Iran war live: Tehran warns US, Israeli universities; Houthis fire missiles
blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, Antiwar protesters rally in Tel Aviv and US cities, as attacks kill a family of four in Iran’s Bushehr province and damage a water facility in Khuzestan. Published On 29 Mar 202629 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)
Vice President JD Vance tops CPAC’s straw poll to be US president in 2028
For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country. The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer to lead the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election. The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees. But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote. It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll. That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to the press following a G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting on March 27, 2026 [AFP] Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right. Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy. Advertisement But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party. Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box. Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low. The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump. While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028. That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican. Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran. Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025. Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Senator Ted Cruz speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 28 [Gabriela Passos/AP Photo] CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office. But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party. In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently won the CPAC straw polls. Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition. Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still garnered the most backing in 2021’s straw poll, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024. Advertisement Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised. The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent. Adblock test (Why?)
As war on Iran enters second month, Yemen’s Houthis open new front
Yemen’s Houthis have attacked Israel for the first time, a month after US and Israeli forces began striking Iran, opening up a new front in a rapidly escalating conflict that has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and rattled the global economy. The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, entered the fray on Saturday with two missile and drone attacks on Israel in the space of fewer than 24 hours. The Israeli army said the attacks were intercepted, but the Iran-aligned group pledged to continue fighting in support of “resistance fronts in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran”. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The Houthis had sat out of the hostilities until now, in contrast with their stance during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, when their attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea upended commercial traffic worth about $1 trillion a year. Their widely anticipated involvement in the latest conflict comes just as Iran has throttled traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for about a fifth of the world’s oil, raising fears that the Yemeni group will again disrupt Red Sea traffic by blocking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Reporting from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry described Bab al-Mandeb as the group’s “ace”. “They want to make Israel pay economically. They want to disrupt their trade routes. They want to disrupt the imports and exports in and out of Israel,” he said. ‘Civilians bearing brunt of war’ The Houthi attacks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington expected to conclude its military operations against Iran within weeks, even as a new deployment of US Marines has begun to arrive in the region, so US President Donald Trump would have “maximum” flexibility to adjust the strategy as needed. Advertisement With no immediate diplomatic breakthrough in sight as both the US and Iran harden their positions, many fear that the US-Israel war on Iran, which started on February 28 and has since engulfed the region, will spiral out of control. The US and Israel continued their bombardment over the past 24 hours, with the Israeli military claiming it had struck an Iranian research facility for naval weapons, while a series of loud explosions rattled Tehran as night fell on Saturday. Iranian media said at least five people were killed in a US-Israeli attack on a residential unit in the northwestern city of Zanjan. In Tehran, authorities said the University of Science and Technology was the latest educational facility to be struck, prompting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to issue a threat against Israeli and US universities in the region. Separately, Iran’s Fars news agency said a water reservoir in the city of Haftgel, located in western Khuzestan province, had also been attacked. The Iranian Ministry of Health announced that 1,937 people have been killed since the start of the conflict, including 230 children. Iran’s Red Crescent Society said US-Israeli strikes had damaged more than 93,000 civilian properties. “Civilians are bearing the brunt of this war,” Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said. Devastation in Lebanon Meanwhile, Israel’s devastation of Lebanon continued apace, as the Lebanese Ministry of Health reported that 1,189 people had been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2. The death toll has been mounting as Israeli troops have pushed further into the south, advancing towards the Litani River in their stated bid to wipe out Hezbollah and carve out a buffer zone along the lines of the “Gaza model”. Among Saturday’s killings, an Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon. In parallel, the Health Ministry announced that Israel had also killed nine paramedics, bringing the death toll among healthcare workers in the latest war to 51. Lebanon’s Public Health Emergency Operations Centre said an Israeli attack on the town of al-Haniyah, in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, killed at least seven people, including one child. An Israeli air raid on the southern Lebanese town of Deir al-Zahrani killed a Lebanese soldier, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported. Hezbollah, which attacked Israel amid a ceasefire that Israel kept violating in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, claimed dozens of operations against Israeli forces in the past 24 hours. Mixed messages Trump has threatened to hit Iranian power stations and other energy infrastructure if Tehran does not fully open the Strait of Hormuz. But he has extended the deadline he had imposed for this week, giving Iran another 10 days to respond. Advertisement With the US midterm elections coming up in November, the increasingly unpopular war is weighing heavily on the president’s Republican Party. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, said on Friday that he believed Tehran would hold talks with Washington in the coming days. “We have a 15-point plan on the table. We expect the Iranians to respond. It could solve it all,” Witkoff said. Pakistan, which has been a go-between between US and Iranian officials, will host foreign ministers from regional powers Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt in Islamabad for talks on the crisis. Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar spoke with his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, late on Saturday, urging “an end to all attacks and hostilities” in the region. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Dar had told Araghchi that Pakistan remains committed to supporting efforts aimed at restoring regional peace and stability. Dar also announced that Iran had agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a meaningful step towards easing one of the worst energy crises in modern history. Adblock test (Why?)
Morocco claims AFCON case closed, despite Senegal appeals to CAF and CAS
Morocco believe their successful appeal against their 1-0 defeat by Senegal means the case of the AFCON crown is closed. Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026 Senegal may still possess the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy and have launched a legal battle against the decision to strip them of it, but as far as new champions Morocco are concerned, the case is closed. Although the Atlas Lions lost 1-0 in the January final, the Confederation of African Football awarded them a 3-0 victory last week because of several Senegal players leaving the pitch in protest at the award of a penalty. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Morocco drew 1-1 against Ecuador on Friday in a friendly in Madrid, in their first match since the final and the controversial decision to punish Senegal. It was new coach Mohamed Ouahbi’s first game at the helm, just three months out from the 2026 World Cup. After becoming the first African side to reach the final four in Qatar in 2022, expectations are high for Morocco, and they are looking to the future, despite Senegal’s outrage. “We’re focused on what’s to come and not getting into that [topic],” Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou told reporters. “The answer from us [about whether the decision was fair] would be what our federation said, and that’s all … we’re looking forwards.” Thousands of Morocco fans, many draped in their country’s flag and tooting vuvuzelas, are convinced justice was served. “If someone says there are regulations, you have to follow them,” said Yassine el-Aouak, 35, a Morocco supporter who travelled to the game from Italy. “I think we will bring the trophy home [eventually] – we know that we deserve it.” Before being awarded victory against Senegal, Morocco had won the Africa Cup of Nations only once, in 1976. Advertisement “The rules are the rules … they are so clear, you go outside the pitch without any reason, you lose 3-0,” said another Morocco supporter, Taha El Hadiguy, 22. “It’s very different to winning on the night of the final, to win two months later, but a win is a win. We have one more star on our shirt.” Like the players, the Moroccan media was more concerned with the upcoming World Cup and Ouahbi’s tactical approach than whether Senegal are right to feel aggrieved. Ecuador’s coach Sebastian Beccacece said his were satisfied with a draw against the “African champions”. Ouahbi’s team are now technically unbeaten in 25 matches, despite falling 1-0 on a dramatic night in Rabat against Senegal in the AFCON final. They lacked precision in attack against Ecuador, but Ouahbi, who led Moroccan youngsters to Under-20 World Cup glory last year, highlighted the strength of his team. “I don’t talk in terms of weaknesses. They’re not weaknesses. We are a top-level team – the Ecuadorian coach reminded us of that,” Ouhabi told reporters. “If you are a top-level team, ranked eighth in the world and World Cup semifinalists, you don’t have weaknesses. “You only have strengths, and then any qualities we’re missing, areas where we’re not performing, we have to make up for collectively.” Morocco will face record five-time World Cup winners Brazil in their first game at the tournament this summer on June 13, one of the most intriguing match-ups of the group phase. Before then, the Moroccan Federation’s lawyers may have to defend their status as African champions against Senegal’s case, but Ouahbi and his players are only looking forward to the summer, when they have a chance to win another trophy, this time on the pitch. Adblock test (Why?)
Three journalists killed in Israeli strike on marked press car in Lebanon
Lebanon’s president condemns ‘blatant crime’, as Israeli attacks kill more journalists Published On 28 Mar 202628 Mar 2026 Three Lebanese journalists have been killed in an Israeli air strike on their clearly marked press vehicle in southern Lebanon. Other journalists were wounded in the attack, and one paramedic was killed. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Fatima Ftouni and her brother and colleague, Mohammed, of Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar’s Ali Shuaib were killed on Saturday on the Jezzine Road when, according to Al Mayadeen, four precision missiles hit the vehicle. When ambulances arrived, paramedics were also reportedly targeted, killing one. Al Mayadeen and Al-Manar have confirmed the deaths of their journalists. The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, claiming Shuaib was embedded within a Hezbollah intelligence unit and had been tracking Israeli troop positions in southern Lebanon. It also alleged he had been distributing Hezbollah propaganda. Al-Manar, his employer, described him as one of its most prominent war correspondents, having covered Israeli attacks on Lebanon for decades. Israel, which has killed more than 270 journalists in Gaza, often alleges that the reporters it targets are members of or are linked to armed groups without providing evidence. Neither network accepted Israel’s characterisation. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Israel had once again violated “the most basic rules of international law” by targeting civilians carrying out their professional duty. Citing the 1949 Geneva Conventions and UN Security Council Resolution 1738, he called it “a blatant crime that violates all norms and treaties under which journalists are granted international protection during armed conflicts”. Advertisement Prime Minister Nawaf Salam decried the attack as “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”. Six Al Mayadeen journalists killed in weeks For Ftouni, the war had already struck close to home. Earlier this month, her uncle and his family were killed in an Israeli strike, a loss she had reported on live television. Al Mayadeen has now lost six journalists since hostilities began. Farah Omar, Rabih Me’mari, Ghassan Najjar and Mohammad Reda were killed in earlier attacks. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health said 1,142 people have been killed and more than 3,300 injured in Israeli attacks since March 2 amid the rapidly widening regional conflict now entering a fourth week. Israeli troops have pushed further into the south, advancing towards the Litani River. Hezbollah has claimed dozens of operations against Israeli forces in the past 24 hours. An Israeli air raid in the southern Lebanese town of Deir al-Zahrani killed one Lebanese soldier, Lebanon’s National News agency reported. Saturday’s killings fit a pattern that press freedom organisations have been tracking with alarm. The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded a global high of 129 journalists killed in 2025, the most since it began collecting data over three decades ago, with Israel responsible for two-thirds of those deaths. It has now killed more journalists than any other nation in CPJ’s recorded history. A separate assault earlier this month killed Al-Manar’s political programmes director, Mohammad Sherri, in central Beirut. Adblock test (Why?)
One month in, disapproval high but US lawmakers take no action on Iran war
Washington, DC – A new war in the Middle East and the knock-on effect of rising petrol prices have roiled the United States public, according to a slate of polls, but a month into the US-Israeli war on Iran, lawmakers have shown little appetite to rein in the conflict. That was evidenced earlier this week when the US Senate again failed to pass a so-called War Powers resolution to curtail US President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally prosecute the war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on February 28. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list The vote failed in the Republican-controlled chamber, 53-47, the same as on March 4, with senators voting along party lines, save for one Republican, Rand Paul, voting in favour, and one Democrat, Jon Fetterman, voting against. Democrats in the chamber have promised to hold a weekly vote to force the issue. Meanwhile, despite evidence that Democrats in the US House of Representatives, which is also slimly controlled by Republicans, have the votes to pass their own War Powers resolution, the party’s leadership has reportedly backed away from holding a vote. That shows potential wariness about compelling party members to stake a position beyond “token opposition” as the Trump administration continues to prosecute the controversial war, according to Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “There are [members of Congress] who are stuck between their support from the pro-Israel lobby and other political factors and the fact of this war being so unpopular,” Abdi told Al Jazeera. Advertisement “I also think that there’s this view that Trump is suffering. He’s bleeding out politically, and they don’t want to stem the bleeding.” Approaching the one-month mark, the Trump administration has not articulated a unifying endgame for the conflict, instead hailing the degradation of Iran’s military capabilities and the assassination of top officials. Observers have warned that the war appears to have entered a phase of attrition that strategically favours Iran, in which, as the US director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has said, “the regime remains intact but largely degraded”. Polls continue to show widespread disapproval of the war, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday showing 61 percent disapproval compared with 35 percent approval. Trump’s overall approval rating slumped to 36 percent this week, the lowest since he took office. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also released on Wednesday found 59 percent of Americans felt US military action in Iran had been excessive. Over the last week, Trump continued to send conflicting messages on the war, claiming ongoing – if disputed talks – with Iranian officials and releasing a ceasefire plan that Tehran has since rejected. That came as the Pentagon deployed yet more US troops to the region, further raising the prospect of a ground invasion. Republican unity? For their part, Republican lawmakers have so far broadly fallen behind Trump, with many of the party’s top members cheering the US military effort and embracing Trump’s claims that the conflict will be a weeks-long affair. “Republicans writ large, but for [US Representative] Thomas Massie and maybe Rand Paul, are going to support anything Donald Trump does,” Eli Bremer, a Republican strategist and former Colorado US Senate candidate, told Al Jazeera. “Everybody is very, very entrenched in their positions – but things could change.” Given the fickle nature of public opinion in the US, he argued, Republicans appear to be assessing that the short-term pain will not necessarily result in major political fallout in the midterm elections in November if Trump can claim some degree of victory in the weeks ahead. The main test will be if Trump is able to secure the Strait of Hormuz, even if it requires a boots-on-the-ground deployment, and in turn stabilise global oil markets to create the perception that the US has “brought Iran to its knees”, he said. “On the flip side, if it goes on for another eight weeks or three months or some undetermined period of time, and gas prices in the US keep going up and up and up, then Democrats will use that to say Trump said he was was going to avoid ‘unending wars’, and look what he’s gotten us into,” Bremer said. Advertisement Polls have generally shown higher support for the war among Republicans, with the AP-NORC poll released on Wednesday finding that about half say the US military action has been “about right”. A quarter said the war had “gone too far”. Funding friction and MAGA dissent? One nascent point of inter-party friction has been US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent appeal for $200bn to fund the war, which some Republicans have seen as antithetical to Trump’s “America First” pledge. “The answer on most of this is: I don’t know,” centrist Republican Lisa Murkowski recently told reporters in reference to the funding request. She called for an open hearing in the case. Representative Lauren Boebert, who was once seen as a rising star in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, told reporters she was “tired of the Industrial War Complex getting our hard-earned tax dollars”. Eric Burlison, another US Representative who has hewed closely to MAGA, called for the Pentagon to pass an audit before he would support more funding for the war. Nancy Mace, meanwhile, said following a House Armed Services briefing on Iran on Wednesday: “Let me repeat: I will not support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after this briefing.” For his part, Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime Iran hawk, pledged to push ahead with a so-called “reconciliation bill” to provide the funding. The controversial legislative mechanism would allow the Senate to pass the funding bill with a simple majority of 51 Republicans, rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Just how meaningfully the war has divided Trump’s base remains unclear. Top dissenters include influential figures such as Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who have been vocal critics of the war, the apparent influence
Norway to add more than $11bn to defence budget over 10 years
Norway, as well as other NATO countries, has been under pressure from the US to boost defence spending. By AFP and Reuters Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026 Norway is set to raise defence spending by 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product to compensate for rising military equipment costs and to adjust to lessons learned from the Ukraine war, the government says. The proposed increase will amount to 115 billion kroner ($11.84bn) and will be spread over the next 10 years, aligning with the country’s NATO commitments. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “We are … allocating a significant increase in resources to the long-term plan, while also carefully weighing the priorities needed to rapidly strengthen Norway’s defence capabilities,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told reporters on Friday. Norway, like other NATO countries, is increasing defence spending as a result of Russia’s war on Ukraine. NATO countries have also come under increasing pressure from United States President Donald Trump, who accuses some members of failing to pay their dues and overly relying on the US. The increased spending will include support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia, authorities said. Norway borders Russia to its northeast. In a statement, the government outlined several priorities, including plans for new submarines and frigates, and upgrades of critical defence infrastructure. It said Norway would also seek to strengthen electronic warfare capabilities, short-range air defence and autonomous systems. Norway expects to receive the first of its German-ordered submarines in 2029. Two frigates bought from Britain are also expected to arrive in 2030 and 2032, respectively. Defence Minister Tore Sandvik said despite the increase in budget, Norway’s procurement of anti-ballistic air defences as well as of maritime surveillance drones will be delayed. Adblock test (Why?)
Lebanon faces ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ under Israeli assault: UN
Displaced Lebanese families ‘living in constant fear’ under Israeli bombardment, warns UN Refugee Agency official. Lebanon faces the threat of a “humanitarian catastrophe”, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has warned, as Israel expands its weeks-long bombardment and ground invasion of the country. UNHCR’s Lebanon representative Karolina Lindholm Billing said on Friday that Israeli strikes and forced displacement orders have affected people living across the country – from southern Lebanon to the Bekaa Valley, the capital Beirut, and further north. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list More than 1.2 million people have been forced from their homes since Israel’s intensified attacks against its northern neighbour began in early March, according to UN figures. “The situation remains extremely worrying and the risk of a humanitarian catastrophe … is real,” Lindholm Billing told reporters during a briefing in Geneva. She noted that, as displacement numbers continue to rise, Lebanon’s already overstretched shelter system is struggling to meet families’ needs. “Just last week, there were strikes that hit central Beirut, including in densely populated neighbourhoods … where many people had tried to find safety in collective shelters,” Lindholm Billing said. “The families are … living in constant fear, and the psychological toll, particularly on children, will last far beyond this current escalation.” Israel launched intensified attacks across Lebanon after Hezbollah fired rockets towards Israeli territory following the February 28 assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the US-Israel war on Iran. Advertisement The Israeli military has carried out aerial and ground attacks across the country while issuing mass forced displacement orders for residents of the country’s south, as well as several suburbs of Beirut. On Friday afternoon, the Israeli military said it had begun a wave of air strikes on Beirut. It also issued more forced displacement orders for several areas in the city’s southern suburbs, including the neighbourhoods of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets into northern Israel and confront Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, with leader Naim Qassem stressing this week that the group had no plans to stop fighting “an enemy that occupies land and continues daily aggression”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced plans to expand the country’s ground invasion in southern Lebanon, saying the military would create “a larger buffer zone” in Lebanese territory. Rights groups have condemned the expanded operation and warned that preventing Lebanese civilians from returning to their homes in the south may amount to the war crime of forced displacement. “Israel’s tactics of mass expulsion in Lebanon raise serious risks of forced displacement,” Human Rights Watch said on Thursday. “Forced displacement and collective punishment are war crimes.” Displaced residents sit outside a tent in a local school in Beirut after fleeing their homes in southern Lebanon, on March 27, 2026 [Wael Hamzeh/EPA] The Israeli military’s destruction of civilian homes and several bridges linking southern Lebanon to the rest of the country has also fuelled concerns that Israel is trying to isolate the area. During Friday’s news briefing, UNHCR’s Lindholm Billing noted that the destruction of the bridges has made accessing southern Lebanon “increasingly difficult”. “The destruction of key bridges in the south has cut off entire districts … isolating over 150,000 people and severely limiting humanitarian access with essential items to reach them,” she said. Reporting from Tyre in southern Lebanon on Friday afternoon, Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto also stressed that Israel’s forced evacuation orders are “causing a lot of panic” among residents. “Evacuation orders are happening in areas that were previously thought to be safe,” he said, adding that the destruction and damage to bridges over the Litani River in the south has made the prospect of finding safety more difficult. “This is putting the government in Beirut in a very difficult situation to try and respond to the humanitarian crisis quickly growing in the south of the country,” Hitto said. Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
Nixon to Trump: Pakistan’s long record as backchannel between rival powers
Islamabad, Pakistan – In the middle of 1971, at the height of the Cold War, a Pakistani government plane carrying US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew overnight from Islamabad to Beijing. The trip was secret, the facilitator was Pakistan, and the geopolitical consequences were generational. More than 50 years later, Pakistan is once again carrying messages. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed on March 25 that Islamabad is relaying a US 15-point ceasefire proposal to Tehran, with Turkiye and Egypt providing additional diplomatic support, as the US-Israeli war against Iran stretches into its second month. On Thursday, chief US negotiator Steve Witkoff also confirmed that Pakistan was transferring messages between Washington and Tehran. Hours later, President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, a 10-day pause on threatened strikes against Iranian power plants, citing, in his words, a request from the Iranian government. Iran has so far denied that direct negotiations are taking place, but Trump’s latest pause means that his initial threat to attack Iran’s power plants, delivered last weekend, has now been deferred twice, as Pakistan plays the part of a key diplomatic facilitator. The role is not new. Pakistan brokered the secret US-China backchannel in 1971 and was a key interlocutor in the Geneva Accords that helped end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. It also facilitated talks that led to the 2020 Doha Agreement and has, across successive governments, attempted to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Advertisement Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli air campaign that began in late February 2026 and killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei within days, Islamabad has quietly but deeply inserted itself into the crisis, working the phones and holding meetings with key regional actors. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has spoken repeatedly to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has held at least one direct call with President Donald Trump. Both Sharif and Munir have also travelled to Saudi Arabia, with whom Pakistan signed a mutual defence agreement in September last year, and which hosts a US base and has faced Iranian attacks in recent weeks. “Pakistan’s story is told most often through the prism of conflict,” says Naghmana Hashmi, a former Pakistani ambassador to China. “Yet beneath the headlines of coups, crises, and border skirmishes runs a quieter, more consistent thread: a state that has repeatedly tried to turn its geography and Muslim-world ties into diplomatic leverage for peace,” she told Al Jazeera. Whether this latest round of diplomacy produces anything durable remains uncertain. But it has once again raised a familiar question: How and why does Pakistan keep emerging as a diplomatic broker, and how effective has it been? Opening the China channel In August 1969, US President Richard Nixon visited Pakistan and quietly tasked the country’s military ruler, President Yahya Khan, with passing a message to Beijing: Washington wanted to open communication with the People’s Republic of China. At the time, the US treated Taiwan as China and did not recognise Beijing. Pakistan was chosen for the diplomatic role because it maintained working relations with both Washington and Beijing. Winston Lord, who served as Kissinger’s aide and was on the flight to Beijing, described the decision in a 1998 oral history interview conducted by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. “We finally settled on Pakistan. Pakistan had the advantage of being a friend to both sides,” he said. Two years of indirect exchanges followed, with Pakistani officials carrying messages between the two capitals. Then, in July 1971, Kissinger arrived in Islamabad on a public tour of Asia. According to historical records and accounts from key participants, he appeared to fall ill at a welcome dinner. In the early hours of July 9, Yahya Khan’s driver took Kissinger and three aides to a military airfield, where a Pakistani government plane was waiting with four Chinese representatives on board. The aircraft flew to Beijing overnight, while a decoy car headed to the hill resort of Nathia Gali, about three hours from Islamabad. Advertisement Kissinger spent 48 hours in meetings with Chinese leader Zhou Enlai before returning to Pakistan. The trip paved the way for Nixon’s visit to Beijing in February 1972, and the famous handshake with Chinese leader Mao Zedong that led to a detente between the two countries, and the US recognition of communist China. Kissinger later acknowledged in an interview with news magazine The Atlantic that the Nixon administration had declined to publicly condemn Pakistani army actions in East Pakistan, which contributed to the creation of Bangladesh in December 1971. According to him, doing so “would have destroyed the Pakistani channel, which would be needed for months to complete the opening to China, which indeed was launched from Pakistan”. Masood Khan, who served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States and later to the United Nations, says the episode reflected something structural. “In 1971, Pakistan was the only country that could be trusted simultaneously in Washington and Beijing with a very sensitive mission, which was kept secret even from the State Department,” he told Al Jazeera. “But beyond trust, Pakistan had also acquired the requisite strategic manoeuvrability and operational flexibility that suit interlocutors caught in an apparently irredeemable situation,” Khan added. Muhammad Faisal, a Sydney-based foreign policy analyst, called it Pakistan’s defining diplomatic moment. “Pakistan’s facilitation of the US-China backchannel is unambiguously the most consequential. It restructured Cold War geopolitics in ways that still define the international order. No other Pakistani facilitation comes close in scale or permanence,” he said. But he also points to its limits. “Pakistan couldn’t turn that support from both powers to its advantage in the 1971 civil conflict and the subsequent war with India. Despite being on good terms with both China and the US, Pakistan couldn’t deter India from taking advantage of the civil conflict,” he added. Pakistan’s role in Afghan diplomacy spans four decades and does not always fit neatly into the category of neutral brokering. An early instance
Mexico launches search for two missing aid boats bound for Cuba
NewsFeed Mexico’s navy has launched a search operation after two boats carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba went missing in the Caribbean. The vessels, carrying nine crew members, lost contact after departing Isla Mujeres and failed to reach Havana as scheduled. Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share googleAdd Al Jazeera on Googleinfo Adblock test (Why?)