Read the daily news to learn English

‘A revolutionary act to watch it’: the film India’s censors do not want you to see

For as long as he has been a film-maker, there is one story Honey Trehan has wanted to tell above all. Growing up in the Indian state of Punjab, Trehan saw firsthand the devastation wrought by police who carried out tens of thousands of killings and illegal cremations in the 1990s, as they cracked down on a separatist insurgency. To those in Punjab, the period remains one of the darkest in India’s modern history. Jaswant Singh Khalra, the activist who exposed the crimes and was murdered in the process, is a national hero. By 2022, Trehan’s movie about Khalra and the crimes of Punjab police was completed under the title Ghallughara – a reference to a historical massacre of Sikhs – but the film would never reach Indian cinemas. For more than three years, India’s film censorship board, which must approve all cinematic releases, blocked the film from release. When it was finally launched straight to a streaming platform last week, under a new title, Satluj, it was taken down within 48 hours and banned on government orders as a threat to national security. Trehan describes the ordeal of trying to get Satluj released as “dystopian” and decries “undemocratic censorship” and alleged political interference under the Narendra Modi government re-shaping India’s film industries. He claims Indian cinema has been widely co-opted as a propaganda arm for the government’s rightwing, religious nationalist agenda, where there is “only room for one kind of story to be told”, particularly in mainstream Hindi films. “It is clear to me that there is no creative freedom in India today,” says Trehan. “When you see the level of censorship happening, films getting blocked by the film board and banned from release, it makes you question: does democracy exist in this country any more?” Even today, discussions of Punjab’s separatist movement – which raged in the 1980s and 1990s, fighting for an independent Sikh homeland called Khalistan, before it was crushed by the state – remain highly sensitive for the Modi government. A ministry of information committee backed the ban on Satluj on the grounds that it lacked “balance” and had “whitewashed” the acts of Punjabi separatist militants, with the potential to incite national security issues. “Show Muslims in a bad light and your film will get a standing ovation in the parliament,” says Trehan. “But if you dare to try and tell an uncomfortable part of our history, suddenly you are a criminal and a threat to national security.” Trehan is not the first Indian film-maker to fall foul of India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in recent years. The body is legally mandated to be independent, but it has faced growing accusations by those in the industry of pushing an agenda aligned with the Hindu nationalist politics of the Modi government. The CBFC has not responded to the allegation and was not available for comment. “From what I’ve experienced, the film board is hand in glove with the government,” says Trehan. “They are being used as a backdoor entry to control the narrative of the film industry.” Film-makers have complained of an opaque process in which films that make any reference to government oppression, certain religions, police brutality or caste violence are blocked by censors or face demands to make impossible cuts. Film-makers have even been told to cut images of meat in films, to avoid offending Hindus. There is no official figure for the number of films that have languished due to censor demands. One recent example was Santosh, which debuted at Cannes to acclaim but was blocked by the CBFC for its negative portrayal of police. Writers and directors privately acknowledge that self-censorship has become a norm in the industry in order to ensure their movies get a cinema release, and not lose huge sums in profits. Meanwhile, Bollywood films with an alleged pro-government slant such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story, which some have accused of telling a highly distorted version of historical events – and of fuelling Islamophobia and Hindu-Muslim division – have sailed past the board and been backed with government tax breaks and promotion. Anna MM Vetticad, an Indian film journalist who has written about censorship, said that the treatment of Satluj encapsulated what many film-makers now have to endure. She described a culture where film-makers were reprimanded by the censor board for realistic portrayals of social oppression or for simply “showing India in a bad light”. “The goal is to create an atmosphere of fear and encourage self-censorship among those who have not boarded the rightwing bandwagon,” says Vetticad. “The effect on Indian cinema is potentially devastating.” Trehan says few in the industry are willing to be as vocal as him, fearing retribution. “I know many other film-makers who have faced similar issues but we lack unity as an industry. Most people are too worried about speaking out, especially because there is often a lot of money and careers at stake. If you criticise, suddenly a police case could be filed against you.” In total, CBFC demanded 127 cuts to Trehan’s film, some of which appeared impossible for him to execute. As well as changing the name, the censors wanted the removal of all mention of Punjab police, the killings, government, the crematoriums where the bodies were illegally burned, the name of a former prime minister, the dates the events took place, images of the Indian flag and any scenes that showed the police in a “bad light”. They even requested the removal of Khalra’s name and a scene showing his murder inside a police station – an incident of historical record. Trehan was particularly concerned by an insistence that he change the name of Trilokpuri – a real area in Delhi where Sikhs were massacred in the 1980s – to the invented name of “Khanpuri”, which is a name associated with Muslims. “This incident had nothing to do with Muslims, so why change to this name?” says Trehan. “You could clearly see them trying to insert their Hindu-Muslim political agenda into each and every film.” The censors also questioned whether the film was really based on true events, prompting Trehan to hand them a file of more than 1,800 pages of research, including witness statements and court testimony. Trehan says that “afterwards one of the people on the board said to me: ‘To my surprise, it’s a true story. But Mr Trehan, I want to ask you one thing. Who speaks the truth so loudly in today’s time?’” As Trehan continued to be stonewalled by the CBFC, he eventually opted for a digital-only release earlier this month which does not require censor approval. He never thought the government would go as far as immediately banning the film, describing the effect as “chilling”. He says that far from provoking a “law and order situation” in Punjab, Satluj has in fact brought communities in the state together. Since it was banned, guerilla screenings have been held across Punjab and surrounding states in village squares, gurdwaras, schools, community halls and fields, sometimes with thousands turning out. “It’s become a revolutionary act to watch it,” says Trehan. At an event this month in remembrance of Khalra’s 1995 disappearance, people gathered on the banks of the Sutlej River in Punjab – where police are believed to have dumped his body and many others – and families of victims protested against the banning of the film. Ranjit Singh, 38, was three years old when his father was tortured to death by police. “This film is, for me, an archive of him – of the injustices he bore on his body,” says Singh. “It may be the only archive that all this happened. I cried for days after watching it.” Anuj Behal contributed reporting from Punjab

Israeli strike on Gaza funeral killed at least seven people, hospital says

An Israeli strike on a funeral in the Gaza Strip has killed at least seven people and injured another 22, according to a local hospital. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp confirmed the number of casualties, saying the strike hit the funeral of a Palestinian killed in another Israeli attack earlier on Friday. Israel and the Hamas militant group agreed to a ceasefire deal in October aimed at halting their two-year-long war. The heaviest fighting has subsided but at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to its health ministry. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. An independent UN inquiry has found that Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza. Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel has said its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire. The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s health ministry said.

US hits civilian infrastructure as it expands strikes against Iran

The US hit bridges, energy facilities and a key Iranian port on Friday, expanding its aerial campaign against Iran, and prompting swift Iranian strikes against US allies in the Middle East. US airstrikes hit bridges in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, killing at least seven people, Iranian state TV reported. The bridges were a key transit point for Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port. Further US airstrikes brought down a tower in Chabahar port on the Gulf of Oman that the US military claimed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) used to facilitate attacks on vessels in the strait of Hormuz. The US also targeted key electrical infrastructure and Iranshahr airport. Iran’s energy ministry told citizens to reduce their use of electricity and air conditioning after the power grid came under strain due to US strikes on energy facilities. The ministry said areas in the south were experiencing “extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure” as temperatures in Iran soared. Strikes on civilian infrastructure not being used for military purposes could constitute a war crime, human rights experts have said. Renewed US strikes had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 400 in Iran by Friday morning, said a spokesperson for Iran’s health ministry, Hossein Kermanpour. The attacks appeared to be the follow-through of Donald Trump’s promise to expand strikes against Iran, including the targeting of infrastructure and power plants. The US president reportedly met senior department heads this week to discuss an expanded aerial campaign to force Iran to reopen the strait of Hormuz. The current round of fighting has entered its seventh day and further undermined the interim deal between Iran and the US, which was meant to keep the strait open and give room for negotiations to lead to a permanent truce. Iran has shut the strait and the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and ships on Wednesday. After the US strikes on Friday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened a “devastating price” for countries hosting US bases if American attacks against infrastructure continued. “The American enemy and the hosts of its bases in the region should know that crossing red lines and attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure will have a very severe and devastating price to pay,” the IRGC said in a statement. The Iranian military responded to US strikes by targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman and Qatar. Qatar, one of the mediators between the US and Iran, had been mostly spared from Iranian retaliation in the recent rounds of violence. Qatari authorities said falling debris wounded a child as air defences intercepted missiles. In Kuwait, authorities said Iranian strikes hit a power and desalination plant, damaging the water facility. The country relies on desalinated water for about 90% of its drinking water. Officials said they were working to assess the damage and get the plant running again. Strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan killed eight members of armed Kurdish opposition groups, which blamed Iran for the strikes. Tehran also claimed to have struck the al-Tanf military base in Syria, although Syrian authorities denied this to Agence France-Presse. The renewed fighting has focused on the strait of Hormuz, which handled about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply before the war. Though the memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran last month said the strait should be open to traffic, both sides interpreted the deal differently. Washington and Tehran advanced competing plans for ships to transit the strait, with Iran attacking some ships that took the US route. Shipping in the waterway has been drastically reduced over the last few days as violence escalated, though most ships that continued to transit used the Iranian route. A tanker travelling through the strait, on the route closest to Oman, came under attack on Friday, according to the British military. The tanker sustained minor damage but none of its crew were hurt. Iran did not claim responsibility for the attack. Iranian state media also said the US struck an oil tanker which was empty and docked at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal on the strait. American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. US marines boarded the M/T Wen Yao “to ensure full compliance with the ongoing US naval blockade”, US Central Command (Centcom) said in a post on X. Centcom also said it had “redirected” three commercial vessels “trying to run the blockade” since it took effect at 8pm GMT on Tuesday. The previous day, a US aircraft fired on and disabled an unladen oil tanker that tried to break the blockade. Iran has asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targets Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi Arabia struck Sana’a airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia. Week-to-week cargo shipments through the strait of Hormuz dropped by almost a quarter at the beginning of the month, according to the maritime data firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence. And that was before the recent rise in tit-for-tat attacks. Given the risks, some oil shippers are transiting the strait with their location devices turned off, but many are just staying put, Lloyd’s said on Thursday. A growing amount of the region’s energy is being shipped through pipelines, but not nearly enough to offset the decline in shipping through the strait. Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said efforts were still under way to bring the US and Tehran to the negotiating table but acknowledged that was becoming increasingly difficult. Despite the escalating conflict and interruption of trade, Trump said the war was going well for the US. “We are likewise winning big in Iran, and you will see the fruits of that labour very, very shortly,” Trump said in an address to the American public. The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

A new entente? Bayeux tapestry’s UK arrival ‘closes loop’ on Brexit tensions

In the decade after Brexit, the relationship between Britain and France has been defined by rows over fishing rights, Channel crossings and trade. Boris Johnson even mocked Emmanuel Macron, telling his French counterpart to “donnez-moi un break”. This week, that fractious chapter gave way to one of the most significant acts of cultural diplomacy between the two countries in decades. Almost 1,000 years after it was created, the Bayeux tapestry arrived at the British Museum, transported from France under cover of darkness, the culmination of years of painstaking negotiations between London and Paris. A small group of guests, including the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, and the British Museum chair, George Osborne, were given a first glimpse on Tuesday of the historic embroidery as preparations continued for its public unveiling in September. “You get a sense of the sheer vastness of the tapestry when you walk into that room,” Nandy said. “When President Macron visited the British Museum last year and we signed the official document, that’s when it all felt real to me.” Precautionary rules had to be followed before anyone was allowed near the tapestry. Phones and pens were banned. We were asked to put on aprons and wear protective covers over our shoes. “We look like a bunch of cheesemongers,” Osborne observed. Only one section of the 70-metre tapestry was on display, with the rest covered by a black sheet in a long, glass case stretching into the distance. But that one fragment was enough to make the room fall quiet. It was laid out in the open, close enough to see the individual stitches, the faded colours and the tiny details woven into the fabric. The conservators nearby watched every movement with anxiety. Michael Lewis, the British Museum’s lead curator for the exhibition, guided Nandy and Osborne through the scenes, which include an image of William the Conqueror, sword raised, receiving a message about Harold. “So someone’s sitting on the throne, and someone wants to take it from him,” Osborne said. “All in the past!” “I’ve been stitched up here,” Nandy joked. “What would historians say about William now?” Osborne asked Lewis. “Did he have a legitimate claim to the throne?” “Not at all,” Lewis replied. “You’re trying to ignite an ancient battle,” Nandy said, attempting to suppress her laughter. “I just thought we could tell Macron,” Osborne replied. The loan, first proposed by Theresa May and Macron in 2018, required years of talks over everything from the conditions of transport to the precise temperature and lighting needed to protect an object that has never before left France. “There couldn’t be any risk whatsoever of damage,” Nandy said. “A lot of the diplomacy in the discussions was about the minutiae and the painstaking detail: what sort of case it would be in, how it would be transported, what temperature, what lighting.” The tapestry’s arrival was a carefully choreographed operation. The group were shown the enormous bespoke box in which it travelled, folded concertina-style inside its protective casing. The UK’s special envoy for the tapestry, Peter Ricketts, arrived wearing a Bayeux tapestry tie. He was joined by his French counterpart, Philippe Bélaval, and it began to feel like a party. For Nandy, the loan is evidence of a wider attempt to rebuild Britain’s cultural relationships after Brexit. “After the original agreement, talks stalled, not just because of the pandemic, but because there was a very needlessly antagonistic relationship for many years between the UK and France,” she said. “This does, in a lot of ways, feel like closing the loop on that chapter.” Nandy first encountered the tapestry as a 12-year-old on a school trip to Bayeux. “I remember feeling quite sick from drinking a lot of hot chocolate,” she recalled. “But it was amazing to see.” Now, she hopes the exhibition will give a new generation the same opportunity. Schoolchildren from across the UK will be invited to visit the tapestry in an effort to ensure it remains more than a relic of medieval history. “There are quite a few people in the UK for whom the Bayeux tapestry is one of the most famous artefacts in the world,” Nandy said. “But there are also quite a few people, particularly young people, who don’t know anything about it.” Nandy said the government had sought to make cultural exchange a more deliberate part of its foreign policy. “One of the things that we’ve been doing with a lot of our partner organisations, including the British Museum, is being much more proactive about helping them to navigate some of the complexities involved,” she said. She pointed to China as an example where cultural links remain valuable but require caution. “The people-to-people connections are vital,” she said. “But there are obviously challenges around free speech, censorship, human rights and security.” The British Museum has also been at the centre of debates about how cultural institutions navigate political pressures. Nandy said institutions should not retreat from those difficult debates. “I think they relish it. Art has always been a way of challenging the status quo,” she said. “It’s always been a way of helping us to rethink our past and reinterpret the future.” Nandy said decisions around future loans remained a matter for institutions, but the government could help create the conditions for dialogue. “To reach out with the hand of friendship,” she said, “whether it’s the Elgin marbles or Benin bronzes or any of the more controversial acquisitions.” During the final photographs, conservators reminded visitors not to lean too close over the embroidery. “Put your hands on it,” someone joked. “Quelle horreur,” came a whispered response. The miniature Anglo-French exchange felt almost reassuringly familiar.

Peter Falconio murder: British expert says he has identified a ‘most likely’ burial location

The former British government expert who consulted on the search for the remains of the murdered backpacker Peter Falconio says he has now identified a “most likely” potential burial location – an abandoned racetrack only 8km from the scene of the infamous outback attack at Barrow Creek. In July 2001, Falconio and his partner, Joanne Lees, both from Yorkshire, were ambushed and attacked by Bradley John Murdoch as they drove along a remote stretch of road in Australia’s Northern Territory, about 300km north of Alice Springs. Falconio was shot and killed at the roadside. Murdoch bound Lees with cable ties in what is believed to have been an attempted abduction but she managed to flee into the darkness and hide in the scrub for hours. Murdoch was convicted of Falconio’s murder in 2005 but never admitted his guilt or spoke about where he took the backpacker’s remains. He died in prison last year. This week, 25 years after the attack, the Northern Territory police released a video of an agitated Murdoch refusing to reveal the location before his death. “I know nothing,” he says. The decades-long police search for Falconio’s remains has been underpinned by two assumptions. The first is that the search is a “needle-in-a-haystack” effort in an incredibly large area of red dirt and sun-bleached scrub, stretching south for a distance roughly equivalent to a drive from London to Leeds. The second is that because of that vastness, only Murdoch could ever lead authorities to the site. Dr Mark Harrison, the UK’s national police search adviser in the early 2000s and a world-leading consultant in “no-body” homicide cases, says this is not the case. Harrison told Guardian Australia last year that the chances of locating Falconio’s body remained “high” and that he had identified five possible burial locations using a combination of criminal profiling and physical site analysis. He returned to the outback this year with the retired FBI criminal profiler Kathy Canning-Mello and the pair visited the potential locations. Some of their site assessments were filmed for the documentary Outback Terror: The Falconio Murder. Harrison revealed to the Guardian that, after working with Canning-Mello, he had revised five potential sites from his earlier reports down to three. But that he believes the most likely potential burial site – the “primary” site for any comprehensive geoforensic search – is a disused racecourse. “We have a phrase in this type of work, whenever we work on a cold case we say, ‘You must clear the ground from under your feet,’” Harrison says. “What we mean by that is that the nearest most proximate location must be considered. “If you had a map of the area, the racecourse is the most likely crime scene near the attack site. The geography is unique to this case. The nearest place to conceal a body is the racecourse, otherwise it’s just a stretch of road.” Into the criminal mind In the absence of a confession by Murdoch, a psychological criminal profile is arguably the most effective way of getting into the mind of the killer. The criminal profiling and other evidence that have gone into identifying possible burial sites include an assessment that Murdoch’s intent – when he shot Falconio and bound Lees – was to kidnap and rape her. Murdoch, a one-time interstate drug runner on the Stuart Highway that connects Australia’s north and south like a scar across the interior, was familiar with the terrain and is assumed to have planned to take Lees to a specific isolated location. When she escaped, Harrison says it is likely that same intended location became the burial site. By this logic, the racecourse stands out. “What we do know is that he would absolutely know it was there, he was a long-distance driver, he would drive past that for years and one would suspect he would have driven past that when it was an active racecourse. “He chose the attack location for several reasons. When it gets dark, as soon as it’s past the racecourse he’s got a perfectly straight road. He’s doing that because he can see up the road and down the road in clear sight. He also knows the can get to the racecourse very quickly. “It provides such good cover from view. The old racecourse buildings, the canopy cover, you’re hidden away.” Lees told police that, after Murdoch searched for her along the highway, he had given up and driven south, towards Alice Springs. CCTV footage of the killer arriving at an Alice Springs petrol station that night, taking into account the time it would have taken him to drive there, leaves about 90 minutes unaccounted for. “He’s not panicking, he’s frustrated,” Harrison says. “He’s drug-affected, he’s frustrated and cross because his plan hasn’t gone to plan. But now he’s going to dispose of Peter. There’s no panicking this man, he’s got time to spend some time in concealing his body. “This is where people who are uninformed about these cases would think that if an abduction is unsuccessful, the person is going to panic. “This is not who he is. What he can control now is how he gets rid of this body. That’s going to bring some comfort to him. To make sure he disposes and hides him somewhere and in a manner he is confident no one will find him.” Northern Territory police searched the racecourse in the aftermath of the killing, after Lees flagged down a road train and was taken back to the Barrow Creek roadhouse. The searches included walk-throughs and officers riding motorbikes. Harrison says this would not have located a well-concealed body. Last year Guardian Australia revealed that the recommendations from Harrison’s two reports had never been properly been followed by the Northern Territory police. The search expert, who consulted on cases including the searches for Madeleine McCann and the Australian children Daniel Morecombe and William Tyrrell, was involved at the expense of the British government and had access to the entire case file. He says typically his involvement in cases would involve identifying sites, developing a search strategy, then having some involvement or oversight of the search. But he says the Falconio case was “unusual” because the Northern Territory government took his report “which was highly technical” and did their own searches. In a statement last year, the NT police said they received the report and attended each suggested site. “Police resourcing is finite and the entire scope of the report, and suggested search techniques, could not be completed by the NT Police at the time, however ongoing assessment and review of this data continues,” a spokesperson said. Harrison says advances in technology would allow for a “high assurance” search, including the use of drones, radar and a dog. The process could be conducted for less than the cost of the $500,000 reward for information, which remains in place despite Murdoch’s death. “What I’m saying is that the most likely site has simply not been searched to a level of confidence you’d require to say he’s not there. “The racecourse is a potential crime scene that was visited but never searched as you would a crime scene. “And that site has been almost frozen in time. Normally after such a long time you’d have to contend with changes like urban development or environmental impacts, but there aren’t any. “Nothing has changed, it literally is as it was. That is such an advantage for us.”

Iran proves it can still inflict damage despite waves of US attacks

Iran and the US have been trading blows for six consecutive nights and there are no shortage of signs that the renewed fighting will worsen further. Tehran and Washington remain far apart diplomatically, and though the US retains a significant military overmatch, Iran has more than enough capability to inflict damage. Friday’s developments are a case in point. A wave of US attacks, with missiles launched from jets, drones and warships, targeted Iranian ports and the south of the country, collapsing a tower at Chabahar, on the Gulf of Oman, and highways and bridges into the strait of Hormuz port of Bandar Abbas, perhaps in an effort to cut it off. Iran responded in familiar fashion by attacking US allies: Qatar, Bahrain and most significantly Kuwait, where a power and desalination plant was hit, causing a fire and an undetermined amount of damage. Desalination is critical for water supply – and human life – in the arid Gulf, providing an estimated 90% of Kuwait’s needs. The US had claimed, repeatedly, that its intense 38-day spring bombing campaign with Israel had destroyed or decimated Iran’s military. This week, with surprising precision, Donald Trump told Fox News that Iran’s “weapons are down 91%”, but US intelligence reports and the scale of Iranian attacks tell a different story. Leaked US intelligence assessments concluded in May that Iran had regained access to 30 out of 33 missile launch sites along the strait of Hormuz and perhaps 70% of its overall prewar missile stockpile and launchers. It is easier to block the entrance to an Iranian underground missile base with rubble from explosions than entirely disable it, but that makes a clear-up during the late spring ceasefire perfectly possible. Two oil tankers that were sailing along the southern route of the strait of Hormuz, near Oman, were struck by missiles on Monday, according to the UK’s Maritime Trade Organisation, killing one sailor and wounding eight. A third tanker was struck further east, in the Gulf of Oman, 45 miles north-west of Qalhat, illustrating the range of Iranian air power against tankers that are hard to defend unless a warship is close. The results were predictable: the US reimposed its own blockade in the Gulf of Oman, the number of daily transits through Hormuz dropped to three by Thursday, the fewest since May, and the price of Brent crude oil, which ended last week at $75.50, rose to $82. Iran has to retain only a limited threat to close the strait. To emphasise the point, another tanker was reported hit on Friday, though there were no reports of casualties. “Now that the plaster has been ripped off, the costs for escalation for both sides are so much lower than before February 28,” said Michael Carpenter, a former Biden administration national security official, now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but the White House has “no clear or well thought-through strategy for how to get out of this”. A frustrated US is exploring how to bend Iran to its will, after Trump described the country’s leaders as “scum” and “sick people” at this month’s Nato summit, though it is not obvious how that can be done without a substantial ground campaign, for which the US is not prepared for, nor has the appetite for. The 2,200 marines in the USS Boxer amphibious group are also involved in enforcing the US blockade. Military escalation was considered at a White House Situation Room meeting on Tuesday, followed by leaks that the options considered included bombing another deep-lying nuclear site at Pickaxe Mountain – which would have no effect on the now critical Hormuz dynamic – or a seizure of the strategic Kharg Island, through which 90% of Iran’s oil exports would flow if there was no US blockade. It is perfectly possible for the US to capture Kharg or any other small location on the ground, but the challenge would be holding on, as it would be inevitably targeted by Iranian missiles and drones. Meanwhile, continued US bombing will further reduce stockpiles of hard-to-make air defence interceptors, depleted by a half, and expensive missiles, down by a quarter to a third, based on estimates from the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank. Trump has also threatened to escalate further, bombing “all their power plants” perhaps as soon as next week. Such a degree of escalation would invite international condemnation as it would be widely considered a war crime – as well risk a dangerous Iranian retaliation in the Gulf, as underlined by Friday’s desalination plant strike in Kuwait. It is also rhetoric from which he backed down from in April. Iran’s regime has shown it can endure. Its coherence was underlined by the organisation of the week-long national funeral procession of Ali Khamenei, points out Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a lecturer at Cambridge University. She fears a sharp military escalation, though “my feeling is it will be shorter” than in the spring, because both sides are depleted, resulting in a not dissimilar outcome to now. It is a reminder that it easier to start wars with unrealistic goals than to end them. “Neither can deliver a knockout blow at an acceptable price,” Farmanfarmaian said.

Iranian airport and bridges hit as US forces board ship amid ports blockade – as it happened

The US military has struck a number of civilian infrastructure sites across southern Iran, including railway brides and a port facility, according to Iranian state media. The latest US attacks targeted six bridges, a railway station and port control tower, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported. Iranshahr airport was also reportedly hit. Eight people were killed and 20 others wounded in the US attacks across Iran last night, according to the country’s health ministry. Iran retaliated by firing on Middle Eastern nations hosting US bases, including Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened “more crushing” attacks if US forces continued to attack Iranian civilian infrastructure. The IRGC has said it targeted US radar systems and military aircraft in Qatar to “punish the aggressor”, with Doha saying it had intercepted a missile attack. The IRGC claimed to have “targeted American fighter jets and tankers stationed in Jordan”, resulting in “the destruction of several US refuelling aircraft and warplanes and serious damage to many more of them”. The US did not immediately comment on the claim. Kuwait’s energy ministry said one of its power and water desalination plants was attacked by Iran, resulting in a fire and damage to the facility. Meanwhile, the Jordanian military said earlier that it shot down three incoming missiles launched by Iran this morning. Iran’s strikes “will continue until peace is restored to the southern coastline and the strait of Hormuz”, Majid Mousavi, aerospace chief for the IRGC, said in a statement published by Iranian state media. The prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, has denounced the “unjustified attacks” on the region that he blamed on Iran. “While urging the Islamic Republic of Iran to stop this escalation, we also call on the Iraqi federal government and the international community to end these violations,” he said in a statement issued by his office. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it has received a report of an incident off the coast of Oman involving a tanker and military forces in the area. “Reports indicate that the tanker was subject to interaction as part of ongoing military activity in the region,” UKMTO said of the incident, adding that it happened 100 nautical miles (about 115 miles) east of the Omani port of Duqm. It provided no further details.

Dismissal of Ukraine’s defence minister highlights wider issues for Zelenskyy

Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s abrupt dismissal of Ukraine’s youthful and innovative defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, at precisely the moment Kyiv appeared to be gaining advantages in several spheres of its war with Russia has exposed, not for the first time, a troubling flaw in the president’s leadership. The move, which has startled senior European officials and caused consternation, and demonstrations, in Ukraine, is all the more shocking given Fedorov’s role in pushing a clear strategy to prosecute the war, leveraging Ukraine’s rapidly developing technological advances in drone and missile technology. Aged 35 and appointed in January, Fedorov was feted by admirers for beginning to grasp several issues that have plagued Ukraine’s armed forces, streamlining military procurement and challenging systems prone to corruption, introducing competitive tendering, and seeking solutions to the army’s persistent recruitment and training crisis. Fedorov was also seen as one of the key drivers of Ukraine’s highly effective drone programme, beginning during his time as minister of digital transformation. A former marketing executive close to Zelenskyy, who had never served in the army, he grated with senior officers thanks to his casual style, freewheeling speeches and insistence on a data-driven approach to reforming Kyiv’s war efforts. “We will take all the data and see what works,” he said after his appointment. “Everything that works well will proceed.” That included a killing-for-points scheme designed to reward the most effective army units, which some in the military dismissed. In addition, Fedorov was credited with persuading Elon Musk to turn off unauthorised Russian Starlink access on the battlefield earlier this year, described by frontline troops as a significant advantage. Born in the year of Ukraine’s independence from Moscow, Fedorov is seen as part of a generation unencumbered by the experience of Soviet bureaucracy, in sharp contrast to the country’s 60-year-old military chief of staff Oleksandr Syrski, a graduate of Moscow higher combined arms command school, who began his career as an artillery officer. With hindsight, the conflict between the two men and their ideas about how to fight the war was inevitable: between an older – and old-school – general, micromanaging a bruising war of attrition against a more numerous foe, and Fedorov, with his tech-driven, more improvisational approach that appeared in recent months to be showing dividends. While bitter competition between key wartime leaders is hardly new, the failure, not least in the opinion of Fedorov and his supporters, has been in Zelenskyy’s handling of the rivalry, which had seen Fedorov request the removal of Syrski. “When the president said he did not plan to replace Syrskyi, I said I would learn to work with him,” Fedorov said at the press conference after his removal, suggesting the general sought to block the defence minister’s initiatives at every turn. “All the initiatives we proposed began to be blocked,” he added. “And he was not prepared to discuss any of the problems we have spoken about today personally, face to face and openly. “Instead of finding a way of defeating Russia asymmetrically – which is the commander-in-chief’s job – he’s found a way of splitting our country,” Fedorov said. Zelenskyy’s own parsing of the situation, at a joint press conference on Thursday with the outgoing British prime minister, Keir Starmer, was unconvincing as he appeared to complain that he was being asked “to choose between sides [when honestly] what I want most is unity”. All of which has led to inevitable suggestions that Zelenskyy and his circle – not for the first time – had sidelined someone seen as popular and a potential future political rival. “The decision,” an editorial in the Kyiv Independent said, “bears all the hallmarks of Zelenskyy’s tendency to dismiss top officials and commanders who get too popular, ahead of hypothetical elections that will never happen if Russia overwhelms Ukraine. “Forced to choose between the man who was turning the war of attrition around with technology and intelligent strategy on one hand, and the man who was sabotaging it with micromanagement and Soviet thinking on the other, Zelenskyy thought about it and chose the latter.” As demonstrations over Fedorov’s removal continued for a second day, the question now is what lasting impact it will have as a fifth defence minister is appointed in as many years. For Zelenskyy, it underlines again the fact that, impressive as he is on a global stage and as a wartime figurehead for Ukraine, he has struggled to assemble and retain a cohesive team of senior officials around him, balancing competing interests to ensure continuity in the war effort. While Russian military bloggers have celebrated the ousting of Fedorov, Zelenskyy’s move to appoint Yevhen Khmara as interim defence minister suggests that, despite the feud between Fedorov and Syrski, the emphasis on technology and long- and medium-range drone strikes is likely to persist. Khmara is a former head of the state security service’s Alpha unit, which has been heavily involved in drone strike operations. Zelenskyy has indicated he wants Khmara to push forward with a number of Fedorov’s key reform programmes. The question many Ukrainians find themselves asking, however, is whether anyone can genuinely be empowered to be effective in the role.