Wall Street stocks treaded water Wednesday after the Federal Reserve met expectations and kept interest rates steady while oil prices nudged higher following a volatile session amid ongoing clashes between Iran and Israel.The Fed held interest rates unchanged for a fourth consecutive meeting, as Chair Jerome Powell said more time was needed to monitor the …
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The United States has thousands of troops deployed on bases across the Middle East, a region in which Washington’s forces have carried out repeated military operations in recent decades.Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign against Iran last week, and US President Donald Trump has said he is weighing whether to join Israel in the fight.US involvement in the conflict would likely result in attacks by Tehran on American troops in the region, who were already targeted by Iran-aligned forces in the course of the Israel-Hamas war.Below, AFP examines countries with major concentrations of US forces in the Middle East, which falls under the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM).- Bahrain -The tiny Gulf kingdom hosts an installation known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, where the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and US Naval Forces Central Command headquarters are based.Bahrain’s deep-water port can accommodate the largest US military vessels, such as aircraft carriers, and the US Navy has used the base in the country since 1948, when the facility was operated by Britain’s Royal Navy.Several US ships have their home port in Bahrain, including four anti-mine vessels and two logistical support ships. The US Coast Guard also has vessels in the country, including six fast response cutters.- Iraq -The United States has troops at various installations in Iraq, including Al-Asad and Arbil air bases. The Iraqi government is a close ally of Iran, but also a strategic partner of Tehran’s arch-foe the United States.There are some 2,500 US troops in Iraq as part of the international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group. Baghdad and Washington have agreed on a timetable for the gradual withdrawal of the coalition’s forces from the country.US forces in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by pro-Iran militants following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, but responded with heavy strikes on Tehran-linked targets, and the attacks largely subsided.- Kuwait -Kuwait has several US bases, including Camp Arifjan, the location of the forward headquarters for the US Army component of CENTCOM. The US Army also has stocks of prepositioned materiel in the country.Ali al-Salem Air Base hosts the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, the “primary airlift hub and gateway for delivering combat power to joint and coalition forces” in the region. Additionally, the United States has drones including MQ-9 Reapers in Kuwait.- Qatar -Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar includes the forward components of CENTCOM, as well as of its air forces and special operation forces in the region. It also hosts rotating combat aircraft, as well as the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, which includes “airlift, aerial refueling intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and aeromedical evacuation assets.”- Syria -The United States has for years maintained troop presences at a series of installations in Syria as part of international efforts against the Islamic State group, which rose out of the country’s civil war to overrun large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.The Pentagon announced in April that it would roughly halve the number of its forces in the country to less than 1,000 in the coming months as part of a “consolidation” of US troops in the country.- United Arab Emirates -Al Dahfra Air Base in the UAE hosts the US 380th Air Expeditionary Wing, a force that is composed of 10 squadrons of aircraft and also includes drones such as MQ-9 Reapers.Combat aircraft have rotated through Al Dhafra, which also hosts the Gulf Air Warfare Center for air and missile defense training.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said 33 people were killed by Israeli fire in the Palestinian territory on Wednesday, including 11 who were seeking aid. The war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel has ravaged the Gaza Strip and resulted in severe shortages of food, fuel and clean water.Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 11 people were killed and more than 100 wounded “after the occupation forces opened fire and launched several shells… at thousands of citizens” who had gathered to queue for food in central Gaza.The military told AFP that its forces operating in central Gaza identified “a group of suspicious individuals” approaching “in a manner that posed a potential threat to the forces.”It said its troops then fired “warning shots”, but that it was “unaware of injuries”.In early March, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, amid a deadlock in truce negotiations, only partially easing restrictions in late May.- Soldier killed -Since then, chaotic scenes and a string of deadly shootings have occurred near areas where Palestinians have gathered in hopes of receiving aid.The civil defence agency said another 19 people were killed in three Israeli strikes on Wednesday, which it said targeted houses and a tent for displaced people.The Israeli military told AFP regarding one of those attacks that its troops were “operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities”.Later Wednesday, the Israeli army said a soldier — staff sergeant Stav Halfon — had been killed during an operation in the southern Gaza Strip. In another incident, three more people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a neighbourhood northeast of Gaza City on Wednesday, Bassal said.Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency.The agency reported that at least 53 people were killed on Tuesday, as they gathered near an aid centre in the southern city of Khan Yunis hoping to receive flour.After Israel eased its blockade, the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began distributing aid in late May, but its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and dozens of deaths.- ‘Acute food insecurity’ -UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the foundation over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.However, the UN humanitarian office OCHA pointed out Tuesday that incidents “are also increasingly occurring along routes used by the UN to deliver humanitarian supplies”, not just GHF.It added that its humanitarian partners, including the World Food Programme (WFP), have reported that fuel in Gaza was reaching “critically low levels”.”Without immediate resupply, essential services — including the provision of clean water — will grind to a halt very soon,” the statement added.OCHA said on Monday that its partners “continue to warn of the risk of famine in Gaza, amid catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity”.The Hamas attack which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to Israeli official figures.The Gaza health ministry said on Wednesday that 5,334 people have been killed since Israel resumed major operations in the territory on March 18, ending a two-month truce.The overall death toll in Gaza since the war broke out has reached 55,637 people, according to the health ministry.
Brazil said Wednesday it was free of bird flu, paving the way for it to resume chicken exports to China and 20 other countries after a month-long suspension.The world’s top exporter of chicken meat was forced to halt exports to its main client China, the European Union and fellow Latin American countries over an outbreak …
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Nippon Steel and US Steel announced Wednesday they have completed a long-debated transaction granting the US government a “golden share” — a veto-like power over the Japanese company’s strategic decisions.The agreement modifies a transaction originally announced in December 2023 in which Nippon Steel agreed to acquire US Steel for $14.9 billion. But the outright acquisition of …
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As Israel presses its aerial attacks on Tehran, concern is growing over the fate of foreign nationals and Iranians seen by rights groups as political prisoners imprisoned in the capital who have no chance of fleeing to safety.Iran is believed to hold around 20 European nationals, many of whose cases have never been published, in what some Western governments describe as a strategy of hostage-taking aimed at extracting concessions from the West.Rights groups also accuse Iran of holding dozens of political prisoners whose sole offence has been to criticise the Islamic republic’s clerical leadership.Most are held in Evin prison, a large, heavily fortified complex notorious among activists for rights abuses that is located in a northern district of the Iranian capital. The prisoners have no means to respond to US President Donald Trump’s warning that “everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”For Noemie Kohler, the sister of French national Cecile Kohler, who has been held along with her partner Jacques Paris since May 2022 on espionage charges their families reject, the wait is agonising.”Since May 30, we’ve had no news, no sign of life from Jacques and Cecile, and the French authorities haven’t been able to obtain any information either,” Noemie Kohler told AFP, referring to the date of their last consular visit.”We saw that at least two strikes took place about two kilometres from where they are being held (in Evin prison), so it’s extremely close. We suspect they must have heard the explosions, but we have no idea how they are doing, we have no idea what level of information they have access to.”- ‘Imminent danger’ -Their last phone contact was on May 28, when Cecile Kohler’s parents spoke to her, she said, describing the mood even then as “desperate”, as they “no longer believe that they are going to be released”.”We don’t know if conditions in the prison have deteriorated in connection with the situation. We’re completely in the dark, and we’re truly terrified,” she said.She called for the couple’s “humanitarian exfiltration”, warning that “they are in imminent danger of death”.French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in May that 20 Europeans — a higher number than the total of publicised cases — are held in similar circumstances in Iran, including “teachers, academics, journalists, tourists”.He told parliament on Wednesday that France sent messages to the Iranian and Israeli authorities “alerting them to the presence of our two compatriots in Evin prison and to the need, as far as the Iranian authorities are concerned, to release them without delay to ensure their safety”.Among other Europeans known to be held in Iran is Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was arrested during a visit in April 2016 and sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of spying for Israel, which his family says are false.The current conflict, which has already seen one man, Esmail Fekri, executed on Monday on charges of spying for Israel, has made Djalali’s situation especially precarious.Norway-based group Iran Human Rights has warned the lives of Djalali and eight other men convicted on similar charges are at risk.”The risk of execution of these individuals is serious,” said its director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding they had all been sentenced after “an unfair, non-transparent process, and based on the orders of security institutions”.- ‘My dad is in prison’ -Tehran residents have fled the city en masse.The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was serving a prison sentence but was released from Evin last year on medical leave, said she had left Tehran.But Mohammadi’s fellow rights activist Reza Khandan, the husband of prize-winning rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, is still jailed in Evin.Khandan, who long campaigned for his wife while she was in jail, was himself arrested in December 2024.”My dad is in prison. Can you tell me, how can my father evacuate Tehran?” their daughter Mehraveh Khandan said in a tearful message on Instagram.The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran urged “all parties to fully comply with international humanitarian law and take immediate steps to safeguard civilians, including those in custody”.It published a letter by legal activist Mahvash Seydal, seen as a political prisoner by rights groups, calling on authorities to grant detainees such as herself temporary release “to protect the lives and dignity of political prisoners”.
The Iran-Israel war has helped strengthen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically and overseas, just as his grip on power looked vulnerable.On the eve of launching strikes on Iran, his government looked to be on the verge of collapse, with a drive to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews threatening to scupper his fragile coalition.Nearly two years on from Hamas’s unprecedented attack in 2023, Netanyahu was under growing domestic criticism for his handling of the war in Gaza, where dozens of hostages remain unaccounted for.Internationally too, he was coming under pressure including from longstanding allies, who since the war with Iran began have gone back to expressing support.Just days ago, polls were predicting Netanyahu would lose his majority if new elections were held, but now, his fortunes appear to have reversed, and Israelis are seeing in “Bibi” the man of the moment.– ‘Reshape the Middle East’ –For decades, Netanyahu has warned of the risk of a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran — a fear shared by most Israelis.Yonatan Freeman, a geopolitics expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said Netanyahu’s argument that the pre-emptive strike on Iran was necessary draws “a lot of public support” and that the prime minister has been “greatly strengthened”.Even the opposition has rallied behind him.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is my political rival, but his decision to strike Iran at this moment in time is the right one,” opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote in a Jerusalem Post op-ed.A poll published Saturday by a conservative Israeli channel showed that 54 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the prime minister.The public had had time to prepare for the possibility of an offensive against Iran, with Netanyahu repeatedly warning that Israel was fighting for its survival and had an opportunity to “reshape the Middle East.”During tit-for-tat military exchanges last year, Israel launched air raids on targets in Iran in October that are thought to have severely damaged Iranian air defences.Israel’s then-defence minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes had shifted “the balance of power” and had “weakened” Iran.”In fact, for the past 20 months, Israelis have been thinking about this (a war with Iran),” said Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel’s Open University.Since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Netanyahu has ordered military action in Gaza, against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Huthis in Yemen, as well as targets in Syria where long-time leader Bashar al-Assad fell in December last year.”Netanyahu always wants to dominate the agenda, to be the one who reshuffles the deck himself — not the one who reacts — and here he is clearly asserting his Churchillian side, which is, incidentally, his model,” Charbit said.”But depending on the outcome and the duration (of the war), everything could change, and Israelis might turn against Bibi and demand answers.”– Silencing critics –For now, however, people in Israel see the conflict with Iran as a “necessary war,” according to Nitzan Perelman, a researcher specialised in Israel at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France.”Public opinion supports this war, just as it has supported previous ones,” she added.”It’s very useful for Netanyahu because it silences criticism, both inside the country and abroad.”In the weeks ahead of the Iran strikes, international criticism of Netanyahu and Israel’s military had reached unprecedented levels.After more than 55,000 deaths in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, and a blockade that has produced famine-like conditions there, Israel has faced growing isolation and the risk of sanctions, while Netanyahu himself is the subject of an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.But on Sunday, two days into the war with Iran, the Israeli leader received a phone call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has held talks with numerous counterparts.”There’s more consensus in Europe in how they see Iran, which is more equal to how Israel sees Iran,” explained Freeman from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that Israel was doing “the dirty work… for all of us.”The idea that a weakened Iran could lead to regional peace and the emergence of a new Middle East is appealing to the United States and some European countries, according to Freeman.But for Perelman, “Netanyahu is exploiting the Iranian threat, as he always has.”Â
