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Smoke rises following an explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, Iran, on April 26, 2025.
Hard Numbers: Deadly blast hits Iranian port, Tragedy strikes Filipino festival in Vancouver, PLO’s Abbas names successor, Liberals take the lead in Oz, Houthis say US strike killed dozens
28: Twenty-eight people are dead following a powerful explosion at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port in the central southern city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday. The blast, which is believed to be linked to containers of hazardous chemicals, injured more than 1,000 others and caused extensive damage to buildings several kilometers away from the port. Reports suggest that sodium perchlorate — used in missile fuel — may have been to blame, but Tehran denies any military connection to the blast.
9: A celebration of Filipino heritage in South Vancouver, Canada, turned tragic late Saturday when a man drove an SUV into a crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day festival, killing nine people and injuring more than 20 others. A 30-year-old man was arrested at the scene, and while an investigation is underway, authorities have said they are “confident that this incident was not an act of terrorism.” PM Mark Carney offered his condolences and delayed final-day campaigning ahead of Monday’s federal election in the wake of the tragedy — and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed his sympathy and support for the victims.
170: Late last week, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s leadership created a vice presidency, with 170 of its 172 Central Council members voting in favor of a post that would open the path to a successor for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On Saturday, Abbas, 89, nominated his close confidante, 64-year-old Hussein al-Sheikh, as VP, and the PLO’s executive committee approved it.
52: Australia’s ruling Labor Party looks set to claim victory in the May 3 election, with recent polling showing it ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition opposition, 52% to 48%, according to a Newspoll survey. The latest figures were revealed after PM Anthony Albanese shone in the final leaders’ debate on Sunday.
68: Houthi rebels in Yemen say a US airstrike on a detention center in the northwestern Saada province Sunday night killed at least 68 people, and injured another 47. The US military has not yet commented, but the news came hours after US Central Command said its forces had hit hundreds of targets following President Donald Trump’s order to ramp up the air campaign against the Houthis on March 15. The rebel group says targeting the civilian facility constitutes a “war crime.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office on April 7, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
US-Iran talks to be held this weekend
On Monday, President Donald Trump said that the US has been engaged in “direct” talks with Iran over its nuclear program and said that a meeting with “very high-level” officials is set for this Saturday. That would be a sharp break from previous US-Iran talks, which have occurred mostly through intermediaries.
But Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied the “direct” aspect of these talks,confirming that the US and Iranian negotiators will meet in Oman on Saturday, but that they would remain in separate rooms as Omani diplomats carry messages back and forth.
Whatever the format, Trump made it clear that he expects progress. “If the talks aren’t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger,” he warned. “And I hate to say it, great danger, because they can’t have a nuclear weapon. You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is.”
While a breakthrough this weekend is unlikely, the talks suggest that both sides see an advantage in finding out whether a deal with the other side is possible.
There are other hopeful signs of a deal. In response to warnings from US officials of looming air attacks by American forces, the leaders of four of the largest Iran-backed militia groups operating in Iraq told Reuters on Monday that they were prepared to surrender their weapons to Iraqi government authorities. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has reportedly met with militia commanders and urged them to disarm, according to Iraqi state officials who requested anonymity.
The militia commanders also said that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, their prime supplier of weapons and money, had agreed to let local group leaders inside Iraq decide how best to respond to Trump’s threats.
Though these militia moves are more likely a tactical retreat than a true surrender, any move to disarm would give the Trump administration a notable foreign-policy victory without an attack. The so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a group of about 10 heavily-armed Shia militias with a total of 50,000 fighters and access to heavy weapons, including long-range missiles, has attacked both Israeli and US military targets in the past.
People walk by as a painter repaints an anti-US mural in Tehran, Iran, on Saturday, March 29, 2025.
Trump warns he’ll bomb Iran over lack of nuclear deal
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Iran, threatening to bomb the country and impose secondary tariffs if Tehran fails to reach a new agreement on its nuclear program. In a telephone interview with NBC News, Trump stated, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Trump’s threat follows Iran’s rejection of direct negotiations with Washington, which the US President had offered in a letter sent to Tehran on March 12. On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated, “We responded to the US president’s letter via Oman and rejected the option of direct talks, but we are open to indirect negotiations.”
What’s Trump’s goal? The US administration’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign seeks to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional influence through economic damage, and it has sent the rial tumbling. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes, something the US rejects, and a recent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran has ramped up its manufacturing of near weapons-grade uranium.Donald Trump gestures after taking the oath of office during his first inauguration in Washington, DC, in January 2017.
Was Iran trying to assassinate Donald Trump?
The Justice Department on Friday charged three men with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump on the orders of the Iranian government.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday.
The alleged murder-for-hire scheme was unveiled as investigators interviewed an apparent Afghani Iranian government asset who told them that a contact in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard instructed him to create a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump. The plot was unsealed days after Trump prevailed in this week’s presidential election and is purportedly among other ongoing Iranian efforts to take out US government officials on American soil. Another alleged plot targeted Brooklyn-based human rights activist Masih Alinejad. (See Ian Bremmer’s interview with Alinejad in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s in-custody death in Iran from 2022 here).
Two of the three men have been arrested, but one, Farhad Shakeri, remains at large and is believed to be in Iran.
Why would Iran want to kill Trump? During the first Trump presidency, the US and Iran found themselves on the brink of war after Trump ordered a strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top generals. Trump also withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran likely dreads another Trump presidency, not only because the president-elect may pursue another “maximum pressure” strategy, but because he is likely to empower Israel to intensify its fight against Iranian proxies.
A man holds a laptop computer as cyber code is projected on him in this illustration.
How Iran is messing with the US election
Iranian-linked groups have been trying to disrupt the 2024 US presidential election, according to a recent report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center.
On Aug. 10, former President Donald Trump’s campaign claimed that Iranian actors had hacked, stolen, and distributed its internal documents. While the Trump campaign provided few specifics, the claim came a day after Microsoft issued a report detailing Iranian attempts to sow discord online around the upcoming election. The Trump campaign hack appears to line up with what Microsoft called a “spear phishing email” sent from an Iranian-linked group to a “high-ranking official on a presidential campaign.”
Further, Microsoft found that the Iranian group, called Storm-2035, set up four fake news websites, disguised as legitimate American news outlets, with the intention of polarizing American voters on political issues, including LGBTQ rights and the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. The group used generative AI-based tools, the report said, to write article headlines and rephrase stolen content to boost traction with search engines. They also used AI tools to plagiarize existing US publications, the report said, but didn’t offer additional specifics.
Microsoft said that while they have seen malicious actors from China, Russia, and Iran trying to incorporate generative AI into their operations, “recently many actors have pivoted back to techniques that have proven effective in the past — simple digital manipulations, mischaracterization of content, and use of trusted labels or logos atop false information.” AI isn’t a breakthrough technology for these groups just yet — though they’re clearly trying to incorporate them into their operations.
Clint Watts, who runs the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, said Iran’s goal is different from Russia’s past attempts to affect US elections. “Russia is very different. They're very focused on shaping the outcome of the election,” he told NPR. “Iran is focused as much on just breaking the ability of an election to occur" and interrupting the mechanics of voting. In 2021, the US Justice Department indicted two Iranian nationals who sent threatening materials to voters and spread disinformation about election integrity in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
Microsoft has previously reported that Russia is actively seeking to undermine US support for Ukraine through online influence campaigns. CNN reported on Aug. 12 that the FBI is investigating the breach.Donald Trump supporters in Huntington Beach, Calif., on July 14, 2024.
Iran reportedly plotted to kill Trump
While Day Two of the RNC focused on “Making America Safer Once Again,” reports surfaced Tuesday that US authorities had received intelligence in recent weeks about an Iranian plot to kill former President Donald Trump.
The warning reportedly led to increased security for Trump, raising even more alarm and questions over the security breach by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks last Saturday. Officials said no link has been found between Crooks and a foreign plot.
The Trump campaign would not comment on what it knew before Saturday. But the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN had plenty to say: It denied the allegations, noting that while Trump is a criminal in Tehran’s mind “and must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani,” Iran is pursuing only legal recourse.
NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watsonsaid the US has “been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration.” She said the threats emanate from Tehran’s desire for revenge over the US drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, who was Iran’s top general, which Trump ordered in January 2020.
Flags of Israel and Iran on broken ground.
Israel hits Iran directly – what next?
Well, now we know the answer to the question of how Israel planned to respond to Iran’s recent attack. Explosions were reported early on Friday near the northwestern Iranian city of Isfahan, in what several major outlets reported, citing US officials and local sources, as an apparent Israeli strike.
The blasts come just days after Iran launched its first-ever direct attacks on Israel, launching hundreds of missiles and drones, almost all of which were shot down by Israeli and US missile defenses. That salvo was itself seen as a response to Israel’s strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus early this month.
Syria and Iraq blasts reported as well. Blasts possibly related to the strikes on Iran were also reported around the same time at sites in Iraq and Syria. Both countries are home to sizable Iranian proxy forces and intelligence units.
So much for the Passover head fake. Earlier on Thursday, US officials had suggested anonymously that Israel would wait until after the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins Monday, to retaliate.
No nuclear sites in the crosshairs, it seems. The full extent of the Israeli attack is not yet precisely clear, but the strike doesn't appear to have targeted the Natanz nuclear facility, a major component of Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which is located about 100 miles north of Isfahan. Israel has long made clear its desire to destroy Iran’s nuclear research. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, on Friday said there was "no damage" to Iran's nuclear sites.
Isfahan, meanwhile, is home to several military bases and airfields, which may have been the targets. Iranian officials told the New York Times that a strike hit a military air base near the city. Outside Iran, Isfahan is known chiefly for its rich history of Islamic architecture, which includes several UNESCO heritage sites.
Was this an escalation by Israel? “On the surface, it appears rather limited,” said Gregory Brew, lead Iran analyst at Eurasia Group, “beyond the symbolic significance of Israel hitting Iranian territory.”
Iran isn't blaming Israel. Tehran is claiming to have shot down several drones in the Isfahan area but is downplaying the significance of the incident and hasn't blamed Israel — instead pointing the finger at "infiltrators." Iran has not indicated any plans for retaliation, in a potential sign that it doesn't want to escalate the situation.
“It’s early,” Brew noted, “but the official regime line may be that this is not an action that requires immediate and public retaliation.”
That’s good news even in a bad situation, he says. “It would suggest that the Israeli effort to hit back without triggering further escalation has been successful.”
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Iranian and Israeli flags behind an hourglass.
Iran launches ballistic missiles at Israel in revenge attack
Late Saturday, Tehran launched ballistic and cruise missiles toward Israel as part of a retaliatory attack for the recent Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders.
IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said early Sunday that more than 200 different rockets, including drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, were launched at Israel, with Israeli defenses and partners having intercepted the vast majority. More than 100 drones were intercepted with help from Jordan, the US, and the UK.
More worrying are ballistic missiles. While Israel’s missile defense systems can target them, an attack involving both drones and missiles makes it more likely that some of the Iranian weapons could hit their targets. Medics said shrapnel from one interception injured a girl in the Negev, and Hagari said other impacts had damaged infrastructure at a military base in southern Israel.
There have been fears of an escalation of regional violence ever since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with flareups along the Lebanese border and attacks by Hezbollah and other Iran-backed proxies in the region.
Saturday’s move comes just days after US President Joe Biden warned that Iran was threatening a “significant attack” against Israel. At the time, he promised Washington’s “ironclad” support to Israel, and the US notably has a large number of troops in the region.
Many have feared that a direct attack by Iran could put the entire region at risk. Israel’s top diplomat, Israel Katz, warned earlier this week that “If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will react and attack in Iran.”
But the Iranian attack may have ended just as quickly as it started. The Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations tweeted that Saturday’s move by Tehran was in response to the “Zionist regime’s aggression against our diplomatic premises in Damascus” and that “The matter can be deemed concluded.”
Ian Bremmer, the president of GZERO Media and Eurasia Group, says this signals that Iran is sending a “strong message that [the] attack is limited” and it's “looking to avoid war with Israel or the United States.”