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A barrage of Iranian strikes caused havoc across the Gulf on Saturday, shattering the aura of peace so highly prized by the oil-rich region’s wealthy rulers. Missiles streaked across clear desert skies as smoke plumed from US bases in Manama and Abu Dhabi and loud thuds shook high-rise windows in Dubai.In Qatar, dozens of people fled in panic as a falling missile plunged into a residential neighbourhood, erupting in a fireball as it hit the street.Flames and smoke erupted from a luxury hotel on Dubai’s Palm, the landmark, palm tree-shaped development of land reclaimed from the sea, after a loud bang sent passers-by scurrying for cover.And in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ capital, golfers enjoying a quiet round were stunned to see dozens of projectiles flying overhead. The Gulf monarchies have worked hard to stay on the periphery of Middle East conflict, relying on their stability to attract business, trade and tourism. The staunch US allies have carefully courted Iran, their powerful Shia neighbour. Saudi Arabia, a rival heavyweight, mended ties with Tehran after a seven-year rupture in 2023.Given their reputation for calm, Saturday’s sudden attacks on US military bases caused widespread shock among the Gulf’s diverse, expat-heavy populations. In Bahrain’s capital Manama, residents were hurriedly evacuated from the Juffair district housing the US navy’s Fifth Fleet, whose base was hit in the attack. “When we heard the sounds, we cried out of fear,” said Jana Hassan, a 15-year-old school student, who was visiting a friend in the area. “We didn’t know what to do… I will never forget the sound of those loud blasts.” In Dubai, the Middle East’s commercial hub with the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, residents looked up to see missiles surge through the sky.”It was a rumble and then a bang,” one resident told AFP, asking not to be named.- ‘Very scary and very loud’ -An American resident of Qatar’s capital Doha, who also asked not to be identified, heard two blasts as she was driving home, where she “heard several more and the glass was shaking”. She said she was “furious” about the instability, after 20 years of living in Qatar. Her teenage sons, she said, are “asking me if we will have to go back home”. Qatar was targeted twice last year, when Iran mounted a telegraphed attack on the Al Udeid US base in June and Israel struck a Hamas meeting in Doha in September. Those attacks were a Gulf rarity at the time. The UAE had not been troubled since a deadly assault by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in 2022, whose attacks on Saudi Arabia have also stopped in recent years.”As a Lebanese, I am traumatised,” a 31-year-old expat and mother of two living in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, told AFP. “We came to the Gulf because it’s known to be safer than Lebanon. Now I don’t know what to do or how to think really,” added the woman, who did not want to be named. Another Riyadh resident, from Jordan, said: “It was honestly very scary and very loud. “I was just walking out with my little boy when we suddenly heard the blast. People around us were looking up at the sky, trying to understand what was happening.”It’s not something you expect in Riyadh.”burs-th/ds/dcp

The US-Israeli strikes launched on Iran Saturday could become an extended operation, with strategic goals both multiple and complex — aiming to decapitate the Islamic republic and eviscerate its security capabilities.In the 12-day war in June last year, the Israelis, backed by the Americans, carried out targeted strikes aimed at destroying key Iranian nuclear sites.This time “we are embarking on an operation that is unfolding on a completely different scale, more complex and more complicated” than in June, Israel’s army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir warned.Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said US and Israeli installations involved in the operation were “legitimate targets” — before Iran’s state televison announced a new wave of missiles had been fired at US bases in the Gulf.”We are in a large-scale military campaign that, in my opinion, is going to last several days, or even several weeks,” said David Khalfa, co-founder of the Atlantic Middle East Forum research centre.- ‘Existential’ phase -He described the attacks as a “multi-domain offensive” aimed “both at disrupting the regime’s chain of command, shaking the repressive apparatus at its foundations, and provoking at the very least an internal transition, if not outright regime change”.The joint US-Israeli strikes targeted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — still alive, according to Tehran — as well as the chief of staff and head of the Revolutionary Guards, the regime’s ideological army.On top of that, there have been strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.”This is an all-out decapitation campaign and an effort to wear down Iran’s capabilities,” Khalfa told AFP.”It is a direct blow to the state’s security architecture and governing apparatus,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at British think tank Chatham House.”This new stage of conflict is existential and clearly about regime survival. It is also unlikely to end quickly.”Araghchi appeared to be dampening down an escalation by announcing on US television that he had explained to Gulf capitals that Tehran had “no intention of attacking them” but was targeting US bases on their soil “as an act of self-defence”.Although there is currently no communication with Washington, “if the Americans want to talk to us, they know how they can contact me,” the Iranian minister said, adding he was “clearly interested in de-escalation”.- Potential conflagration -According to Khalfa however, the Iranians are already “in horizontal escalation”.At a moment when the regime’s survival is at stake, “they are prepared to regionalise the conflict by targeting American bases in the Arabian-Persian Gulf and by striking Israel as well”, he argued.The danger is that Arab countries “might decide to allow the Americans to launch strikes from their bases, or even join the fray themselves because they consider that the Iranian regime has crossed red lines by attacking them on a massive scale,” said Khalfa.At the same time, Iran’s proxies could also push for a regional escalation that would prolong the conflict.Lebanon’s Hezbollah has already called on Saturday for “the states and peoples of the region” to oppose the “aggression” on Iran.Washington itself “risks being drawn into a new conflict in the Middle East with no clear way out”, said Brandan Buck, a researcher at the Washington-based Cato Institute.President Donald Trump “is repeating the same pattern of strategic self-delusion that trapped his predecessors, promising limited action while paving the way for a protracted conflict”, he said. 

The US and Israel launched an attack of unprecedented scale against Iran on Saturday, reportedly killing more than 200 people, with Tehran launching a retaliatory missile barrage that sent people running for cover across the Middle East.Iranian authorities urged residents to evacuate the capital, a city of 10 million, while the country’s Red Crescent society said that in addition to the 201 dead, more than 700 people were wounded.The Iranian judiciary said one attack that hit a school in the south killed 85 people, although AFP was unable to access the site in order to verify the toll.Meanwhile, the UAE reported one civilian dead and damage from missiles in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as blasts from Tehran’s retaliatory salvo and air defences intercepting it also echoed over Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait. In weeks of sabre-rattling leading up to the strikes, Tehran had repeatedly vowed to retaliate fiercely if attacked, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argued on Saturday that US and Israeli installations involved in the operation were “legitimate targets”.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards radioed ships to say the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway, was shut, according to the EU’s naval mission.Plumes of black smoke hung over Tehran, including in the Pasteur district, home to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Israel’s public broadcaster, citing an Israeli source, reported Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian had been targeted.But Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei was alive “as far as I know”, adding that “all high ranking officials are alive”. Asked about Khamenei’s health, foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei told the BBC he was “not in a situation to confirm anything”, but “the whole system, the whole nation is focused on defending (our) national integrity”.An Israeli military official said several senior figures were “eliminated” in strikes on gatherings of Iranian officials.- ‘Barbaric’ -Tehran residents had been going about their usual business when the strikes began. Security forces quickly flooded the streets, shops pulled down their shutters and few pedestrians risked venturing out, an AFP journalist saw. “I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally toward targets,” a Tehran office worker told AFP before communications and internet access were cut. The Red Crescent said 24 of Iran’s 31 provinces were affected by the strikes. Pezeshkian decried the deadly attack on the girls’ school in the south as a “barbaric act”.Across Israel, city streets stood deserted as residents took cover in shelters while the blasts of intercepted Iranian missiles reverberated overhead. Emergency services reported two people injured.- ‘Eliminating imminent threats’ -The attacks came after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at Iran’s stance in negotiations over its nuclear and missile programmes.Trump said Washington’s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.”We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said.He also told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.It was the first US military action of this scale apparently aimed at toppling a foreign government since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Netanyahu echoed Trump’s call, telling Iranians that the time had come to “cast off the yoke of tyranny”.Israel’s army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the operation was “taking place at a completely different scale” than the 12-day war it fought against Iran in June, which the US briefly joined. “Since this morning, approximately 200 fighter jets… completed an extensive attack against the missile array and the defence systems of the Iranian terror regime in western and central Iran. This is the largest military air raid in the history of the Israeli Air Force,” a military statement said.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said their “missiles and drones have struck the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and other American bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as military and security centres in the heart of the occupied territories (Israel)”.Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the UAE and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic, at least in part, and multiple airlines cancelled flights to the Middle East. – Blasts across Gulf -Residents and AFP correspondents in the Emirati, Qatari and Bahraini capitals heard multiple rounds of explosions from Iran’s retaliatory strikes.In Qatar, people fled in panic as a falling missile plunged into a residential neighbourhood, erupting in a fireball as it hit the street.And in Abu Dhabi, the UAE’s capital, golfers were stunned to see dozens of projectiles flying overhead. In Bahrain’s capital Manama, residents were hurriedly evacuated from the Juffair district housing the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. “When we heard the sounds, we cried out of fear,” said Jana Hassan, a 15-year-old student who was in the area. “I will never forget the sound of those loud blasts.” Two witnesses told AFP they heard an explosion and saw a plume of smoke rising from Dubai’s famed man-made island The Palm, with authorities reporting four injured.The foreign ministry of Oman, a mediator in recent US-Iran talks, called “on all parties to immediately cease military operations” and urged the UN Security Council to impose a ceasefire.burs/ser/smw

Republicans largely welcomed strikes launched Saturday by US forces and ally Israel against Iran but prominent Democrats condemned what they called an illegal aggression.”Today, Iran is facing the severe consequences of its evil actions,” including “terrorism,” the murder of Americans and the regime’s sustained nuclear ambitions, Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson said in a statement.”We pray for the safety of our brave servicemembers and our allies involved in Operation Epic Fury,” the top Republican in Congress added.However, the top Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, demanded a briefing to Congress by the Trump administration.”The American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home,” he said.- ‘Justified’ -For Senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime supporter of US military intervention against the Islamic republic, Donald Trump’s speech “will go down in history as the catalyst for the most historic change in the Middle East in a thousand years.””It will be violent, extensive and I believe, at the end of the day, successful,” he added in a series of X posts. “The demise of the ayatollah’s regime with American blood on its hands is necessary and more than justified.”Many Republicans hailed Trump’s decisive action. Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton pointed to multiple grievances against Iran, including the 1979 hostage crisis and the deadly Beirut bombing of 1983.”Iran has waged war against the US for 47 years,” Cotton posted on X. “The butcher’s bill has finally come due for the ayatollahs.”Trump has near total control of his Republican Party and dissent is rare.Congressman Thomas Massie broke ranks to say: “I am opposed to this war.””This is not ‘America First,'” Massie posted, referring to Trump’s widely used campaign slogan.The Republican stressed that when the House and Senate reconvene, he will work with Democrats to “force a congressional vote on war with Iran.”- ‘Unconstitutional’ -The White House said Saturday that prior to the attacks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio telephoned and briefed the so-called Gang of Eight, the top congressional Republicans and Democrats on classified intelligence matters.Democrats were largely united against the large-scale attack.Senator Jack Reed, top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, argued Trump “has thrust our nation into a major war with Iran — one he never made a case for, never sought congressional authority for, and for which he has no endgame.”The administration “has left the American people in the dark about the true costs, risks, and duration of this conflict.”Leftist Senator Bernie Sanders slammed Trump for triggering “an illegal, premeditated and unconstitutional war,” saying the US administration “lied to” Americans and that the conflict with create further instability.”Might does not make right. It creates international anarchy, death, destruction and human misery,” he said in a statement.Senator Ruben Gallego assailed Trump for contradicting his campaign promises of reducing US military interventions and releasing all files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”Trump ran on exposing the pedophiles and stopping wars. Trump is now protecting the pedophiles and starting wars,” Gallego posted.

The United States and Israel launched what the latter called a “decisive and unprecedented” campaign against Iran, which retaliated with a barrage of missiles that sent residents running for cover on Saturday in cities across the Middle East.Iranian authorities sent text messages urging residents to evacuate the capital — a city of 10 million — and a strike on a school in southern Iran killed 85 people, the judiciary said, although AFP was unable to access the site in order to verify the toll.Meanwhile, the UAE reported missile damage in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and one civilian dead in an Iranian attack, as blasts from air defences and Tehran’s missile salvo also echoed over Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait — as well as Israel. In weeks of sabre-rattling leading up to the strikes, Tehran had repeatedly vowed to retaliate fiercely if attacked, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argued on Saturday that US and Israeli installations around the region involved in the operation were “legitimate targets”. Plumes of black smoke hung over Tehran, including in the Pasteur district, site of the home of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and there was a huge security deployment in the capital.”Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian were among the targets of the attack,” Israel’s public broadcaster reported, citing an Israeli source.But Araghchi told NBC News that Khamenei was alive “as far as I know”, adding that “all high ranking officials are alive”. An Israeli military official said several senior figures were “eliminated” in strikes on gatherings of Iranian officials.Tehran residents had been going about their usual business when the strikes began. Security forces quickly flooded the streets, shops pulled down their shutters and few pedestrians risked venturing out, an AFP journalist saw. “I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally toward targets,” a Tehran office worker told AFP before communications and internet access were cut, a step authorities typically take during periods of heightened tension. More than 20 of Iran’s 31 provinces were affected by the strikes, the country’s Red Crescent Society said. Pezeshkian decried the deadly attack on the girls’ school in the south, calling it a “barbaric act”.Across Israel, city streets stood deserted as residents took cover in shelters, while the blasts of intercepted Iranian missiles reverberated overhead. Emergency services reported two people injured.- ‘Eliminating imminent threats’ -The attacks came after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at Iran’s stance in negotiations over its nuclear and missile programmes.Trump said Washington’s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, while Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.”We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” Trump said, warning of possible US casualties.He also told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.It was the first US military action of this scale apparently aimed at toppling a foreign government since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Netanyahu echoed Trump’s call, telling Iranians that the time had come to “cast off the yoke of tyranny”.Israel’s army chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said the operation was “taking place at a completely different scale” than the 12-day war it fought against Iran in June, which the US briefly joined. “We now face a significant, decisive and unprecedented operation to dismantle the capabilities of the Iranian terrorist regime,” he later said in a televised statement.The army said it had completed a “broad strike” against Iran’s defence systems, and was now “currently striking missile launchers in Iran to thwart the threat posed to the State of Israel”.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said: “The IRGC’s missiles and drones have struck the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and other American bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as military and security centres in the heart of the occupied territories (Israel), with severe blows.”Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the UAE and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic, at least in part, and multiple airlines cancelled flights to the Middle East. – Blasts across Gulf -Residents and AFP correspondents in the Emirati, Qatari and Bahraini capitals heard multiple rounds of explosions from Iran’s retaliatory strikes.In Qatar, people fled in panic as a falling missile plunged into a residential neighbourhood, erupting in a fireball as it hit the street.And in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ capital, golfers enjoying a quiet round were stunned to see dozens of projectiles flying overhead. In Bahrain’s capital Manama, residents were hurriedly evacuated from the Juffair district housing the US navy’s Fifth Fleet. “When we heard the sounds, we cried out of fear,” said Jana Hassan, a 15-year-old student who was visiting a friend in the area. “I will never forget the sound of those loud blasts.” Two witnesses told AFP they heard an explosion and saw a plume of smoke rising from Dubai’s famed man-made island The Palm as authorities reported four injured.The foreign ministry of Oman, a mediator in recent US-Iran talks, called “on all parties to immediately cease military operations and urges the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to impose a ceasefire”.burs/smw/dc

Donald Trump’s unleashing of operation “Epic Fury” against Iran has once more underscored the long and bitter struggle between US presidents and Congress over who has the power to decide on foreign military action.In his video address announcing “major combat” with the Islamic republic, Trump didn’t once mention any authorization or consultation with the US House of Representatives or Senate.In doing so he sidelined not only Democrats, who called for an urgent war powers vote, but also his own Republican party as he asserts his dominance over a largely cowed legislature.A US official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called top congressional leaders known as the “Gang of Eight” to give them a heads up on the Iran attack — adding that one was unreachable.Rubio also “laid out the situation” and consulted with the same leaders on Tuesday in an hour-long briefing, the US official said. According to the US Constitution, only Congress can declare war.But at the same time the founding document of the United States first signed in 1787 says that the president is the “commander in chief” of the military, a definition that US leaders have in recent years taken very broadly.The last official declaration of war by Congress was as far back as World War II.There was no such proclamation during the unpopular Vietnam War, and it was then that Congress sought to reassert its powers. In 1973 it adopted the War Powers Resolution, passed over Richard Nixon’s veto, to become the only lasting limit on unilateral presidential military action abroad.The act allows the president to carry out a limited military intervention to respond to an urgent situation created by an attack against the United States. In his video address on Saturday, Trump evoked an “imminent” threat to justify strikes against Iran. – Sixty days -Yet under this law, the president must still inform Congress within 48 hours.It also says that if the president deploys US troops for a military action for more than 60 days, the head of state must then obtain the authorization of Congress for continued action.That falls short of an official declaration of war.The US Congress notably authorized the use of force in such a way after the September 11, 2011 attacks on the United States by Al-Qaeda. Presidents have used it over the past two decades for not only the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan but a series of operations in several countries linked to the “War on Terror.”Trump is far from the first US president to launch military operations without going through Congress.Democrat Bill Clinton launched US air strikes against Kosovo in 1999 as part of a NATO campaign, despite the lack of a green light from skeptical lawmakers.Barack Obama did the same for airstrikes in Libya in 2011.Trump followed their example in his first term in 2018 when he launched airstrikes in Syria along with Britain and France.But since his return to power the 79-year-old has sought to push presidential power to its limits, and that includes in the military sphere.Trump has ordered strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America without consulting Congress, and in June 2025 struck Iran’s nuclear facilities.Perhaps the most controversial act was when he ordered the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in a lightning military raid on January 3. Republicans however managed to knock down moves by Democrats for a rare war powers resolution that would have curbed his authority over Venezuela operations.Trump has meanwhile sought to extend his powers over the home front. Democrats have slammed the Republican for deploying the National Guard in several US cities in what he calls a crackdown on crime and immigration.

The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday, with Israel’s public broadcaster reporting that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been targeted, as the Islamic republic retaliated with barrages of missiles at Gulf states and Israel.Explosions were heard in the capitals of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE — all countries that host US forces. Blasts were also reported in the skies over Jerusalem after the Israeli military said a “barrage of missiles was launched” towards the country.The US and Israeli attacks followed weeks of sabre-rattling and a major American military build-up in the Middle East, with Iran repeatedly threatening to react fiercely to any attack and warning of a conflict that would engulf the region.Smoke was rising over Tehran’s Pasteur district, site of the home of Khamenei, and there was a huge security deployment in the capital.”Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian were among the targets of the attack,” Israel’s Kan reported, citing an Israeli source.Iranian state television said Pezeshkian was “safe and sound”, while the Fars news agency said “missile impacts were reported in the Keshvardoost and Pasteur districts” of Tehran.Witnesses told AFP correspondents they had heard at least three blasts in the area.The attacks came after US President Donald Trump expressed frustration at Iran’s stance in negotiations over its nuclear and missile programmes.Trump said Washington’s goal was “eliminating imminent threats” from Iran, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation was to remove an “existential threat”.”The United States’ military began major combat operations in Iran,” Trump said in a video message posted on his social media site while he spent the weekend at his Florida golf club.- Totally ‘obliterated’ -“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally, again, obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy,” Trump said, warning of the possibility of US casualties.He offered Iranian forces including the Revolutionary Guards “immunity” should they surrender, or “certain death” if not, and told Iranians the “hour of your freedom is at hand”, urging them to rise up and “take over your government”.Israel’s Netanyahu echoed this call, telling Iranians that the time had come to “cast off the yoke of tyranny”.The Israeli army warned Iranians in or around military infrastructure across Iran to evacuate after announcing it was conducting a “broad strike” on multiple military targets.Iran again vowed to “respond decisively to the aggressors”, and the Guards announced they had targeted the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain as well as targets in Israel.”The IRGC’s missiles and drones have struck the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and other American bases in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as military and security centres in the heart of the occupied territories, with severe blows,” the Guards said in a statement.”I saw with my own eyes two Tomahawk missiles flying horizontally toward targets,” an office worker told AFP on condition of anonymity. “At first we heard a dull noise and thought it was a fighter jet.”In Tehran, AFP journalists heard blasts and saw smoke rising over the city centre. The health ministry said ambulances had been dispatched but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties.Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, the UAE and Israel all closed their airspaces to civilian traffic, at least in part, and a number of airlines cancelled flights to the Middle East. US embassies in the Gulf urged American citizens to take shelter.- Blasts and sirens -Blasts were heard over Jerusalem after air raid sirens sounded, with sirens also heard in Bahrain, home to a US fleet, and in the Jordanian capital Amman.Jordan’s air force said it was conducting an operation “to defend the kingdom’s skies”.Explosions were also heard over central Doha and near Al-Udeid military base, the largest US military facility in the region, and an AFP journalist saw an interceptor take out one missile in a puff of white smoke, as Qatar’s defence ministry said in a statement it had “repelled a number of attacks”.Kuwait and the UAE also reported intercepting incoming Iranian missiles, with Abu Dhabi saying it “reserves its full right to respond” and slamming the attacks as “a dangerous escalation”.A bombing that targeted an Iraqi military base housing a pro-Iran group killed at least two fighters, sources from the powerful group Kataeb Hezbollah told AFP.With the strikes underway, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah voiced confidence in victory against the Islamic republic. “We are very close to final victory. I want to be by your side as soon as possible so that together we can take back and rebuild Iran,” Reza Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington area, said in an online video address.burs-dc/smw/ser

Inter Miami will visit the White House in March to mark the club’s 2025 MLS Cup triumph, with Argentine superstar Lionel Messi expected to attend, the Miami Herald reported Friday.The newspaper cited an unnamed Inter Miami source saying “everyone” on the team will attend the ceremony with US President Donald Trump, two days before Inter plays DC United in the US capital on March 7.Messi, 38, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former president Joe Biden January 2025, the highest civilian honor in the United States, but did not attend the ceremony at the White House.Trump’s affinity for soccer has grown in recent months, with multiple meetings with FIFA president Gianni Infantino and a high-profile visit by Cristiano Ronaldo to the White House.Trump took part in the trophy presentation at the Club World Cup in the United Staes last year and was on stage at the draw for the 2026 World Cup, where Infantino took the opportunity to award the president the first FIFA peace prize.Inter Miami wrapped up a slate of international friendlies on Thursday with a 2-1 victory over Independiente del Valle in Puerto Rico.They fell to Los Angeles FC in their MLS season-opener last weekend and face Orlando City on Sunday.

Former US president Bill Clinton denied wrongdoing Friday to a congressional panel probing his links to Jeffrey Epstein, before calling on others to testify as Democrats seek to shift focus onto Donald Trump’s ties to the sex offender.Clinton features prominently in the Epstein files but insists that he broke ties well before the disgraced billionaire’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses.”I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said in his opening statement, shared on social media. The Republican chair of the House committee probing Epstein, James Comer, said “we believe this was a very productive deposition that President Clinton answered every question — or attempted to answer every question.”Comer’s Republican colleague Nancy Mace alleged there were “inconsistencies” in his testimony without providing specific examples.Democrats on the committee have reiterated their call for Trump, who also has well-documented links to Epstein, to be quizzed.”Let’s be real, we are talking to the wrong president,” said Democratic committee member Suhas Subramanyam, who also emphasized that Clinton had not dodged any questions.In his statement, Clinton did not name Trump directly but said “no person is above the law, even presidents — especially presidents.” As for Trump, he repeated his skepticism over the whole process, telling reporters he likes Clinton “and I don’t like seeing him deposed.”In a video statement he posted late Friday on X, Clinton appeared to criticize the process in which he had been asked to testify but others had not, warning against the sharp partisan battles that have shaped the scandal.”I hope that by being here today, we can bring ourselves just a little further from the brink, and back to being a country where we can disagree civilly and we can search for truth and justice, and it outweighs the partisan urge to score points and create spectacle,” he said.”I hope it will motivate everyone to go in front of Congress to say what they know,” he said, without naming anyone.Being mentioned in the files released by the US Department of Justice does not imply wrongdoing and Clinton — like Trump — has not been accused of a crime or formally investigated.Clinton follows his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who testified Thursday and defiantly called for Trump to appear before the panel.The lawmakers should ask Trump “directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said.The depositions are being held behind closed doors, with Bill Clinton likening the proceedings to a “kangaroo court.” The couple has called for them to be open and televised.Hillary Clinton said she had never known Epstein or visited the properties where he hosted world celebrities and powerful business and political figures — as well as allegedly trafficking young women and girls.Bill Clinton has acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein but said he never visited the financier’s infamous private Caribbean island.Epstein was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, but died in a New York jail cell in 2019 before he could be tried on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide but like much else around Epstein is the subject of lurid conspiracy theories.The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify, but the Democratic power couple agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress.- ‘Turned him in’ -Democrats say the investigation is being weaponized to attack Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.Previously unseen photographs from the files include one showing Bill Clinton reclining in a hot tub, part of the image obscured by a stark black rectangle.In another, Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.Bill Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.”Jeffrey Epstein was in the White House 17 times while Bill Clinton was President. We know that Bill Clinton flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane at least 27 times. So those are questions that we’re going to ask,” said Comer.Clinton said in his opening statement “not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing — I would have turned him in.”The depositions are being held in Chappaqua, New York, home to the Clintons, where dozens of journalists and Secret Service officers have converged.

OpenAI said Friday it struck a deal for the Pentagon to use its models in the US defense agency’s classified network, with “safeguards,” after President Donald Trump blacklisted AI rival Anthropic.Trump had ordered the government to stop using Anthropic, calling it a threat to national security after it refused to agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models.The firm vowed to sue over the “intimidation” in what has become a rare public dispute between a major tech firm and the US government, insisting its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.Hours later, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a deal with the Pentagon to use its models with similar red lines to Anthropic, using “technical safeguards” that the Department of Defense had agreed to.”Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X, adding that those principles went “into our agreement.”The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Washington had lashed out at Anthropic over its ethical concerns, saying the Pentagon operates within the law and contracted suppliers cannot set terms on how their products are employed.”I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.”Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” Trump added.- Court challenge -Altman told employees Thursday that he was seeking an agreement with the Pentagon that would include demands similar to Anthropic’s, and that he hoped to help broker a resolution.”Humans should remain in the loop for high-stakes automated decisions,” he wrote in a memo to employees, according to US media.Anthropic echoed those sentiments in a statement earlier Friday, saying no pushback from Washington would “change our position on mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.”The company said it remains “ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States.”The Pentagon had said Anthropic must agree to comply with its demand by 5:01 pm (22:01 GMT) Friday or face compulsion under the Defense Production Act.The Cold War-era law, last invoked during the Covid pandemic, grants the federal government sweeping powers to direct private industry toward national security priorities.The Pentagon also threatened to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk — a label typically reserved for companies from adversary nations.But in response Anthropic said it would seek to overturn the ban.”We will challenge any supply chain risk designation in court,” the San Francisco-based AI startup said in a lengthy statement that outlined the dangers of the Pentagon’s demands.- ‘Dangerous precedent’ -US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier he was directing the Pentagon to follow through on the latter threat, and that “effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.””Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” Hegseth wrote on X.Calling Hegseth “the least qualified Secretary of Defense in our nation’s history,” top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries praised what he called Anthropic’s courage for pushing back “against this shocking invasion of privacy scheme.” “Mass surveillance of American citizens is unacceptable,” Jeffries added in his statement late Friday.The conflict had earlier drawn a show of solidarity from others in the industry, with hundreds of employees from AI giants Google DeepMind and OpenAI urging their companies to rally behind Anthropic in an open letter titled “We Will Not Be Divided.””We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War’s current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight,” the letter said.”They’re trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in. That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand,” it added.