical elements in Syrian society who are disappointed by the new government in Damascus, which, despite its Islamist background, has not imposed strict Islamist law on the country. Al-Sharaa, once an al-Qaida commander, has largely moved the country into the west’s orbit since becoming president. He has made Syria a member of the global coalition to defeat IS and has pushed mostly liberal economic reforms in the country – a far cry from the demands of the more extremist members of his base. IS has sought to recruit those alienated by this western turn. In a press release claiming responsibility for the attack in Raqqa this week, they included a picture of al-Sharaa meeting Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command. The Syrian government has vowed to defeat the group in Syria, but experts warn that the same factors which allowed for IS’s initial rise are still present. Most Syrians are impoverished and the streets of Deir ez-Zor are still covered in rubble. Cars queue for an hour at a time to cross the town’s only bridge, as the others lie collapsed in the Euphrates. “Education could get young people out of this ideology, but no one is implementing this. The group is not showing its dangerous side yet, and those at a formative age are being radicalised,” said Harwil. For some disaffected young men, the group’s new branding might hold some allure – or at least some sense of purpose. But in Baghuz, where residents are still careful not to stir the town’s soil in fear of what they might find, memories of IS offer nothing but fear. “We have a saying here,” the activist in Baghuz said. “Nothing can be worse than what has already happened.”