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US expands Iran attacks as Trump warns Tehran and Houthis over Red Sea strikes

The US has struck targets across Iran, reaching as far as the Caspian Sea, as Donald Trump threatened “major military punishment” for Tehran and its Houthi allies in Yemen for extending the war to a second shipping ⁠chokepoint at the entrance to the Red Sea. As Iran retaliated on Friday with missile and drone fire against US bases and allies across the region, the New York Times reported that Tehran had rejected a US ceasefire proposal delivered by the Iraq prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi. This despite the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, claiming a day earlier that Iran was begging for a ceasefire. Iraq later disputed the report. Trump warned China and Russia on Friday against selling weapons to Iran, saying he believed assurances from Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that they were not yet doing so. Iran said it was in consultations with both countries. On his Truth Social network, the US president wrote: “Therefore, two major Countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating. If they did, it would be very bad for them – Certainly not in their best interests.” Iran’s military said it had launched drone strikes on Friday morning against US military targets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait as it appeared there was no end in sight to the fighting. It told civilians across the region to stay 500 metres away from locations where US troops were present. The Houthis, who control northern and western Yemen, continued to claim a naval blockade on Saudi Arabian ports and ships using the Bab el-Mandeb strait at the entrance to the Red Sea. The Houthis insisted on Friday that only Saudi-linked trade was under blockade as ships in the Red Sea broadcast messages to the group identifying ownership, flag and crew in the hope of securing a safe passage. The Houthis struck two Saudi tankers on Thursday in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, pushing oil prices up 7% to more than $100 per barrel for the first time since May. The attacks forced several other tankers to turn around and head north through the Suez canal, a much longer and more expensive route to reach Asia by sailing around ‌Africa. Shipping insurance costs through the southern Red Sea doubled for some companies on Thursday, sources said. Still, half of the 18 ships exiting Bab el-Mandeb on Thursday were carrying crude oil, including two Chinese supertankers. The number of tankers crossing through the strait of Hormuz fell to just one on Thursday, the lowest figure since 7 May. Trump wrote on social media that he would hold Iran accountable for any further Red Sea attacks, saying “major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis themselves”. He told Axios he was considering relaunching major combat against Iran. “They haven’t received enough pain yet,” the US news outlet quoted Truump as saying. Washington and Tehran appear to remain fundamentally at odds over future control of the strait of Hormuz. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, insisted the problem with advancing peace talks was “the American approach”. Araghchi said: “Preserving Iran’s interests in the strait of Hormuz is among our principles and we are committed to them. We are neither intimidated by threats nor will we yield to pressure. “As long as the legitimate goals and demands of the Iranian people are not met, it is natural that we continue our efforts.” Iranian officials had earlier suggested that the most recent US proposal involved a temporary arrangement that did not address control of the strait of Hormuz. Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in the conflict, has also been pushing for fresh talks between the two sides after an initiative by ⁠China. Exploratory discussions took place during a visit by Iran’s interior minister, Eskandar Momeni, to Islamabad this week – his second within the last 10 days, sources said. Iranian state media said US missiles had struck Qeshm Island in the strait of Hormuz. Tehran said it had attacked US military equipment depots at Al-Adiri, officially named Camp Buehring, in northern Kuwait, and US troop positions at Camp Arifjan and Camp Doha near Kuwait City. It also said it had significantly damaged a surveillance tower used by the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. In an example of how shipping disruption caused by the war affects other countries, ‌Coca-Cola has raised the prices of Diet Coke in India – where it is mainly sold in aluminium cans – by more than 10% as the conflict chokes its supply chain. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

Middle East crisis latest: US carries out strikes across Iran as Tehran targets American bases in region

As we put the blog on pause for the time being, here is our full report on the latest attacks the US has launched against Iran and Donald Trump’s warning to Tehran:

How Chinese tech and Russian tactics are aiding Iran’s bombing of US bases

As the crisis in the Middle East escalates, Iran has been bombing US bases and critical infrastructure in the Gulf with increasing accuracy, helped by Chinese satellite imagery and tactics learned by Russia in Ukraine. Three US soldiers were killed last Friday in an attack on the Muwaffaq Salti airbase in Jordan, which was being protected by a Thaad air defence system. Satellite imagery later released by Iranian media showed several buildings had been destroyed. It is not clear why the air defence system failed in that incident, which is under Pentagon investigation, but it is a reminder that Iran retains an effective missile capability that its new leadership is willing to deploy. Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at the school of security studies, King’s College London, said a combination of better intelligence, missile navigation, manoeuvrability and coordinated attack planning amounted to “a real transformation”. It was the product, Krieg said, of three years of technological development of Iran’s ballistic missile programme, which remained roughly 70% intact on US intelligence estimates, despite previous claims from Washington that Tehran’s military capabilities had been obliterated. The first step was to use Chinese satellite imagery to help identify targets at US bases and other sites in the Gulf. The US imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies in May for providing such images. One, Mizar Vision, exposed the presence of US military aircraft and Patriot and Thaad air defence systems at bases in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Jordanian base hit last week, and imagery released on social media was widely picked up. Some experts, however, said they were less sure Beijing had been providing intelligence. Sidharth Kaushal of the Royal United Services Institute said Iran had focused on static targets at US bases, for which commercial imagery was enough. “I haven’t seen anything where Iran has struck a target so dynamic that I’ve looked at this and gone ‘this has got to be foreign aid,’” he said. At the same time, however, questions have been raised about whether US bases, built to withstand attacks from insurgents, are sufficiently hardened against Iranian missile and drone attacks. A string of accurate Iranian attacks on CIA facilities across the Gulf during the bombings made US analysts wonder whether Russia had shared locations with Tehran, but the hypothesis is tentative. The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, told Congress this week that China and Russia were helping Iran to some extent. But Donald Trump contradicted him on Friday, saying Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had personally assured him that they would not sell weapons to Iran. Iran’s ballistic programme relies heavily on Chinese electronics and ammonium perchlorate for rocket fuel, but the finished weapons are considered sophisticated enough to be able to occasionally defeat stretched US and Gulf air defences. Iranian missiles boast complex navigation, using GPS, China’s BeiDou and Russia’s Glonass simultaneously as they launch towards targets, and re-entry speeds, which are several times the speed of sound, always make anti-ballistic defence a challenge. Tehran has also developed “steerable warheads that can adjust their course during descent” on some of its ballistic missiles, Kreig said. Heat-seeking and optical navigation for the terminal phase means they are not vulnerable to electronic jamming because they are not using radio communication. All this is enough to present a serious challenge for US air defences at a time when stockpiles of Patriot and Thaad interceptors have been run down by about half after the 38-day US-Israel bombing campaign in the spring. Add in energy sites, oil refineries and desalination plants and there is a large area to cover. Iran has also evolved tactically in its missile attacks, using methods similar to Russia in Ukraine, where smaller salvoes can be more effective than larger ones, and drones are used to distract air defences, making way for a ballistic attack. Kaushal said he believed it was a case of the two countries’ militaries learning from each other’s experience – “a convergent evolution” – rather than it necessarily being the result of Moscow directly teaching Tehran. Though there is a degree of anti-western understanding between Iran, Russia and China, as well as North Korea, the so called “axis of upheaval” is far from a consistent military alliance. “There is a kind of collaboration there, but it doesn’t produce the kind of massive net benefits that Nato produces,” said Matthew Savill, a defence analyst from the Royal United Services Institute.

France evacuates Cap Ferret peninsula as Spanish wildfires merge near Madrid – as it happened

And, on that note, we will be closing the blog for today. More than 80,000 people have fled huge wildfires in Spain and France as Madrid declared a national emergency and French authorities ordered the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots. Both countries have triggered the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism to get help with battling the blaze (9:48, 10:53, 13:24). Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez warned the country faced “a dramatic situation,” after a rare decision to declare a rare state of national emergency (11:03, 11:31), and satellite pictures showing the scale of devastation (13:59). In other news, A Romanian ⁠F-16 fighter jet shot down ⁠a drone that had entered its airspace on Friday, president Nicușor Dan said, with authorities investigating its origin (16:30). Germany’s embattled and deeply unpopular chancellor, Friedrich Merz, sought to turn a scandal into an opportunity with a mini cabinet reshuffle (16:08), as he desperately hopes to turn his rock-bottom poll ratings around. Poland’s main opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has split, after former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and his allies said they were forced out (16:21) over factional disagreements on policy direction ahead of next year’s parliamentary election. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

A global threat for millennia: experts warn Australia’s nuclear submarine legacy will be weapons-usable uranium cache

Australia’s proposed nuclear submarine fleet will leave behind tonnes of weapons-usable uranium-235: radioactive for hundreds of millions of years, and capable of being processed into scores of warheads, nuclear experts have told a public inquiry into Aukus. And a former White House national security adviser has told the Guardian that Australia’s Aukus deal – involving the transfer of highly enriched uranium to a non-nuclear weapons nation – sets a dangerous proliferation precedent that other countries such as Iran could try to exploit, weakening global control of the spread of weapons-usable nuclear material. Associate Prof Tilman Ruff, founding chair of the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, told the Aukus public inquiry that the legacy of Australia’s nuclear submarine fleet – of which each vessel will have a service life of about three decades – will be hundreds of kilograms of high-level radioactive waste. Even as waste, the submarines’ spent reactor fuel will be highly enriched uranium (HEU), usable to build nuclear weapons. “No nation has resolved the huge problem of how to manage this material and there’s no guarantee – given the timeframes involved and the hazards of the material over geological time – that any arrangement that we come up with could reliably isolate that material for hundreds of thousands, or millions of years. “The additional complication here is that it needs a really high level of security because, in 10,000 years, somebody could still go and dig that stuff up and build nuclear weapons with it.” The uranium left behind by Australia’s nuclear submarines at the end of their working lives will likely still be enriched to about 80%: the same level as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The Australian government has repeatedly said the precise amount of high-level nuclear waste that will be left behind by its submarine fleet is classified. But documents released under freedom of information laws show Australia will be responsible for each submarine’s nuclear reactor compartment, “roughly the size of a four-wheel drive”, and spent nuclear fuel “roughly the size of a small hatchback”. Leading global experts on non-proliferation have now estimated each nuclear submarine decommissioned by Australia – beginning in the 2050s – will contain about 400kg of HEU, enriched to about 80%, containing about 320kg of uranium-235 (U-235). The International Atomic Energy Agency states a “significant quantity” of highly enriched uranium – enough to make a weapon – is 25kg of contained U-235. U-235 has a half-life of 700m years: it will be a weapons proliferation risk for millennia. And the radioactive materials generated by its fission process will be toxic to humanity and the environment for millions of years. The HEU left behind by each one of Australia’s three second-hand Virginia-class submarines bought from the US would be sufficient for more than a dozen weapons. Australia’s domestically built Aukus-class submarines – Australia is proposing to build five – will be powered by Rolls-Royce’s in-development PWR3+ reactor. The quantity of HEU required to power that reactor is classified but they are expected to be larger than the Virginia-class reactors, Ruff said. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email The Aukus agreement mandates that Australia is responsible for the disposal and storage of all of the nuclear waste left behind by its nuclear-powered submarines in perpetuity. By the end of the century, when all eight of Australia’s planned nuclear powered submarines have been retired, Australia will be responsible for the management of “at least 3 tonnes” of U-235 in the highly enriched uranium spent fuel waste, Ruff told the Guardian. “That’s enough for 120 nuclear weapons using the International Atomic Energy Agency standard.” Australia has spent decades reducing its HEU stocks. There is presently less than 3kg of HEU in the entire country, held for research purposes. Ruff told the public inquiry into Aukus, established by the Australian Peace and Security Forum, that his primary concern over Aukus was that it exacerbated regional tensions and made Australia “a higher priority target, including for nuclear attack”. Ruff cited the work of Dr Frank von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor of public and international affairs emeritus at Princeton University, who estimated that the reactor of a Virginia-class submarine – such as those Australia is set to buy from the US – would be decommissioned at the end of its working life still containing about 400kg of HEU, enriched to about 80%. Von Hippel, who served as an assistant director for national security in the Clinton White House, told the Guardian “by the IAEA’s metric, 0.4 tons of 80% enriched uranium would be sufficient for 13 implosion bombs”. “That’s a lot of weapons potential there. And that’s just one submarine. That is going to change the situation in Australia with regard to the proliferation potential.” Von Hippel said successive US administrations had spent decades bringing thousands of kilograms of HEU on to American soil to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism. Since the 1990s, about 30 countries have reduced their HEU stocks down to less than 1kg. Countries such as France and China run nuclear-powered submarine fleets on low-enriched uranium, a far lower proliferation risk. “The worry is not so much Australia as the precedent,” von Hippel said, citing countries such as Iran which has previously justified enriching uranium to 60% by saying that in the future it might want to have naval reactors. “My concern is the proliferation example that the US and Australia and the UK have established by legitimising the use of weapons-grade uranium for attack submarines by non-weapons states: they have lowered the barriers to acquisition of nuclear weapons by this action.” Von Hippel said Article IV D in the Aukus agreement, mandating Australia store and manage all spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, defied decades of non-proliferation efforts. “The US has been insisting that spent fuel be sent back to it, because of this concern that the uranium is still weapons usable in the spent fuel. And now, in the case of Aukus, the US … is insisting that Australia keep the uranium … setting a new kind of precedent.” ‘Highest levels of nuclear stewardship’ A spokesperson for the Australian Submarine Agency told the Guardian the government was committed to the “highest levels of nuclear stewardship”, including responsibility for “management, storage, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste generated from its conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines”. But Australia won’t need to dispose of high-level nuclear waste until the 2050s, when the country’s first nuclear-powered boats are decommissioned, the spokesperson said. “That means we have time to get this decision right, including through a thorough process informed by technical advice and extensive consultation.” The ASA reiterated Australia would not accept intermediate or high-level radioactive waste – including spent nuclear fuel – from any country, including the UK or US. “Aukus is about keeping Australians safe in the most challenging strategic environment since the Second World War. It … strengthens our ability to deter coercion and contribute to regional stability.” The defence department commissioned a review of potential nuclear waste sites in 2023. It has had that report for more than two years but has consistently refused to release it. The defence minister, Richard Marles, said last month Aukus was on track, including consideration of a nuclear waste site. “We have time to work this through, and we will work it through. And … what we have made clear is that the disposal facility will be on existing or future defence ground.”

How dangerous are wildfires and how can we stop them from getting worse?

Fierce wildfires after back-to-back heatwaves have forced tens of thousands of people across southern Europe to flee their homes, while powerful infernos across Canada and the US choke big cities with thick smoke. How deadly are wildfires? Wildfires directly kill hundreds of people each year. Though they may seem apocalyptic, the death toll is far lower than from floods, which kill thousands, and from heatwaves, which kill hundreds of thousands. But when you factor in smoke, the human cost rises rapidly. The latest study estimates that the air pollution spewed by wildfires kills a staggering 1.5 million people each year. The toxic fumes can reach so far that tendrils of smoke from Australian bushfires have menaced South America, while smoke from Canadian fires – which regularly suffocate cities across the US – have fouled the air in Europe. Last year, a study attributed 22,000 early deaths in Europe to Canadian wildfire smoke in 2023, out of a total of 82,000 deaths. What causes wildfires? Many things can spark a wildfire: natural causes such as lightning, faulty infrastructure such as downed power lines, or people behaving badly. Devastating blazes in recent years have been started by smokers tossing cigarette butts, tourists failing to put out campfires, and even arsonists intentionally setting nature alight. But whether those sparks turn into small fires or raging blazes depends on the weather. Fires need hot, dry fuel to burn, and they spread further with strong winds. How does climate breakdown affect wildfires? Fossil fuel pollution has heated the planet by about 1.3C, raising the risk of prolonged heat that turns forests and grasslands into tinderboxes. In some regions, such as the Mediterranean, global heating is also fuelling droughts that dry out lush greenery. Scientists have found that such shifts have made the wildfires that have happened this year in places including California, South Korea and Australia more likely – in some cases doubling the chance of extreme weather conditions that help fires spread. Are wildfires getting worse? Even as the planet has heated up, the area torched by fires has fallen. This is because people have taken nature that used to burn freely and turned it into farms or cities – in recent decades mainly in Africa – that stop the spread of flames. The latest models find land use changes and other human drivers have shrunk the burned area by 19.1% since 1900, while climate changes increased it by 15.8% – resulting in a small decline of 3.3% overall. Will wildfires become more common? The conditions for ferocious fires are expected to worsen as the planet bakes. Two separate indices of fire weather project a steady rise in the number of days with high fire danger as temperatures inch higher, a recent study found. By the end of the century, the total burned area is projected to rise by 40% even in an optimistic scenario for cutting carbon pollution, according to a separate study. In a worst-case scenario, it is set to double. How can we adapt to wildfires? The danger that wildfires pose to people and property can drop sharply by managing land better. This can include creating fire breaks to stem the spread of an inferno, stopping new settlement in places prone to fires, and even sending herds of goats into abandoned farmland to graze away overgrown vegetation. In some places firefighters are trying the technique of intentionally burning land to avoid a buildup of fuel that could lead to catastrophic fires – a long-running Indigenous practice in Australia and North America that European fire experts are starting to adopt. Would better forest management solve the problem? Not on its own. Land abandonment and fire suppression is a big contributor to the buildup of fuel that allows blazes in parts of the US and the Mediterranean to explode into mega-fires, but in Canada, most of the burning takes place in boreal forests that were never managed by humans. These fires are being intensified by rising global average temperatures that worsen the risk of severe fire weather. How can I stay safe during a wildfire? If you live somewhere at risk of wildfires, put a plan together before disaster strikes. This could include identifying safe routes and nearby shelters, and packing an emergency bag. Some fire services recommend creating a safe zone around your home that is free from leaves and flammable materials. Experts say you should vacate immediately if authorities tell you to – or if your home is at risk but warnings have not come. To avoid the smoke, keep windows closed and use respirator masks.

Canadian government urged to block Thomson Reuters data deal with US ICE

A Canadian federal opposition party leader has called on Mark Carney’s government to block the latest data-sharing deal between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Canadian media company Thomson Reuters. Avi Lewis, the federal leader of the New Democratic party (NDP), demanded on Tuesday that Ottawa address the contract and further restrict Canadian corporations from doing business with ICE, after Canada’s National Observer news website reported on the deal. “My blood ran cold when I read about this development,” he added in a statement to the Guardian. “Complicity between Canadian corporations and ICE should absolutely be illegal.” Under the US$125m (£94m) deal, ICE will pay the technology and content conglomerate to access its Clear database – which includes property records, social media and geolocation information – in order to identify “voter fraud” and “immigration fraud”, according to reports. In a procurement document obtained by 404 Media, Thomson Reuters says it is the only company that allows ICE to have access to the “continuous monitoring” of millions of people. Thomson Reuters’ contracts with ICE date back to 2015, when it first began providing US officials with access to Clear in order to track people for deportation. Critics have long alleged that the databases were being used to facilitate human rights abuses. The latest contract, however, is the first to state that Clear software will be used to support the Trump administration’s objectives of addressing supposed “voter fraud”. In a recent primetime television address, the president repeated false claims about the supposed fallibility of the 2020 US presidential election results, alleging voter fraud, noncitizen voting and a host of other misleading or incorrect statements. Election officials from across the political spectrum lambasted the speech and reasserted the reliability of US elections. Thomson Reuters is owned by the Woodbridge Company, a holding company for the Thomson family, frequently described as the richest family in Canada. The media company also owns the news agency Reuters and the Globe and Mail newspaper. A spokesperson for Thomson Reuters said it did not comment on customer contracts, and referred to a page on the company’s website about Clear. The post says there are “misunderstandings” about the tool, and that it is licensed “exclusively to select businesses, law enforcement and government agencies to help expedite investigative processes in legitimate legal investigations”. The company emphasises that its “investigative solutions are not surveillance tools”. Lewis said the federal government should deny export permits to companies selling equipment to ICE, and pull public subsidies or contracts from any companies that have dealings with the agency. In January, the NDP made similar calls after the fatal shootings of two US citizens by ICE in Minneapolis. “If the Carney government is serious about Canadian economic independence, it should move to block this contract,” Lewis said. The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Thomson Reuters contract. Joel Bakan, a law professor at the University of British Columbia and author of several books on the unethical behaviour of corporations, said the legal framework did exist in Canada to bar companies from working with ICE. “Companies are not allowed to engage with various rogue regimes, authoritarian regimes, and certainly enemy regimes,” he said. “It’s definitely within the jurisdiction of the government, including the federal government of Canada, to impose various kinds of limitations.” He pointed to Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act, the country’s primary sanctions law, which can authorise the government to restrict trade in relation to human rights violations. “As a matter of realpolitik, I can’t imagine the federal government invoking this against the US, but it is at least arguable that ICE has been involved in such violations,” he said.