The US-Israeli bombing campaign unleashed on 28 February has provoked Iranian retaliation against US allies across the region, with President Donald Trump saying Friday that only “unconditional” Iranian surrender would end the war.

But early on Saturday, air raid alerts and explosions were ringing out above Jerusalem as well as Gulf cities Dubai, Manama and near Riyadh, where Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired at an air base housing US military personnel.

Israel‘s military announced “a broad-scale wave of strikes” on government sites in the Iranian capital, and AFP photos showed fire and smoke billowing from Tehran‘s Mehrabad International Airport after it was hit.

The week of widening conflict has hit Lebanon, Cyprus in the EU, Turkey and Azebaijan, and reached as far as Sri Lanka, where US forces fired a deadly torpedo strike that sank an Iranian warship.

Lebanon rocked by Israeli strikes as Hezbollah joins Iran war

In addition to killing hundreds of people and causing significant damage to homes as well as infrastructure, the war has inflicted economic chaos.

Crude oil prices surged on mounting fears about global supply disruption as the war and Tehran’s pressure on the Strait of Hormuz upend the world’s energy and transport sectors.

The critical energy waterway is where tankers typically move nearly 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and about 20 percent of liquefied natural gas from the Gulf.

The main US contract, West Texas Intermediate, soared more than 12 percent to over $90 per barrel, topping off the biggest weekly gain on record.

The US government has so far said the war could last for weeks – potentially four or more, and Trump has said the largest US defence firms have agreed to quadruple production of advanced weaponry.

US officials have tried to swat away questions over United States stockpiles of air defence and other munitions as US Central Command said over 3,000 Iranian targets have been struck in the past week.

Though Iranian retaliation has been inflicted widely across the Middle East, US rivals China and Russia have stayed largely out of the fray.

But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is “not concerned” about reports that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on US troop positions and movements.

While declining to confirm the reports, Hegseth, in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes”, said: “We’re tracking everything.”

Renewed Israeli attacks on Tehran came a day after Israel intensified its air strikes on Lebanon, striking Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah holds sway, and Baalbeck in the east.

Turkey fears it will pick up the bill for Washington’s war in Iran   

‘Unconditional surrender’

Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced support for an “immediate” ceasefire in Iran during a phone call with Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on Friday, the Kremlin said.

Trump, who has given varying reasons for starting the war, has spurned fresh talks with Tehran, however, and said on Truth Social “there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said when the president determines Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States and the operation’s goals are realised, “Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender, whether they say it themselves or not”.

Trump also promised to help rebuild the country’s economy if Tehran installs someone “acceptable” to him to replace Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed last weekend.

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States would have no role in selecting Khamenei’s successor.

“The selection of Iran’s leadership will take place strictly in accordance with our constitutional procedures and solely by the will of the Iranian people, without any foreign interference,” he added.

   

‘Humanitarian disaster’   

The war has killed six US service members and Trump is to attend the return of their bodies at a transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 217 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned that a “humanitarian disaster is looming”.

In addition to the toll, 300,000 people in the country had been forced to flee their homes, the Norwegian Refugee Council said

Three UN peacekeepers were wounded when their base in southern Lebanon was hit on Friday, the UN force and the Ghanaian military said.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of targeting them, and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack as “unacceptable”.

Macron condemns ‘unacceptable attack’ on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

Tehran was pummelled by Israeli strikes on Friday, which AFP journalists described as among the heaviest days of bombardments yet.

According to Iran’s health ministry, the US and Israeli strikes have killed 926 people, a number AFP could not independently verify.

Iran has launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and Gulf states since the war began, and at least 10 people have been killed in Israel, according to first responders.

Qatar said it had been targeted by 10 Iranian drones on Friday, nine of which were intercepted. The other landed in an uninhabited area.

Drones struck airports and oil facilities in Iraq on Friday and targeted Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in the northern Kurdistan region, security officials said.

Thirteen people, seven of them civilians, have been killed in Gulf countries since the war began, including an 11-year-old girl, Elena Abdullah Hussein, in Kuwait.

Two hours before she died, the girl called her father at work to tell him she loved him.

“It was as if she was trying to say goodbye,” the girl’s father, Abdullah Hussein, told AFP at her funeral.

Eight months pregnant, Muhammad, 32, walked with her husband and three children for hours in the dark streets until they found a car to take them to the St. Joseph Tabaris Parish, which has opened its doors to refugees and migrants.

They are among 300,000 people displaced across Lebanon this week by heavy Israeli strikes, launched in response to a rocket and drone attackinto Israel by the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Just 100,000 of the displaced are in government shelters. Others are staying with relatives or sleeping in the streets. But migrants and refugees say government shelters were never an option for them, saying they were turned away during the last war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Muhammad’s oldest daughter, now seven, stopped speaking after the 2024 war.

This time, they are even more vulnerable: their home was destroyed in this week’s strikes and Muhammad is due to give birth at the end of the month.

“I don’t know if there’s a doctor or not, but I’m really scared about it because I haven’t prepared any clothes for the baby, nor arranged a hospital, and I don’t know where to go,” she told Reuters as her younger daughter leaned against her pregnant belly.

France ramps up military aid to Lebanon as Macron calls for halt in attacks

Dwindling resources, space  

Muhammad said she was registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) but had not received support.

“Us, as refugees, why did we register with the UN, if they are not helping us in the most difficult times?” she said.

Dalal Harb, a spokesperson for UNHCR Lebanon, said the agency had mobilized but reaching everyone immediately was extremely challenging given the scale and speed of displacement. The UNHCR operation in Lebanon is currently only around 14 percent funded, she said.

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which helped the church host displaced in 2024, is doing so again.

Michael Petro, JRS’ Emergency Shelter Director, said the church was full within the first day of strikes, with 140 people from South Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other countries sheltering there.

“There are many, many more people coming than there were in 2024, and we have fewer and fewer places to put them,” he said.

UN, France slam Israel after attack on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

Nowhere to go  

Petro said he was told weeks ago that government shelters would be open to migrants if war erupted.

But when the strikes began and even Lebanese struggled to find shelter, the policy seemed to change, he said.

“We’re hearing from hotlines up to government officials and ministries that migrants are not welcome,” Petro said.

Lebanon’s Minister for Social Affairs Haneen Sayyed did not respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Sayyed said Beirut shelters were full.

When Israeli strikes began, Othman Yahyeh Dawood, a 41-year-old Sudanese man, put his two young sons on his motorcycle.

They drove 75 kilometres from the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh to St. Joseph’s, where they had sheltered in 2024.

“I know the area is safe and there are people who will welcome us,” he said.

“We don’t know where to go; there’s war there (in the south), war here (in Beirut), war in Sudan, and nowhere else to go,” he said.

 (Reuters)

The 36-year-old Kenyan, who has spent seven years in the city’s retail sector, told AFP she felt the shock “in her spine”.

“The anxiety was extremely high,” she said.

She is one of thousands of Africans across the Middle East hunkering down as the Gulf fends off Iran‘s retaliatory drone and missile attacks since US-Israeli strikes sparked war last Saturday.

Explosions have rocked cities including Kuwait‘s capital, Manama, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as Tehran targets US assets and hits civilian infrastructure across the region.

At least 13 people, including seven civilians, have been killed.

Yet for many African workers like Kuria, who has little chance of finding work at home, leaving is hardly an option.

Arnold Keumoe Tchimmoe, a 34-year-old Cameroonian restaurant supervisor has spent 11 years in Dubai.

The first blast caught him just as he arrived at work, a bang so sharp he thought someone had hit his car, before he stepped out and saw debris falling from the sky.

Even then, he said he felt calm, convinced that his wife, four-year-old son and mother remained better off in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) than in Cameroon.

“I am more safer here,” he told AFP, bluntly dismissing any thought of returning home: “Never.”

Gulf African workforce

For years, the oil-rich Gulf has pulled in workers from across Africa, offering salaries that far outstrip what many could earn at home.

Many take jobs in hotels, restaurants and the security sector, or as cleaners and domestic workers in private homes.

Around 715,000 sub-Saharan Africans are in Saudi Arabia alone, making up more than five percent of the kingdom’s foreign population, according to a 2022 census.

Little is known about the true scale of sub-Saharan migration to the Gulf, a 2024 study by the Gulf Research Center said, though growing African communities are now visible in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain.

Kenya’s foreign ministry said on Friday more than 500,000 of its nationals live and work across the Middle East, many sending home vital remittances.

For now, Nairobi says most are remaining.

They are continuing “with their daily activities, whether for work, study, or personal matters, either in person or remotely, depending on prevailing local circumstances,” Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi said in a statement.

Unlike European governments, which have chartered evacuation flights, African workers say the decision to stay or leave has been left to them.

While job opportunities are good for some, leaving for others may be more theoretical than real under the long-criticised sponsorship system common in the Gulf.

Human rights groups have said employers often hold workers’ passports and control their ability to change jobs.

“As much as we are safe now, we did not sign up for this,” Kuria said of the bombardments.

Military bases and trade routes leave Africa exposed to war fallout

Balance safety and livelihood 

Many have weighed the dangers against the very reason they went to the Gulf.

Ghanaian Samuel Kwesi Appiah, 29, arrived in Dubai three years ago with help from an uncle who sponsored his move. He now works for a logistics firm.

“I came to work and support my family back home. If I leave suddenly, it will affect my income and the people depending on me,” he said, vowing to pack up only if “the situation becomes very dangerous.”

In Qatar, a Zimbabwean woman working in the hospitality industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the fragile balance between safety and livelihood.

“We are worried and our relatives back home are also worried about us. They think that we are not telling them the truth about the real situation,” she said.

Zimbabwean missions in Kuwait and the UAE have only urged Zimbabweans in the Gulf to remain vigilant, guidance that, for now, aligns with her own decision to stay.

“People want to maintain their jobs,” said Peter, a Kenyan employed in a UAE restaurant, adding that many were wary of speaking openly, fearing fines if they are accused of spreading rumours about events.

  (AFP)

Campaigning is officially underway for France’s municipal elections, which decide who heads local councils in some 35,000 communes across the country.

While turnout is typically some 10 percentage points lower than for presidential elections, they serve as a strong indicator of support for France’s political parties – which are eyeing a pivotal ballot for France’s new president in 2027. 

The votes are a key test of strength for the far-right National Rally (RN), which performed poorly in the last municipal votes in 2020 but went on to do well in European and parliamentary elections in 2024.

Looking to expand into larger urban areas in particular, the RN is fielding a record 650 lists. The party and its allies currently control only around a dozen councils, only one of which – Perpignan – represents more than 100,000 inhabitants.

“We know that the RN will win towns, probably a significant number. But it is very difficult to know exactly how many,” researcher Gilles Ivaldi, who specialises in the far right, told French news channel TF1.

Early surveys suggest the RN could make gains in southern towns such as Toulon and Menton, where security issues like drug violence play to their advantage. The party is even hoping to take France’s second-biggest city, Marseille, from the left.

Another key question is whether the RN can strike alliances with more moderate parties, who have traditionally joined forces to stop the far right getting into power. “If it wants to win in 2027, it needs the right-wing electorate,” said Ivaldi.

“Parties’ apparatus may still hold out at the national level, but it knows very well that it can forge alliances locally. In all European countries where the far right has come to power, this is how it has done it.”

Are France’s once disparate far-right groups merging?

Change of hands in Paris

The race is also drawing in national political heavyweights. Several current or former government ministers are running, including former culture minister Rachida Dati, and around 100 members of the French or European parliaments.

Dati, the right-wing Republicans (LR) candidate backed by some centrists after resigning to focus on running for mayor of Paris, is competing against Emmanuel Grégoire, representing the Socialists, Greens and Communists.

Most first-round polls put the two in a tight race to replace outgoing Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a member of the Socialists who has been in office since 2014. The Socialist Party (PS) has run the capital since 2001.

France accuses Russia of election interference using fake website

Far-left hopes

On the far left of the political spectrum, France Unbowed (LFI) – like the RN – is aiming to improve on weak 2020 results.

It is targeting towns including Roubaix, where its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon did well in the last presidential vote, and the northern Paris suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, where it has several MPs.

Mélenchon is a divisive figure on the broader left and the PS has refused to formally ally with LFI in these elections. At local level, however, the Socialists have not ruled out teaming up with LFI on a case-by-case basis, and candidates for the two parties are on joint lists in several dozen communes. 

LFI’s support could even prove crucial if the PS is to keep its grip on Paris. Its candidate, Sophia Chikirou, is polling at around 10 percent in the capital compared to 27 percent for Dati and 35 percent for Grégoire. 

Macron in the background

For President Emmanuel Macron‘s Renaissance party, the municipal elections will serve as yet another referendum.

The party and its allies control relatively few councils and are fielding a reduced number of lists, limiting the potential for voters to take out their frustrations with the government at local level. 

Just seven lists across the country are headed by Renaissance. In comparison, in 2020 the party – then named The Republic on the Move – put forward nearly 250 lists.

Instead, the party is betting on early alliances, principally with the right, to maintain its local influence.

In a change to the electoral law being rolled out for the first time, lists must be made up of equal numbers of men and women even in communes with fewer than 1,000 residents. Previously the requirement applied only to bigger towns. Yet only 25 percent of lists are headed by women, a slight increase from 2020. 

New rules in France’s three biggest cities – Paris, Marseille and Lyon – will also allow voters to elect the city council directly, rather than choosing representatives from their own arrondissement who go on to form a central panel.

The Grand Mosque’s minaret rises 33 metres above the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank of the French capital. Behind the heavy wooden doors of its green and white Arabo-Andalusian buildings are tiled courtyards, a library, a restaurant, gardens with fountains, even a hammam.

It is one of Paris’s most recognisable religious landmarks.

The first stone was laid in 1922 and the mosque was inaugurated in July 1926, in the presence of French president Gaston Doumergue and the sultan of Morocco, Moulay Youssef.

The idea to build the mosque dated back to the mid-19th century and was promoted by French Orientalists, including Louis Massignon, an influential Western expert on Muslim thought. It gained momentum in 1916 and was approved in 1920, after heated debate.

Over four years, 450 craftsmen and artists from the Maghreb helped to build the complex.

France calls Algeria colonisation law ‘hostile’ and blow to dialogue

Tribute and backlash

At the time, France ruled a vast empire stretching from the Levant to Africa. During the First World War, 500,000 African soldiers, most of them Muslim, fought under the French flag in mainland France. At the Battle of Verdun, one of the deadliest of the war, 70,000 of them were killed. More than 100,000 died in total.

The mosque, first called the Muslim Institute of the Mosque of Paris, was intended to express national recognition for those Muslim soldiers.

A Muslim section at the city’s famed Père Lachaise cemetery had existed, at the request of the Turkish embassy, between 1856 and 1914 – but only during that period.

“When the minaret that you are about to build rises towards the beautiful sky of the Île-de-France, it will add just one more prayer and the Catholic towers of Notre-Dame will not be jealous,” Marshal Hubert Lyautey said in 1922. He was France’s resident general in Morocco until 1925, and later its minister of war.

Edouard Herriot, the mayor of Lyon and a defender of republican secularism, also supported the project.

“If the war sealed Franco-Muslim brotherhood on the battlefields and if more than 100,000 of our subjects and protégés died in the service of a homeland that is now shared, that homeland must make it a point of honour to show its gratitude and remembrance through actions as soon as possible,” he wrote.

However, resistance was strong and the mosque’s construction drew sharp criticism.

“If there is an awakening of Islam, and I do not believe there can be any doubt about it, a trophy of that Quranic faith on this hill of Sainte-Geneviève… represents more than an offence to our past – it is a threat to our future,” said Charles Maurras, leader of the far-right monarchist movement Action Française.

Criticism also came from the left. On the day of the inauguration, the Communist newspaper L’Humanité reported on a meeting organised by North African Star, an Algerian nationalist organisation.

Issuing what it called “an indignant protest against the inauguration parade of the Mosque of Paris”, North African Star said that North African Muslims did not recognise the right of the bey (a traditional North African ruler), the sultan or honorary ministers present to represent them.

Messali Hadj, a pioneer of the Algerian independence movement, called the project a “publicity mosque”, an “oriental cabaret” and “an insult to the spirit of Islam”.

French parliament approves far-right motion opposing 1968 Franco-Algerian accord

Colonial power and control

Beyond honouring the war dead, the mosque reflected France’s ambition to present itself as a Muslim power in Europe at a time of rivalry between empires. It also allowed authorities to keep watch over colonial subjects living in mainland France. Around 20,000 Muslims were living in Paris at the time.

A few years later, the state took control of the Franco-Muslim hospital in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, which admitted only Muslim patients, and created the North African Brigade, a police unit tasked with monitoring and, in some cases, repressing Arab workers during the interwar years.

The mosque project also raised a legal problem. France had separated church and state in 1905. How could it fund a religious building?

In August 1920, the lower house of parliament (then the Chamber of Deputies) passed a law granting state funding to the Society of Habous and Holy Places, a body created in 1917 to organise pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina for Muslims from the colonial empire.

Because it was based in Algeria, the society was not subject to the 1905 secularism law, even though Algeria was then a French department.

The French state granted 500,000 francs. The City of Paris provided the land and nearly 2 million francs in subsidies. The project was overseen by the society, headed by Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit, who became the mosque’s first rector and raised additional funds in the Maghreb.

Algeria’s influence

Since its opening, all rectors of the Grand Mosque have been Algerian. After Algeria’s independence, the mosque’s headquarters were moved from Algiers to Paris – a decision opposed by the then rector Hamza Boubakeur, a former MP representing Algeria when it was under French rule.

In 1982, under president François Mitterrand, France agreed to return control of the mosque to Algiers as part of an oil agreement. Algeria has since paid an annual subsidy and sent dozens of imams to Paris.

In recent years, criticism of Algeria’s influence has intensified. The mosque has been accused of a lack of transparency over implementing an exclusive mandate granted by the Algerian state in 2023 to certify halal products from the European Union.

In January 2025, rector Chems-eddine Hafiz dismissed the accusations as “a scandalous and unfounded cabal”, suggesting they were part of a coordinated attack.

The strain was clear in March 2025, when Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau declined to attend the mosque’s iftar ceremony during Ramadan, breaking with an annual tradition.

The long quest to uncover ‘ghost graves’ of Algerian Harkis interned in France

Faith, refuge and memory

Over the decades, the Grand Mosque has sought to embody what it describes as an Islam in tune with the values of the French Republic.

“By showing your unwavering attachment to the republic, to the nation, to its principles and its cohesion, you bear witness to that France, diverse and multiple, yet united around shared values,” Chirac said during a visit in 2002.

From 500 worshippers a century ago, the mosque can now welcome up to 15,000 at a time. For Eid al-Adha, as many as 30,000 people gather there.

During the German occupation of Paris between 1940 and 1944, the mosque served as a refuge for Resistance fighters, families and Jewish children. It has underground access to the Bièvre river – a small waterway that runs beneath parts of Paris – and issued false certificates of Muslim faith to Jewish men.

The mosque has also entered popular culture. In 1966, a famous scene from the movie La grande vadrouille (Don’t Look Now… We’re Being Shot At!) was filmed in its hammam, in which Louis de Funès and Bourvil sing “Tea for Two” while searching for British airmen.

Listed as a historic monument since 1983, the Grand Mosque has become part of the capital’s landscape, alongside the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame – and the Zouave statue on the Pont de l’Alma, which represents a soldier from a North African infantry unit created after France’s first colonial campaigns in 1830.

“The Grand Mosque belongs to the shared heritage of the nation,” Chems-eddine Hafiz said. “Muslims are part of the history of France [and] of its future [and the mosque will] continue to anchor Muslim citizens in the national story.”

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This story was adapted from the original version in French by Anne Bernas.

High-ranking military officials in charge of counterterrorism operations in Benin and Nigeria met in Cotonou on 27 February to discuss future cooperation, alongside French representatives.

The plan includes the coordination of border patrols, joint operations, intelligence sharing and increased monitoring of cross-border flows, which are to be discussed further later this month.

For Héni Nsaibia, senior West Africa analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data group (ACLED), the collaboration is “a step in the right direction” for tackling the rise in violence.

The border area between Benin, Niger and Nigeria has become a new focus of jihadist violence since 2025, Nsaibia said.

“Due to very weak border security and coordination between concerned states, seeing Benin and Nigeria reinforcing their cooperation is particularly relevant,” he told RFI.

According to his research for ACLED, the number of incidents involving jihadist groups in Benin’s Alibori and Borgou departments, Dosso in Niger, and Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Kwara states rose by 86 percent between 2024 and 2025. Resulting deaths soared by 262 percent. 

Growing footprint

Jihadist groups Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Sahel have long been concentrated in the Sahel countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, but are now spreading to West Africa’s coastal countries.

“Sahelian jihadist militants have escalated, entrenched and increasingly broadcast their footprint,” Nsaibia wrote in a recent analysis.

Founded in Mali in 2017, JNIM is now the main jihadist group in the central Sahel. Since 2019, the al-Qaeda affiliate has also been carrying out attacks in countries along the Gulf of Guinea, including Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Togo.

Last year, JNIM also claimed responsibility for the first time for an attack on Nigerian soil, Nsaibia noted.

This increase in violence can be blamed on “limited state presence”, he said, as well as weakened regional cooperation since Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger withdrew from the Ecowas bloc following coups in all three countries.

According to Nsaibia, jihadists are consolidating their presence in the border area through recruitment across ethnic and linguistic lines, by co-opting local bandits and taking control of smuggling routes – particularly of fuel from northern Nigeria to the Niger river and Benin.

Mali under pressure to end fuel crisis as negotiations with jihadists stall

Pursuit across borders

Cooperation across borders is seen as key to tackling the problem.

Due to “the porosity of the borders, we’ve had armed trafficking, we’ve had criminal gangs, we’ve had Boko Haram, we’ve had ISIS and other groups”, said Sunday Dare, senior advisor to Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 

The Nigerian president is committed to fostering close relations with Benin and its other neighbours, Dare told RFI, with an eye to both security and economic benefits. “Just last month he opened the borders to not just Benin, but also Niger, and that has improved relations,” the advisor said.

Another meeting is scheduled to take place in Benin before the end of March to make progress on this week’s draft military memorandum.

 

US strikes on Nigeria set ‘deeply troubling precedent’ for African governance

 

According to Nsaibia, the plan is likely to include measures allowing authorities to track terrorists even into neighbouring territory.

“As I understand it, it relates to preventing militant activity and by doing so, trying to mitigate the threat through joint patrols and increased intelligence sharing,” he said, “but also the right of pursuit – that is, to the respective country being able to pursue militants that often flee and jump the border in order to escape the intervening forces.” 

Nsaibia says other countries in the region are also reinforcing their military cooperation.

“We have also seen in the past weeks that Ghana and Burkina Faso have taken similar steps. From a regional perspective, these borders are most exposed to jihadist violence, and I think it makes sense for these countries to have these types of rapprochement between each other.”

“France is working with its partners to prevent the conflict from spreading further in the region,” Macron said on X, highlighting the “key stabilising role” played by the United Nations Interim force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and Lebanon, as for every country in the region, must be respected,” he said.

Macron also said France would remain “engaged” in UNIFIL, which includes around 700 French troops.

Three UN peacekeepers from Ghana were critically wounded in the missile attack on their position in the town of Qawzah, according to Lebanese state media and the Ghanaian military.

The attack came as Israel and Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah exchanged fire after the Middle East war expanded into the country on Monday.

“Amidst heavy firing this evening, three peacekeepers were injured inside their base in… Qawzah” in southern Lebanon, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement.

“The most severely injured has been transferred to hospital in Beirut for treatment.”

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Israel of targeting them, as the war unleashed by US-Israeli strikes on Iran last Saturday engulfed Lebanon.

France ramps up military aid to Lebanon as Macron calls for halt in attacks

Ghana’s military said that its UNIFIL battalion headquarters came under “two missile attacks”, adding that “two soldiers are critically injured, while one other has been traumatised”.

“The officers’ mess facility also got hit and has been burnt down completely.”

Neither UNIFIL or the Ghanaian army specified the source of the attack, but the international force said it will investigate the circumstances of the incident.

“It is unacceptable that peacekeepers performing (UN) Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted,” it added.

How the war in Iran is testing Europe’s US military base network

UNIFIL has acted as a buffer between Israel and Lebanon for decades and was assisting the Lebanese army while it was dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure near the Israeli border after the last war opposing the Iran-backed group and Israel in 2024.

The peacekeeping mission plans to withdraw all troops from Lebanon by mid-2027.

 (AFP)

Since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran on 28 February, prompting retaliation by Tehran, the price of crude oil has risen by around 13 percent.

Iran has made the Strait of Hormuz a cornerstone of its counter-offensive, blocking maritime traffic along the world’s most vital oil export route.

Around 20 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption passes through the strait, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers – Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and ​the United Arab Emirates – with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. 

The use of oil as a weapon of war is by no means new.

Following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War between Israel and neighbouring Arab countries, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo on Israel’s allies. This triggered a sharp rise in oil prices, known as the first oil shock.

“Oil now appears to play an important role in the evolution of international relations, because it sheds a completely new light on the Middle East question,” said Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then foreign minister of OPEC member Algeria.

According to André Giraud, France’s industry minister at the time of the second oil shock – caused by the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 – “oil is a raw material with strong diplomatic and military content”.

Iran also previously blocked the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when dozens of ships were sunk in the strait.

In September 2019, the Houthis in Yemen – supported and armed by Iran – also bombed a major Saudi oil installation. 

OPEC+ hikes oil production by more than expected following outbreak of Iran war

‘Peaceful’ energy

“For Iran, the Strait of Hormuz is a strategic issue,” says Olivier Appert, an adviser at the Energy-Climate Centre of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). “It may be the weapon of the weak against the strong. It is not unprecedented, but it is still worrying.”

In response to Israeli-American bombings, Iran has struck Saudi Arabia’s largest refinery as well as gas facilities in Qatar, pushing up the price of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

While there’s a pattern to targeting fossil energy infrastructure, renewables appear more sheltered from geopolitical tensions. Green energies such as solar and wind power have a more peaceful image. Once installed, solar panels are largely protected from geopolitical upheaval and sudden price spikes.

“Renewable energy is the guarantor of peace in the 21st century” wrote UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in an op-ed published in Le Monde after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mideast war exposes fragile oil, gas dependency

Yet renewables are not immune to conflict – albeit of the commercial variety.

China holds many of the rare earth elements whose magnetic, optical and catalytic properties make key clean‑energy technologies more efficient and compact.

“The players are not the same, but as early as 2011 China decided to control rare earth exports to Japan,” Appert says. “China is very clearly using its monopolistic capacity to impose its views. Unfortunately, renewable energies also respond to highly significant geopolitical challenges.”

So could this latest surge in oil prices accelerate the energy transition?

In 1973, during the first oil shock, then French president Georges Pompidou said: “Let us save petrol, save electricity, save heating and my God, we will manage, I hope, to overcome the difficulties.”

France had no oil at that time, but it did have ideas, and went on to launch a vast programme of nuclear power stations to produce low-carbon energy.

Fifty years later, Appert says the context is different, but the current crisis “justifies the need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels”.

He warns, however, that “we must be careful not to fall back into dependence on China” – a far less visible and less spectacular conflict but an energy war nonetheless.

EU moves to reduce reliance on China for rare earth supplies

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This article was adapted from the original version in French by Florent Guignard.

Tens of thousands of US troops are stationed across Europe on around 50 bases – a presence that dates back to the period after the Second World War, when Washington chose to keep forces on the continent to prevent another major conflict.

Many of those bases now carry out missions linked to NATO.

But in recent days, Washington has sought to use some of these facilities as part of its war in Iran, triggered by US-Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and set off retaliatory Iranian attacks on US bases across the Middle East.

Host countries can refuse, because the bases remain under the full sovereignty of the states where they are located.

What was once a technical detail of military cooperation has suddenly become a political question, exposing divisions across Europe.

Some governments have refused to help, while others have offered political backing – and one leader has changed course after initial resistance.

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UK U-turn

The United Kingdom was initially reluctant to support the US operation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused requests to use British military bases for the first strikes on Tehran, saying over the weekend that the UK did not believe in “regime change from the air”.

Trump reacted angrily. Speaking to British tabloid The Sun on Monday, he said it was “sad to see” that the US-UK relationship was “not what it used to be”.

Starmer had not been “helpful”, Trump said – adding that while the United States did not actually need the UK, “he should have helped”.

He contrasted the British position with that of other allies. “France has been great,” Trump said, adding that Germany and NATO had also been supportive. “They’ve all been great. The UK has been much different from the others.”

France and Germany have offered political backing for the strikes and suggested they could play a defensive role in the region.

Starmer later reversed his position and agreed to allow the US to use British bases for attacks on Iranian missile sites.

Europe’s defence dilemma: autonomy or dependence?

Spain holds firm

Spain has taken the clearest stand against the war. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his country would not participate “in any way in the war waged by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Iran”, calling it “a senseless war with unforeseeable consequences”.

He also banned the use of the Spanish bases at Morón and Rota in southern Spain.

The Spanish government said US actions were “unilateral and do not have the backing of multilateral organisations”.

“The bases will provide no support, except in the event of humanitarian necessity,” the country’s defence minister said.

The Pentagon has since withdrawn several refuelling aircraft from its bases in Spain.

The dispute has also drawn in the European Union. After Trump reportedly threatened economic retaliation against Spain, EU industry commissioner Stéphane Séjourné said: “Any threat against a member state is by definition a threat against the EU.”

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A longstanding presence

The dispute highlights the scale of the American military presence in Europe.

US troops are stationed across Europe, operating from dozens of installations including major air bases, ports and training areas. In early 2025, the US had nearly 84,000 service members on the continent, according to the US European Command.

The American military footprint in Europe dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War and expanded dramatically during the Cold War, when US troop numbers on the continent peaked at around 475,000 in the late 1950s.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, their presence fell sharply to the tens of thousands.

Today the largest concentrations of US forces are in Germany, Italy, the UK and Spain, with smaller or rotational deployments in countries including Poland and Romania. Because the bases sit on host-nation territory, governments retain full legal authority over how they are used.

Franco-German defence project under strain as Berlin signals possible exit

As conflict escalates, European leaders have called for restraint.

“The developments in Iran are greatly concerning,” European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement on 28 February.

They urged all sides to exercise “maximum restraint”, protect civilians and respect international law.

European countries have begun reinforcing their defences in the eastern Mediterranean. France and Greece have moved naval assets towards Cyprus, and France has reinforced air defence systems after drones targeted a British base on the island.

French authorities began investigating the late Egyptian businessman and his brother Salah last year amid allegations of a vast system of sex trafficking and abuse on French soil.

“Every time I met Mohamed Al-Fayed, he tried to assault me,” his former personal assistant Kristina Svensson told French police of her two years working at the Ritz.

Her testimony is all too familiar.

The alleged crimes of Mohamed Al-Fayed, who died in 2023 aged 94, first came to light in a BBC investigation in September 2024. In it, several young women who worked at his upmarket London department store Harrods accused him of rape and sexual assault.

Late Harrods owner Al-Fayed accused of rape: BBC

British police told AFP that 154 victims have so far come forward to say the former owner of Premier League club Fulham abused them.

His brother Salah, who died in 2010, is also accused.

More than 400 people come forward over Al-Fayed sexual abuse claims

But frustrated by London Metropolitan Police‘s investigation of the alleged crimes, which span more than 35 years, some victims have turned to France in the hope of finding justice.

“In England they’re ignoring the trafficking… They just want to make it about Al-Fayed and Harrods,” said Rachael Louw, a former Al-Fayed employee, speaking for the first time about her ordeal.

The French investigation, however, is handled by “a unit specialised in human trafficking”, she told AFP.

It is “a relief that our cases are actually being recognised as trafficking”.

Mohamed Al-Fayed, outsider shunned by British high society

Consumed ‘like meat’ 

Louw was 23 when her bosses sent her to Salah Fayed’s yacht on the French Riviera. Now after 31 years she was able to testify about what happened there to French investigators on February 10.

Louw told AFP she was first “spotted” by Mohamed Al-Fayed in 1993 while working as a sales assistant at Harrods. Shortly after, she was placed on a management training scheme, which required her to submit to a medical exam by a Harley Street doctor before being employed by the chairman’s office in the summer of 1994.

The medical appointment went far beyond a standard checkup, with a pelvic exam and “thorough breast exam”, smear and HIV tests.

And the results were not kept confidential.

The report, seen by AFP, was handed over to Harrods, and described Louw’s personal life: her parents’ separation when she was young, her father living in the United States and the death of her mother and grandmother.

The doctor also noted that she took a birth control pill, had a boyfriend and was in “excellent” health.

The doctor “sent confidential information to arm the rapist”, said French lawyer Eva Joly, who is representing Louw and another former Al-Fayed assistant.

“These young women were like meat, and they wanted to know if they were fit to consume,” said Caroline Joly, another member of the legal team.

Several encounters were arranged between Louw and Salah Fayed at his home in London’s glitzy Park Lane, where Louw said she was drugged with “a crack cocaine mix”.

Louw was then offered a job as an assistant to Salah in France and she was sent there by private jet.

She said she refused further drugs, “and because he didn’t push anymore, I thought it was okay”.

“I had no reason not to trust this man… this was my first job from university.”

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‘I didn’t feel safe’ 

Staff confiscated her passport as she flew from London’s Luton airport to his yacht. And once she arrived, “nothing” resembled the job she signed up for.

“I thought I was supposed to be filing paperwork, making arrangements, organising office work,” she said.

Instead “there was no office, no normal working hours, no time off. I was expected to just be with him”, she said.

Louw recalled appearing alongside Salah Fayed at dinners attended by elderly, wealthy men with “young girls and lots of touching”.

When she managed to call her boyfriend, who worked at Harrods, he was fired.

One night, Louw woke up to find Salah in her bed, claiming he was lonely, she said.

“I went ramrod straight and the rest of the night I was awake just lying there petrified,” she said, fearing any movement would be an invitation for him to touch her.

“I didn’t know what he would do to me… I didn’t feel safe.”

She saw other young women in the Fayeds’ orbit.

On a trip to Saint Tropez she encountered a red-headed “young girl”, possibly younger than herself, sunbathing on Mohamed Al-Fayed’s yacht that was moored just off his villa.

“Mohamed starts rubbing lotion all over this girl, she’s wearing a bathing suit and then he started to kiss her,” Louw told AFP.

“I don’t remember anything else” of that day, she said, “so I don’t know if there were drugs, I can’t say for sure whether I was drugged that afternoon,” she added.

What jolted her to escape was the prospect of being trapped alone with Salah after he bought a speedboat with only one bedroom, telling her “that he would take me to sail around the Italian coast”.

“I knew that if I went on that boat nothing good would happen,” she said.

Panicked, she booked the first Air France flight out and worked up the courage to ask for her passport back, which she received although it was clear Salah “was very angry”.

Home again, “I had blocked out” the details of what happened, she said. “I didn’t want to remember.”

For decades she feared she was bound by a confidentiality agreement she had signed at her interview, but seeing other victims speak out against Al-Fayed in 2024, she reconsidered.

“How can I be silent? There has to be a cost to what the perpetrators did. Because if they go unpunished, it emboldens the next man.

“If we women do not speak up we become complicit in our own oppression… powerful men will never change a system that benefits them.”

‘Organised system’ 

Despite the deaths of the brothers, the women hope investigators can still track down who enabled the trafficking network.

“There is no such thing as a small piece of information. Every element is useful for the investigation,” Al-Fayed assistant Svensson said, calling on victims and witnesses to speak to police.

The Swedish woman arrived in France in 1993 and was placed by a temp agency at the Ritz in 1998, then owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, as his assistant.

Svensson, aged 30 at the time, was to help him manage his affairs after the death of his son Dodi with Princess Diana in a Paris car crash, perceived as a prestigious assignment.

During her interview with the Ritz management, the questions posed were “focused” on her appearance and her personal background, she said, even pointing out that she was the “spitting image” of Al-Fayed’s wife.

The Ritz then sent her to Harrods in London for an interview with Al-Fayed himself, and organised accommodation for her at a luxury residence he owned.

“I had brought my CV. He wasn’t interested in that. He only asked me personal questions.”

What followed was a regular pattern of meetings with Al-Fayed. Svensson said she was left in a room alone for hours with no instruction, until he eventually arrived and she would endure sexual assault and attempted rape during which “he’d laugh”.

“I hoped that in time he would see that I wasn’t interested in him and that he would take me seriously,” Svensson told police.

“I was a foreigner, with no family or network in the country, no knowledge of French labour law, and no one to lean on financially if I quit.”

In retrospect, Svensson compares herself to a closely watched “luxury product”, which Al-Fayed wanted to possess, “a doll on a shelf”.

Al-Fayed was born Mohamed Fayed in Alexandria, but later changed his surname to the grander Al-Fayed, while his brother kept the original family name.

London investigation ‘continues’ 

At the Ritz, she recalls that staff warned her that there were “microphones and cameras in every corner”. And at a villa in Saint Tropez, she said a housekeeper suggested that she block her bedroom door at night.

The Ritz Paris told AFP in a statement that it was “deeply saddened by the testimonies and the allegations of abuse” and that it is “ready to fully cooperate with the judicial authorities. Our teams do not tolerate any form of inappropriate behaviour, which would be a serious breach of our code of conduct.

“We want to express our deepest respect to the women who spoke out,” it added.

Harrods said it “continues to support the bravery of all women in coming forward. Their claims point to the breadth of abuse by Mohamed Fayed and again raise serious allegations against his brother, Salah Fayed. The picture that has emerged suggests that this pattern of abusive behaviour took place wherever they operated.”

They said more than 180 survivors had already received counselling support through its independent advocate. The store also urged survivors to claim compensation through the Harrods Redress Scheme.

London’s Metropolitan police said its “investigation into those who could have facilitated or enabled Mohamed Al-Fayed’s offending continues” and urged victims to come forward.

“The way the Met works has moved on immeasurably, and our teams have transformed the way we investigate rape and sexual offences.”

Lawyers for the two women say their testimony helps sketch the outlines of a “powerful system” of trafficking which resembles the one established during the same period by Epstein.

France opens twin Epstein inquiries and calls on victims to testify

“As with Epstein, with the Al-Fayeds there is a frenzied consumption of young women and an organised system to procure them,” said lawyer Eva Joly, who is also a former judge and European parliament member.

“The pattern is the same: selecting vulnerable young women, transport, accommodation, isolation and money, which is used to intimidate or corrupt,” she said.

And as with the Epstein case, while the statute of limitations may have expired, an investigation into the Al-Fayeds can still establish the facts and identify any victims whose cases could be still prosecuted.

“We are only at the beginning of piecing the puzzle together in France,” Joly insisted.

Iran’s soccer chief Mehdi Taj said he and senior government officials would assess whether the squad should take part in the competition, which begins on 11 June.

“It’s not possible to say exactly, but there will certainly be a response,” Taj said during a panel discussion on Iran’s IRIB Channel 3.  

“This will surely be studied by the country’s high-ranking sports officials and there will be a decision on what’s going to happen. But what we can say now is that due to this attack and its viciousness, it is far from our expectations that we can look at the World Cup with hope.”

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Iran booked a place in the tournament at their fourth successive finals last year, by topping Group A in the third round of Asian qualifying.

They are scheduled to play in Group G with Belgium, Egypt and New Zealand, with their matches taking place in Los Angeles and Seattle.

If they were to finish their pool in second place and the US also finish the group stages as runners-up, the sides could meet in the last-32 knockout round.

If Iran were to withdraw, a replacement team would likely come from the Asian Football Confederation. 

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Criticism of ticket prices

Questions over Iran’s participation follow doubts over the suitability of hosts Mexico, after the death on 23 February of drug lord Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes following a Mexican special forces operation. The attack led to more than 60 deaths around Mexico in a series of reprisals.

Following assurances last week from Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum also assured fans they would not be at risk when attending matches in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara.

In addition, the price of tickets is causing controversy. The cheapest range from €103 to €228 for group-stage games that do not involve co-hosts.

England’s Football Association shared pricing information with the England Supporters Travel Club showing that if a fan bought a ticket for every game through to the final it would cost just over €7,000.

Fifa has reduced some prices in the wake of criticism. Fan organisation Football Supporters Europe welcomed this move but said the revisions did not go far enough – and highlighted the absence of a pricing structure for disabled fans or complementary companion tickets.

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It said: “For the moment we are looking at the Fifa announcement as nothing more than an appeasement tactic due to the global negative backlash. We call upon Fifa to engage in a proper dialogue to arrive at a solution that respects the contribution of fans, and the dignity of fans with disabilities.”

Fifa says nearly 2 million tickets have been sold in the first two sales phases. Residents of the three host countries drove the most purchases, followed by fans in France, England, Germany, Brazil, Colombia, Spain and Argentina.

One month before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Fifa said 2.89 million tickets had been sold for 64 matches in eight stadiums. Overall, 3,182,406 tournament tickets were sold, harvesting nearly €700 million in revenue.

Travel bans

US travel and visa restrictions could also limit the number of supporters at matches on American soil.

Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire are among dozens of countries whose citizens now face new entry restrictions under a policy introduced by President Donald Trump on national security grounds. Iran and Haiti are subject to broader suspensions.

The measures do not apply to players, coaches, officials or accredited staff, who will be allowed to enter the United States for the tournament. But for many ordinary supporters, obtaining a tourist visa is now likely to prove difficult.

Fan groups have warned that the restrictions risk excluding thousands of supporters from the expanded 48-team competition, much of which will be staged in US cities.

The race for the title

On the pitch, defending champions Argentina will begin their campaign on 26 June in Group J. The South Americans open against Algeria in Kansas City before further group matches against Austria and Jordan.

France, beaten on penalties by Argentina in the 2022 final in Doha, begin what is set to be Didier Deschamps’ final tournament as head coach against Senegal on 16 June. They will also face a team from the intercontinental play-offs before concluding the group stage against Norway.

The final will take place on 19 July at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey.

Khamenei, 86, had held power since 1989 and left no officially designated heir. The government announced 40 days of national mourning following his death on Saturday.

Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf sought to project confidence, telling state television that Iran had prepared for “all scenarios”, including the death of its leader.

The constitutional machinery has been set in motion. Authorities said a provisional leadership council would be formed, as required by the constitution, to steer the country while a successor is chosen.

It is made up of President Massoud Pezeshkian, judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and cleric Alireza Arafi, a member of the Assembly of Experts and the Guardian Council.

The Assembly of Experts must appoint a new supreme leader “as soon as possible”.

That person could be chosen “within one or two days”, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera.

Observers say authorities are likely to apply the law strictly to demonstrate stability.

“You can expect Iran to apply the law rigorously to show that the country is not fragile – one leader goes, others are there,” Iran specialist Bernard Hourcade told RFI, adding that other senior Iranian officials were also killed in the strikes.

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‘A lock that has been broken’

Khamenei’s death marks an unprecedented moment for the political order he shaped for more than three decades.

“The American-Israeli strikes have destabilised the country, and the elimination of Ali Khamenei is clearly a lock that has been broken,” Hourcade said.

But removing one man does not necessarily dismantle the structure around him.

Iran is “a system” with institutions, a structured security apparatus and a network of political and economic elites, particularly around the Revolutionary Guards, which Hourcade described as the backbone of the regime.

“Eliminating a few leaders will not change the system.”

Power extends well beyond the office of the supreme leader. The structure includes the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Iran’s elite military force; the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary group; the Guardian Council, which vets election candidates and legislation, and administrative and security networks that reach into provinces and smaller towns.

The regime has been “beheaded”, but it retains a “capacity for self-regeneration”, said Sébastien Boussois, a Middle East researcher at the European Geopolitical Institute.

“It is not because you eliminate the symbolic head of a regime and bomb a country that the country falls ipso facto.”

He pointed to two precedents: al-Qaeda survived the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the Islamic State group outlasted the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

That view is echoed by others analysing the crisis. Since the strikes, many have repeated that no regime has ever been destroyed from the air. Whether this one survives, they argue, will depend on what happens inside the country.

“There will be no overthrow of the regime unless it is the Iranian population that takes its destiny in hand,” Admiral Alain Coledefy, a former inspector general of the French armed forces, told RFI.

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A nation divided

Reactions inside Iran have been mixed. Soon after state television announced Khamenei’s death, cries of joy were heard in some neighbourhoods of Tehran and other cities, RFI’s correspondent reported.

Videos circulating on social media showed people dancing in the streets and women celebrating with their hair uncovered. In southern Iran, a crowd toppled a monument bearing Khamenei’s image as people chanted and set off fireworks.

Similar scenes were observed within the diaspora, from Europe to Los Angeles – home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran, nicknamed “Tehrangeles”.

But there were also signs of grief and anger. A crowd gathered at Enghelab Square in central Tehran on Sunday morning. Prompted by a speaker with a microphone, people shouted “Death to America!” while beating their chests in rhythm, following Shia mourning traditions.

“There is no doubt that a large majority of Iranians have had enough of the Islamic Republic and want change,” Hourcade said. But bombing a country while claiming to liberate it, he added, remains an ambivalent approach.

Whether people will return to the streets as they did during January’s protest movement – which was met with a crackdown that left thousands dead according to provisional tolls – remains uncertain.

Military pressure is for now preventing mobilisation, people are not going out and schools are closed, RFI’s correspondent said. The authorities have also warned against any mobilisation or collaboration with what they call “enemies”.

There has so far been no violent action by citizens that could lead to an internal overthrow, such as taking control of the presidency or the government. “We are absolutely not there,” Boussois explained, pointing to the absence of a structured opposition.

EU foreign ministers warn on impact of conflict in Iran after Khamenei’s death

Risk of regional escalation

Beyond Iran’s borders, the confrontation is widening.

Tehran has promised a “terrible” response, but its immediate military capacity appears limited. “The Iranian authorities are not capable, militarily, of facing it,” Coledefy said.

That does not mean Iran lacks other means of retaliation.

“We have not yet seen the reactions of its proxies,” Admiral Alain Oudot de Dainville, a member of the French Naval Academy, and former chief of staff of the French navy, told RFI – referring in particular to the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran carried out new strikes on American bases in the Gulf and in Iraq’s Kurdistan region on Sunday. Blasts were reported in several Gulf cities, including Doha and Dubai.

The position of Gulf monarchies is especially sensitive, Boussois warned. Several are viewed by Tehran as “traitor states”, he said – pointing to the 2020 Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states, as well as the presence of major American bases in the region.

Tehran could seek to “stoke tensions” to push those states into turning against the United States, he said.

Oman, which had been acting as a mediator in indirect talks between Washington and Tehran and had until then avoided being drawn into the conflict, was targeted by Iranian drones on Sunday.

The nature of the confrontation has shifted, Bertrand Besancenot, a former French ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, told RFI.

On the American and Israeli side, the aim is to destroy the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij and to neutralise ballistic missile installations, in the hope that weakening the regime could trigger a popular uprising.

On the Iranian side, the authorities believe this time it is a fight to the death and are using every tool available, he said. They are no longer only striking Israel or American bases, but widening their list of targets.

Despite the escalation, Hourcade does not expect a regional war. “I don’t think it will trigger a regional war – nobody wants it and nobody can afford it.”

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This story has been adapted an updated from the original version in French

“Everything must be done to prevent this country, so close to France, from once again being drawn into war,” Macron said on Thursday in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

“At this moment of great danger, I call on the Israeli prime minister not to expand the war to Lebanon. I call on Iranian leaders not to further draw Lebanon into a war that is not its own,” the French leader added.

Macron’s comments followed a request by Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun for the French president to intervene to “prevent the targeting of the southern suburbs [of Beirut] following threats by the Israeli army against its residents,” the Lebanese presidency said in a separate statement.

Israel launched fresh airstrikes on Beirut on Thursday, having ordered hundreds of thousands of people to leave the city’s southern suburbs. 

The Israeli military says it is targeting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah armed group across Lebanon, with Beirut’s south seen as its stronghold.

Hezbollah has launched rockets and drones over the border into Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Lebanese state media said on Friday that Israel had launched overnight strikes on several towns in the east and had also targeted the eastern town of Dours at dawn.

Its health ministry says 123 people have been killed in Israeli strikes since Monday. At least 90,000 have been displaced.

France backs Gulf states as Iran launches fresh wave of missile strikes

Humanitarian aid

Macron also announced the “immediate despatch of humanitarian aid” to Lebanon.

“Several tonnes of medicines are being transported, along with shelter solutions and assistance supplies,” he said.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed in a TV interview that five tonnes of medical equipment and several tonnes of humanitarian supplies would arrive in Lebanon “as early as next week”.

France has said it aims to prevent escalation across the region and has taken steps to protect its own positions amid the wider conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran.

“Hezbollah must immediately cease its fire toward Israel. Israel must refrain from any ground intervention or large-scale operation on Lebanese territory,” Macron said.

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‘Not at war’

The president has sought to reassure the public that France is neither waging war in the Middle East nor intending to become embroiled in one.

“I fully understand and hear your concerns, but I wanted to be absolutely clear… France is not part of this war. We are not in combat, and we will not be drawn into this conflict,” Macron said in an Instagram post on Thursday evening, responding to a young user who had expressed anxiety over the potential fallout from the Israeli-American offensive against Iran..

France has dispatched military reinforcements to the Middle East – including the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle – to safeguard French nationals and allies caught in the crossfire of Iranian reprisals, helping them “intercept drones and missiles,” he explained.

“In an entirely peaceful capacity, we are mobilising to try to secure maritime traffic,” Macron continued.

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Earlier on Tuesday, the president had announced he was seeking to build a coalition to protect the “shipping lanes vital to the global economy” in the region.

“We shall endeavour to act as reasonably and peacefully as possible, because that is France’s role.”

(with newswires)

Since the weekend, Iranian forces have fired hundreds of missiles and thousands of drones, testing interception systems across the Middle East and raising concerns about whether existing stockpiles can sustain weeks of high-intensity fighting.

Strikes again targeted Tehran on Thursday, while Israel also launched military operations against Lebanon.

The confrontation now stretches beyond the original frontlines, putting pressure on missile defence systems across the region as Israel and Gulf states attempt to intercept large numbers of incoming weapons.

Even if the US and Israel appear to hold the military advantage, analysts say Iran can still cause serious damage – through missiles, drones and other forms of hybrid warfare that are harder to stop. 

Iran is a vast country, with a population of around 90 million, and a security system that’s been built up over nearly five decades. Its leadership has long framed confrontation with the US and Israel as a central strategic challenge.

French general François Chauvancy, editor-in-chief of the journal Défense de l’Union-IHEDN, published by the alumni association of France’s Institute for Advanced National Defence Studies, says even a weakened Iran still has the capacity to prolong the conflict.

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RFI: On the sixth day of this war, do you think Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is right to say the Americans and Israelis have gained the advantage over Iran?

François Chauvancy: I would put it this way – the Americans and Israelis have “regained” the advantage. Winning a war is something quite different. Militarily, today, the Iranians are without doubt considerably weakened, but they still retain a strong capacity to cause harm. There will be no victory in this war unless it ultimately leads to negotiations on a defined political framework. So for now, I think it is a little presumptuous to say the war has been won by the Americans.

RFI: How do you assess Iran’s capacity to resist the United States’ firepower? Does it surprise you or was it predictable?

FC: I think it was predictable. You have a territory that is three times the size of France and a security system that’s been in place for 47 years. So this is a country that has been preparing for war. Let us not forget that originally the enemy was the “great Satan” and the “little Satan” [terms used by Iran’s leaders to refer to the United States and Israel].

Today they are ready for war. The question is whether they have the equipment and the material to win. I don’t think so. But they can still cause serious damage. And above all there is a determining factor – they have the will to fight, even to the point of martyrdom. That is part of their DNA. Someone willing to fight to the death without hesitation in order to reach paradise is a moral force that is extremely difficult to defeat using military means alone.

RFI: President Donald Trump says the war could last a month or more. Can the US sustain that? And will it be able to support Israel and the Gulf states at the same intensity?

FC: That is the real question. There is a lot of contradictory information, but there are points worth noting. Two or three weeks ago, the Pentagon and Trump ordered defence manufacturers to be able to produce ammunition and equipment quickly and efficiently – even if that meant refusing dividends to shareholders and saying the priority was supplying weapons.

The second point is that about two weeks ago an agreement was signed with a US defence manufacturer to produce Tomahawk missiles, up to 1,000 units. Today the United States is thought to have around 4,000.

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RFI: These are interceptor missiles?

FC: Exactly – long-range interceptor missiles with a range of up to 1,600 kilometres. Today the US military machine is shifting into gear. But will it be enough? Because you do not produce Tomahawks in 10 days.

RFI: How long does it take to rebuild stocks? And how much does it cost?

FC: The United States already has a defence budget of $1 trillion, with a promise from Donald Trump to raise it to $1.5 trillion. But you are right about the delays. I don’t know the exact timeframes, but when I see that in our own country it takes months and months to produce a missile, it must be roughly the same for the US.

So full effectiveness will only come in a few months. We simply have to assume that American stocks today are sufficient for a war lasting several weeks. There is also another aspect. Let’s not forget the constitutional issue in the United States, which prevents Trump from waging war beyond 60 days without receiving permissionn from Congress.

RFI: Coming back to those stockpiles, the Gulf countries have been heavily targeted by Tehran over the past six days. In the United Arab Emirates, 172 of 186 Iranian ballistic missiles were intercepted, as well as 755 Iranian drones out of 812. One imagines a country like the UAE may already have used up a large part of its interceptor missile stocks.

FC: I can’t answer that. What I do know is that the defence budgets of these states have been enormous. Iran’s defence budget is around $8 billion according to specialised publications. The United Arab Emirates spends about $20 billion, Saudi Arabia about $70 billion and Israel about $35 billion. When you look at those figures, you see that military capabilities have been built up over many years.

Now, facing the missile threat, it is a good question. Long-range missiles are handled by the THAAD system, one of the eight anti-missile systems currently sold by the US. But there is also the question of drones. Neither side really has good interception systems for them. It is a relatively new weapon and often easily adapted for military use, which means we don’t always have the means to destroy them. So missiles and drones will certainly get through, despite all the barriers that are put in place.

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RFI: Would one solution for Washington be to target the missile launchers inside Iran directly?

FC: That’s already happening. Estimates last year put the number of launchers between 200 and 400. Some were destroyed in June last year and several more have been destroyed recently. That much is clear. There are reports from the American side suggesting that the fear among missile crews is so great that sometimes the equipment is abandoned.

Above all, there is another important factor that may relate to what Hegseth said. Today the airspace is uncontested for the US and Israelis. There is no longer any Iranian air defence and no Iranian air force. So the skies are controlled by Israel and the US. They strike when they want, where they want, anywhere across Iranian territory.

RFI: On the Iranian side, which allied groups could it rely on?

FC: According to reports, the Kurds would rather fight against the Iranians. The Houthis, on the other hand, have not shown great offensive capacity so far, even though they have missiles and drones.

Another question concerns the stability of the Iranian population in the face of all these strikes. About 60 percent of Iranians are Persians, around 20 percent are Kurds and 10 percent are Azeris. Strikes in the Azerbaijani regions could potentially create problems, since there are more Azeris in Iran than in Azerbaijan itself.

---

This interview has been adapted from the original version in French and lightly edited for clarity.

More than 1,000 Kenyan nationals have been recruited to fight for Russia after allegedly being duped by the promise of employment, according to a report by the Kenyan National Intelligence Service (NIS) presented to parliament last month.

The figure is significantly higher than the 200 announced by the country’s foreign affairs ministry in November.

Some are former soldiers lured by promises of high salaries. Others thought they were going to work as drivers or security guards, but ended up being deployed to the Russian-Ukrainian front.

Several dozen Kenyan families, desperate for news, took to the streets of central Nairobi on Thursday with the message “Bring us back our sons”.

Ukraine war videos raise questions over Russia’s recruitment of Africans

An ‘unbearable’ wait

Susan Kuloba came clutching photographs of her eldest son, David. She said he’d been promised a job as a security guard but ended up on the front line.

She hasn’t heard from him since October. Another Kenyan told her he may have been killed.

“He sent me this photo – you can see him in military uniform,” she told RFI’s correspondent in Nairobi. “He was frightened, but what could he do? He told me that if he refused, the commander himself would kill him.

“All I want now is my son back. If he is alive, bring him back to me. If he is dead, bring him back too, so I can give him a proper burial. Waiting, with no idea where he is, is unbearable.”

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‘Get some answers’

Janet Wainaina’s brother Samuel also left Kenya believing he had a security job lined up.

“We’ve been to the Russian embassy, the Ukrainian embassy, the ministry responsible for the diaspora, the foreign affairs ministry – nobody is able to give us any answers,” she said.

“We’ve had no word on whether he is alive, in hospital, or dead. We want our government to engage with the Russian government and get some answers.”

The protesters handed over a petition to the authorities demanding greater action – including the repatriation of their relatives and an official declaration banning the recruitment of Kenyan nationals into the Russian military.

An investigation published in February found that Russia had recruited more than 1,400 African nationals to fight in Ukraine, with more than one in five reported dead. 

Following the investigation, the Russian Embassy in Nairobi denied that Moscow was involved in illegally recruiting Kenyans to fight in Ukraine, adding that foreign citizens could voluntarily join its armed forces.

---

This article was adapted from the original version in French by RFI’s correspondent in Nairobi, Albane Thirouard.

The dispute escalated on Friday after Ukraine accused Hungary of briefly detaining a group of Ukrainian bank employees transporting $40 million and nine kilogrammes of gold through the country.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said Hungary had taken the group “hostage”, but Budapest later announced they would be deported back to Ukraine after a short detention.

Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration – Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal (NAV) said seven Ukrainian citizens were detained on Thursday, including a former Ukrainian secret service general, along with two armoured cash transport vehicles. The agency initially said it would be “conducting criminal proceedings on suspicion of money laundering.”

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Travel warning

Ukraine then urged its citizens to avoid travelling to Hungary, citing “the inability to guarantee their safety amid the arbitrary actions of the Hungarian authorities”.

Speaking earlier at a business conference on Thursday, Orban warned Ukraine over the Druzhba dispute.

“We will win, and we will win with force… there will be no compromise whatsoever. We will defeat them, we will wrestle down the oil blockade and force the Ukrainians to resume shipments,” Orban said.

Energy dependence

Hungary and Slovakia – the European Union’s last importers of Russian crude – say the delay is retaliation linked to their refusal to fully support Ukraine aid.

Hungary relies on the Druzhba pipeline for 86 percent of its 5.75 million tonnes of oil a year, while Slovakia depends on it for nearly all of its 4.66 million tonnes.

Both countries have used reserves and sought more expensive supplies through the Adriatic pipeline via Croatia. But regional refiner MOL has warned of possible shortages if Druzhba remains shut.

Orban’s comments come weeks before snap elections on 12 April, with his Fidesz party trailing challenger Peter Magyar’s Tisza party in opinion polls.

Last month Orban vetoed a €90 billion European Union loan to Ukraine and blocked new sanctions against Russia.

Pipeline dispute shows Central Europe’s struggle to cut ties with Russian oil

Russian oil exemption

The dispute also reflects wider tensions over Central Europe’s reliance on Russian energy.

In June 2022, the European Union granted Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Bulgaria an exemption from a ban on Russian crude adopted after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The exemption allowed those landlocked countries to keep receiving oil through the southern Druzhba pipeline while reducing dependence on Russian supplies.

A report by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) said Hungary and Slovakia imported 27 million tonnes of Russian crude worth €13 billion between 2022 and 2024 under the exemption.

The report said the purchases generated €5.4 billion in taxes for the Kremlin, “enough for 1,800 Iskander missiles”.

Other countries have since moved away from Russian oil. Czechia ended imports by late 2024, while Bulgaria phased them out by mid-2023 after switching the Lukoil-owned Burgas refinery to non-Russian crude and relying on regional fuel trade and European Union support to stabilise supplies.

The operation against centre-right politician Pierre-Yves Bournazel, who is running for mayor of Paris, was likely conducted by the Storm-1516 network, said France’s state-run Viginum agency, which tracks foreign disinformation campaigns.

The group is suspected of being behind numerous disinformation campaigns in France, including an effort detected in February to spread false claims linking President Emmanuel Macron to US convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Viginum said on Friday it had identified an account on X known to engage in disinformation operations, before discovering a website impersonating Bournazel’s official site.

The agency said the website had been hijacked to “discredit his image” – though it described the move as a “low-profile” operation that garnered fewer than 20,000 views on X, compared to a typical 100,000.

‘A new battleground’: France takes its fight against disinformation online

‘Completely false’

Bournazel said he had flagged several social media posts circulating on X to Viginum, including a video falsely claiming the politician would shutter the Pompidou Centre – Paris’s famed modern art museum – to convert it into a migrant reception centre.

“This is completely false,” he wrote on X on Thursday evening, 10 days before the first round of voting in France’s municipal elections.

The disinformation was shared by at least two accounts, Bournazel said, warning that the content could be circulating via other users and across different platforms.

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Bournazel warned of foreign interference “aimed at destabilising the electoral process or damaging the reputation of candidates”.

The French government has repeatedly cautioned the public over Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe, which have grown in intensity since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

According to Viginum, Storm-1516 was behind at least 77 disinformation operations targeting Western countries between late 2023 and March 2025.

(with newswires)

Ukraine was the first to announce a boycott, saying its team will skip the ceremony in Verona in protest at the International Paralympic Committee’s decision to allow six Russian and four Belarusian athletes to compete under their countries’ flags.

This was followed by similar announcements from Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Germany. The European Union also said its representative will boycott the ceremony.

“Paralympic athletes embody courage, determination, and the ability to overcome challenges. Especially in challenging times, it remains our shared responsibility to visibly embody the Paralympic values and resolutely protect the integrity of the sport,” said Germany’s national Paralympic committee in statement on Wednesday. 

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While France has not followed suit, government officials will not be among the guests, said the country’s sports minister Marina Ferrari.

“This is a decision that we have thought long and hard about, and one that is intended to be respectful of sporting institutions, the [International Paralympic Committee] and the decision that has been taken,” she said. “But it is a disagreement that we are expressing with regard to the position that has been adopted by the IPC.”

Ukraine will still compete in the Games. Valeriy Sushkevych, president of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee, said that although he was furious at the decision, boycotting the entire competition would be counter-productive.

“If we do not go, it would mean allowing [Russian president Vladimir] Putin to claim a victory over Ukrainian Paralympians and over Ukraine by excluding us from the Games. That will not happen,” he told French news agency AFP.

‘Outraged by the decision’

The IPC has been under fire since it made the decision at its general assembly last September to allow Belarusian and Russian athletes to compete under their national flags.

At the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics last month, these athletes competed as Individual Neutral Athletes.

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Para athletes from Russia and Belarus were previously banned from competing under their own flags, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A partial ban was introduced in 2023, allowing para athletes to compete under a neutral flag at the Paris Summer Paralympics in 2024.

Several national Paralympic committees, including hosts Italy, argued that Russian and Belarusian para athletes should participate under a neutral banner.

IPC president Andrew Parsons said he and the organisation were “deeply disappointed” by the boycott, adding that the ceremony should not be “politicised” and that there are  “different ways and spaces to send messages and express views freely”.

More than 600 athletes will compete at the Games across six different sports at three sites in northern Italy, from March 6-15.

(with newswires)

The officer, known as Florian M, was initially to appear in a criminal court with a jury on the charge of murdering 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk on 27 June, 2023.

However, his lawyer appealed and in its ruling on Thursday, the appeal court downgraded the charge from murder to violence resulting in death – a lesser offence tried without a jury.

It said it had “not been established” that the officer had intended to kill Nahel at the moment of shooting.

“Florian M could have been convinced that by restarting, the Mercedes was likely to endanger the physical integrity of third parties or of himself,” the court said.

‘Scandalous’ decision

Mobile phone footage of an officer shooting Nahel, who was sitting in the driving seat of the car, during a traffic stop on a busy street went viral following the incident, sparking days of protests.

The police initially maintained that Nahel had driven his car at the officer. But this was contradicted by the video, which showed two officers standing by a stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at its driver.

Florian M was released from custody in November 2023 after five months in detention.

His lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, argued the charges should have been dropped entirely, saying his client had simply “followed the law”.

Frank Berton, the lawyer representing Nahel’s mother, described the ruling as “scandalous” and “shameful”, saying the downgrade effectively shielded the officer from facing a jury.

Death of Nahel brings old problems in France’s suburbs back to the surface

Police violence

The case has renewed scrutiny of police violence in France, where few cases of alleged police brutality make it to criminal court. Most are dealt with internally.

France’s top court last month blocked the reopening of an investigation into the 2016 death of 24-year-old Adama Traoré in police custody, in a case that triggered national outcry. The young man’s family has vowed to take the case to Europe’s top rights court.

In January, several thousand people protested in Paris over the death in custody of a Mauritanian immigrant worker, El Hacen Diarra, 35. He died after passing out at a police station following his violent arrest.

In 2024, a judge gave suspended jail sentences to three officers who inflicted irreversible rectal injuries on Theo Luhaka during a stop and search operation in 2017.

Calls for justice for teenager shot dead by French police two weeks before Nahel

A report in 2024 by France’s independent rights body found that young men “perceived as Arab, black or from North Africa” were four times more likely to be stopped than the rest of the population.

They were 12 times more likely to be subjected to more severe measures, including being frisked during checks, it said, after a survey of more than 5,000 people.

(with newswires)

“US aircraft providing operational support (not combat aircraft) have been accepted at the Istres air base in France,” the French general staff said in a statement.

“France has required that the assets involved in no way take part in the operations conducted by the United States in Iran, but strictly in support of the defence of our partners in the region. It has obtained full guarantees to that effect. This is a routine procedure within the framework of NATO.”

Earlier reports on Thursday suggested that France would allow US planes to land at its bases in the Middle East, but a military spokesperson told news station Franceinfo that was not the case.

President Emmanuel Macron has insisted France will take a “strictly defensive” stance in relation to the conflict. 

On Tuesday, three days after Israeli and US air force planes launched their bombing campaign on Iran, Macron said the operations had been conducted “outside international law”.

However, he blamed Iran for the conflict that has spread since the initial American and Israeli strikes last Saturday to other parts of the Middle East.

Refueling aircraft

The US planes landing at Istres, near Marseille in southern France, are understood to be military support jets that will stop to refuel.

French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin told reporters: “A refueling aircraft is a service station, it is not a fighter jet”.

“And so the issue is clearly refueling capability, that is the only authorisation that has been given by the president,” she said.

How the war in Iran is testing Europe’s US military base network

Vautrin also confirmed that French Rafale jets would patrol the skies to prevent attacks on Gulf partners. She said six extra Rafale planes had been deployed to the United Arab Emirates, which has come under assault from Iranian missiles.

“France isn’t at war,” she told French broadcaster RTL. “We’re taking a stance of defending. We are not attacking anyone.”

Two days after Macron announced that a French aircraft carrier and its escort flotilla would head to the Mediterranean, Vautrine said the vessels would arrive at the weekend or early next week in the east of the sea.

Europe mobilises

Macron has expressed support for Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has refused to allow Washington to use its bases for the war in Iran despite threats of economic reprisals.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer initially declined to allow the US to use the UK’s air bases. But he later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases for a “specific and limited defensive purpose”.

On Thursday, the French broadcaster BFMTV reported that Macron called the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the organisation of forces to protect shipping in the Red Sea.

Several European countries, including Spain and the Netherlands, said on Thursday they had sent vessels from their respective navies to defend Cyprus, which came under attack from drones during the first days of the conflict.

Economy Minister Roland Lescure met fuel suppliers at the finance ministry in Paris to discuss the situation after acknowledging that petrol prices could rise by a few cents at stations across France.

The meeting was called to ensure fuel retailers do not raise prices faster than global oil markets justify and to keep the impact on consumers “reasonable”, the economy ministry said ahead of the talks.

Oil prices rose more than 3 percent on Thursday. Brent crude climbed $2.65 to $83.99 a barrel, its fifth straight session of gains. US West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.76 to $77.42.

“It’s normal given the increase in the price oil,” Lescure told French broadcaster Franceinfo before the meeting.

“In more than 97 percent of the territory, there is no problem. That is to say we are in a normal situation where we have petrol everywhere. We need to keep calm.”

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Limited increases

Maud Brégeon, junior minister for energy and government spokesperson, said drivers could see small price rises in the short term.

“In the short term, we can expect an increase of a few cents in France, contained and limited. Of course, there will be differences from one service station to another,” Brégeon told French broadcaster BFMTV/RMC.

She also said some petrol stations had raised prices more than the national average and called on retailers to act “reasonably” as the government reviews the situation.

Before meeting distributors, Lescure warned the government would check whether pump price increases reflected movements in global oil markets.

Officials said checks would be carried out to make sure price rises remain proportional to the increase in the cost of crude oil.

How the war in Iran is testing Europe’s US military base network

European supply reassurances

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, also sought to calm fears of major supply disruptions.

The 27-nation bloc was not dependent on oil coming from Gulf States, she said.

“It doesn’t have such an impact on us when it comes to security of supply,” Kallas said.

Meanwhile, the conflict continued to escalate.

Israel’s military said in a statement Thursday it had begun a large-scale wave of strikes against infrastructure in the Iranian capital Tehran.

The assaults were confirmed by the Iranian news agency Tasnim. Local media reported several explosions in Tehran and said Iranian armed forces had responded.

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French diplomatic contacts

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Thursday he had spoken with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi for the first time since Israeli and American air forces bombarded Iran killing the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The foreign minister reiterated France’s commitment to the stability of the Middle East, to de-escalation and to the resumption of a demanding diplomatic dialogue, in compliance with international law which must govern the use of force,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Barrot also spoke to Araghchi about the French nationals Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris.

They were released in November after more than three years in prison on espionage charges their families say were fabricated.

However, they are still waiting to leave the country.

France has described Kohler and Paris as “state hostages” taken by Tehran in a bid to extract concessions.

The organisation said the incident happened on 5 December near Grand-Fort-Philippe as staff were returning from a medical outreach mission to people who had survived attempts to cross the English Channel.

MSF said three activists claiming to belong to the British far-right movement Raise The Colours approached the team and shouted insults.

“These individuals approached the MSF team members in a threatening manner, shouting insults and making defamatory and false statements about the organisation,” MSF said.

Video posted online

The confrontation was filmed by the activists and posted on the group’s social media accounts.

“These images sparked numerous hate messages and threats targeting exiles and humanitarian workers,” MSF said. The organisation added it had filed a complaint with a court in Paris.

French authorities have also opened inquiries into the activities of Raise The Colours.

On 23 January, police chiefs in northern France banned a rally organised by the group’s activists. Police said their actions were part of a xenophobic and anti-immigration ideology and posed a risk to public order.

In mid January, British police banned 10 activists from the movement from entering France.

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Climate of hostility

Camille Niel, head of MSF’s mission in France, said the incident reflected a wider climate around migration.

“The repetition of these acts is rooted in a climate of impunity fuelled by rhetoric and migration policies that promote stigmatisation, rejection and hatred, to the detriment of the physical and psychological health of exiled people,” Niel said.

MSF was set up in Paris in December 1971 to provide humanitarian medical care.

In 2019, the charity was active in 70 countries with more than 35,000 staff, mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.

Logistics technicians, water and sanitation engineers and administrators also work for the group, which receives most of its funding from private donors.

In January, Israel confirmed it would suspend the licences of 37 international humanitarian organisations, including MSF, that operated in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli authorities accused the groups of failing to provide lists of their employees’ names, which are required for security reasons.

MSF called the demand a “scandalous intrusion”. Israel said the measure was needed to stop jihadists infiltrating humanitarian organisations.

The continent is “structurally exposed” to the Middle East war, said Hubert Kinkoh, senior researcher at the CARPO think tank.

“Energy imports, foreign military bases, and its proximity to maritime chokepoints mean the war’s effects reach African shores quickly.”

Targets

The Horn of Africa includes possible targets for Iranian strikes, notably the 4,000 US military personnel at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

It lies less than 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Yemen, where Houthi rebels have an arsenal of ballistic and anti-ship missiles, and drones, courtesy of Iran.

The Houthis have not engaged in the conflict despite vowing to do so, but have previously caused major trade disruption with attacks on Red Sea shipping during the Israel-Hamas war.

Somaliland, just south of Djibouti, could also be a target as it hosts a major port and military base at Berbera run by another Iranian enemy, the United Arab Emirates.

Israel recently became the only country to recognise Somaliland‘s independence from Somalia, and a Western diplomat told AFP that it may already have troops in Somaliland.

“Berbera is not a confirmed target, but its location (near the southern entrance to the Red Sea) leaves it vulnerable, particularly as Iran‑aligned groups widen the range of facilities they view as linked to US or allied operations,” said Kinkoh.

The risky calculations behind Israel’s recognition of Somaliland

Economic impact

Economically, the war is terrible timing for Africa, just as a weaker dollar and lower interest rates offered some breathing space for its many deeply indebted nations.

The war is disrupting global trade, diverting ships from the Suez Canal to the pricier route around the Cape, and hiking prices across the board, including for energy and food.

An oil producer like Nigeria might have benefited, but it locked in low prices for its exports in long-term contracts and remains a net importer of refined fuel because of its limited refining capacity.

Pump prices in Nigeria were up around 14 percent this week.

Nigerian think tank SBM Intelligence said the new crisis has exposed its government’s “wait-and-see” approach to international affairs, which leaves its “economic interests subject to forces beyond our control” — a criticism that could be levelled at many on the continent.

African economies also rely on remittances from the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in the Gulf that are now threatened. Previous crises in the Middle East have revealed the near-total lack of evacuation planning or even emergency hotlines for them.

Military drones deployed as Nigeria loses billions to oil theft gangs

Diplomatic fallout

While some African countries have done too little, others are accused of over-reach.

South Africa is perhaps the most exposed diplomatically, having already riled the United States with its opposition to Israel, and hosted Iranian warships for naval exercises in January — even if the government has since disavowed its involvement and said the military acted against presidential orders.

“South Africa will want to reinforce the signalling to the world that it is a non-aligned neutral actor. That is a message it’s going to really struggle to sell, given that Iran was so active in the exercise,” said Timothy Walker, of the Institute for Security Studies.

William Gumede, professor of public management at the University of Witwatersrand, said South Africa’s geopolitical posturing was ill-advised and could now trigger US sanctions against members of the government.

“Our economy is so vulnerable… We do not have a luxury to try to grandstand globally,” he said.

War in the Middle East: latest developments

Geopolitics

In the longer term, the war is bound to play into the shifting geopolitics of the region, which have seen Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others expand their reach into Africa — building ports and infrastructure, supplying drones, establishing military bases and drilling for oil, especially in east Africa.

Gulf powers have been accused of fomenting conflict in places like Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, and so some hope the new war may have positive consequences.

“A UAE forced to concentrate on defending its own airspace and territory may reduce its footprint in African conflicts, creating space for African-led peace processes to function more effectively,” said SBM Intelligence.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) reported more than 200 deaths, including those of around 70 children, in a statement released on Wednesday evening by the Ministry of Mines.

The landslide occurred on Tuesday afternoon, according to witnesses.

“The provisional death toll stands at more than 200 Congolese citizens, including approximately 70 child miners, and numerous injured who have been evacuated to medical facilities in Goma,” the statement read.

These figures could not be confirmed with independent sources by news agencies AFP and Reuters.

The mine is in a remote region, approximately 70 kilometres west of Goma, the capital of the troubled North Kivu province in eastern DRC, to which humanitarian organisations do not have access and where there are no large-scale health facilities. Telecommunications are regularly cut off.

Rebel control

A senior figure from the AFC/M23 rebel group, which controls the mine, had earlier told Reuters that only five or six people had been killed.

Since its resurgence in late 2021, the anti-government group M23 – with the support of Kigali and the Rwandan army – has seized vast swathes of territory in eastern DRC, a region rich in natural resources and ravaged by conflict for three decades.

The Rubaya mine has been under the control of AFC/M23 since 2024, and DRC authorities have not been present since then.

“The damaged site is one of those where continued operation had been discouraged pending the securing of the area and the implementation of protective measures for miners. The incident is due to the heavy rains of the last few days,” according to a second senior AFC/M23 figure.

The mine was recently added to a shortlist of mining assets being offered by the DRC’s government to the United States under a minerals cooperation framework.

Goma’s residents reflect on life a year after DR Congo city fell to M23 rebels

Precarious conditions

Rubaya produces between 15 and 30 percent of the world’s coltan, a strategic mineral for the electronics industry.

Coltan is processed into tantalum, a heat-resistant metal that is in high demand for makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas turbines.

It is widely mined in the DRC, which is estimated to hold at least 60 percent of the world’s reserves.

Spotlight on Africa: the race for Africa’s critical minerals

Thousands of miners work daily in the Rubaya mines, in precarious conditions and without safety measures, most often equipped with only shovels and a pair of rubber boots.

The landslide came a month after another disaster at the site at the end of January which killed “several” people according to an M23 official, but more than 200 according to the authorities in Kinshasa. 

In recent days, fighting had intensified near the mining site, in a region where government forces have conducted attacks against the rebel group, including drone strikes.

 (with newswires)

After Clint Eastwood, Agnès Varda, Meryl Streep, George Lucas, and last year Robert De Niro, it’s Peter Jackson’s turn to be celebrated by France’s biggest film festival.

“Cannes has been a meaningful part of my filmmaking journey,” Jackson said, recalling that he showed his first movie, Bad Taste, at the festival in 1987.

“This festival has always celebrated bold, visionary cinema, and I’m incredibly grateful to the Festival de Cannes for being recognised among the filmmakers and the artists whose work continues to inspire me,” the director told organisers.

Also a producer and screenwriter, Jackson won critical acclaim with Heavenly Creatures in 1994 – based on a true murder case and starring Kate Winslet in her first cinema role. It went on to win the Silver Lion award in Venice the same year.

But Jackson’s big break came in 2001, when his team showed a preview sequence from The Fellowship of the Ring at the Cannes Film Festival.

The adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s monumental work of fantasy literature was only 26 minutes long, with the rest still on the editing table, but it made a lasting impression at the press screening.

South Korean director Park Chan-wook to preside at Cannes Film Festival

Legendary trilogy

Filmed entirely in New Zealand, the post-production took place over several years at Wētā FX, Jackson’s special effects studio in Wellington, which would later work on James Cameron’s Avatar.

The complete trilogy – The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003) – went on to win 17 Oscars, including 11 for the last instalment, and made $3 billion in revenue.

Using a combination of digital and analogue techniques to recreate epic crowd and battle scenes, the Lord of the Rings trilogy revolutionised the way stories were told on the big screen.

The director of the Cannes festival, Thierry Frémaux, said there was “clearly a before and after Peter Jackson”. 

“He has permanently transformed Hollywood cinema and its conception of spectacle. But Peter Jackson is not only a great technician; he is above all a tremendous storyteller. And an unpredictable artist: what will his next universe be?”

Palme d’Or winner hits global cinemas, France backs it for 2026 Oscars

Pioneering documentaries

In 2005, Jackson remade the legendary King Kong. He returned to Tolkien’s Middle Earth to direct The Hobbit trilogy between 2012 and 2014.

Jackson has also worked on several documentary projects over the years, notably They Shall Not Grow Old (2018), which restored original footage of World War I to bring soldiers’ experiences to life.

His miniseries The Beatles: Get Back (2001) featured 60 hours of previously unseen footage from the recording of the album Let It Be in 1969.

Jackson will receive his honorary Palme d’Or during the opening ceremony of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which runs from 12 to 23 May.

More than 600 para athletes will compete at the Games across six sports – para alpine skiing, para biathlon, para cross-country skiing, para ice hockey, para snowboard and wheelchair curling – between 6 and 15 March.

Events in the wheelchair curling begin on Friday at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium ahead of the opening ceremony at the Verona Arena, with the main competition opening on 7 March. 

French para athletes will be aiming to build on their successes at Beijing 2022, where the team won seven golds among a haul of 12 medals.

French Olympics chiefs hope to build on ’momentum’ of record medal haul in 2030

Medal hopes

In terms of French hopes in Milano-Cortina, para alpine skier Arthur Bauchet, dubbed “King Arthur” by French media, is expected to flourish.

In 2018 at the Winter Paralympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the then 17-year-old claimed silvers in the LW3 slalom, the LW3 downhill, LW3 Super G and LW3 super combined.

Four years later in Beijing, he upgraded to gold in the slalom, super combined and downhill. He also won bronze in the giant slalom.

“It’s a great pride to be picked once against to represent my country at the biggest sporting event on the planet,” Bauchet posted on social media, after his selection for his third Winter Paralympic Games was confirmed last month.

Benjamin Daviet (Nordic para-skiing), Cécile Hernandez (para-snowboarding) and Maxime Montaggioni (para-snowboarding) are also out to retain their titles.

Among the newcomers, Aurélie Richard is another strong medal hopeful. The 20-year-old para alpine skier won two world championship silver medals in downhill and slalom and a Crystal Globe – awarded by the International Ski Federation to the overall champion of the Para Alpine Skiing World Cup season – in 2023.

Despite injury she managed to finish third in the overall World Cup standings in 2025, having won gold in the giant slalom and Super-G standing events at the 2025 World University Winter Games.

France’s most memorable moments in a century of Winter Olympics

‘The strength of the team’

Bauchet and Richard will be part of a French delegation of 17, including four guides, at the Games.

“It’s time for the performances, thrills and spectacle that these exceptional athletes will offer us,” said French Paralympic committee chief Marie-Amélie Le Fur.

“I would also like to extend my congratulations to all the coaches, staff and managers who support the athletes on a daily basis.”

Bochet becomes France’s most decorated winter Paralympic athlete

Para skiing legend Marie Bochet, owner of eight Paralympic gold medals, will oversee the French delegation.

“Everyone will give their best,” said the 32-year-old, who retired in 2024. “But we know that at the Games, it is the strength of the team that makes the difference.”

She added: “The momentum of our French team is firmly established. As chef de mission, I now have only one desire: to see our para athletes perform at their best and to hear the Marseillaise ring out.”

NATO forces on Wednesday tracked the Iranian ballistic missile through Iraq and Syria and intercepted it as it headed towards Turkey’s Hatay province – home to the Incirlik air base, where a large US Air Force presence is stationed, along with nuclear weapons. Alliance member Turkey also hosts a NATO radar base close to the Iranian border, operated by American forces.

Despite the presence of US soldiers, up until this incident Turkey had not been targeted by Iran, with Ankara maintaining close ties with Tehran.

The Turkish government summoned the Iranian ambassador to make a formal complaint immediately after the missile was shot down. But Tehran denies firing the missile.

Iran’s armed forces have decentralised command and control under the so-called Mosaic defence doctrine following the killing of many of its senior military commanders. Serhan Afacan, head of the Centre for Iranian Studies, a research organisation in Ankara, suggests the attack could be the action of a local commander.

“Some radicals within the Revolutionary Guards have said Turkey should be targeted like Iran’s Gulf neighbours,” Afacan said. “The risk is always present, which is why Turkey keeps open communication with Iran.”

President Erdogan is redoubling diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict, while refusing US forces access to Turkish airspace for attacks on Iran. But Erdogan’s priority, according to political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners, is protecting his relationship with US President Donald Trump.

 “Erdogan has done what can be expected: he criticised Israel, but also condemned Iran for attacking Arab countries. He avoids mentioning Trump directly and has managed to preserve the relationship,” Yesilada said.

How the war in Iran is testing Europe’s US military base network

Fears of Iranian exodus

With the war escalating, Ankara’s primary concern is an overwhelming exodus of Iranian refugees. Turkey already hosts over 3 million Syrians and hundreds of thousands from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Turkey’s 540 km border with Iran is protected by a concrete wall and razor wire, and the mountainous region is snowbound; few Iranians have so far sought refuge. However, Turkish international relations expert Soli Ozel says Ankara is fearful that the current trickle of people fleeing could turn into a flood, posing a significant threat to Turkey’s stability.

“If Iran’s regime falls and turmoil follows, millions could flee. Syria’s civil war began with 23 million people; Iran’s population is 93 million,” he warned.

Last month, Turkish parliamentarians received a secret briefing on contingency plans for any Iranian exodus. “They’re working on solutions. One of those was that they were going to create a safe zone inside Iran,” said Ozel. 

The Turkish presidency denied reports by Bloomberg news agency that it was considering plans for a so-called safe zone in Iran, controlled by Turkey’s military. But Turkish officials have declared they would not allow an uncontrolled influx of Iranian refugees.

Why Iran’s ‘beheaded’ power structure may outlive Ali Khamenei

Economic fears

The Turkish economy is already reeling from government austerity measures aimed at taming inflation above 30 percent. Those efforts could receive a fatal blow with the Iran war already sending oil prices soaring.

“Rising oil prices pose a huge threat. Turkish inflation isn’t under control, and oil drives it up. Every 10 percent rise in oil adds about 1 percent to inflation,” Yesilada noted.

The analyst warned that sustained high oil prices could present political challenges: “Modest increases in wages and prices at the beginning of the year would prove insufficient to cover basic needs, potentially resulting in rising social unrest.”

Ankara has bitter memories of previous US wars in the Middle East. The US-led invasion of Iraq plunged the country into civil war, which devastated Turkey’s border economy and had far-reaching security repercussions. The fear in Ankara is that it will again be picking up the bill for Washington’s war.

At the 39th African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital and home to the headquarters of the organisation, leaders held debates on conflicts, institutional reform, financial sovereignty, critical minerals, artificial intelligence and Africa’s place in the emerging new geopolitical order.

Giorgia Meloni was a guest of honour, invited to co-host the second Italy-Africa Summit and to consider a strategy to tackle the root causes of migration.

United Nations secretary-general António Guterres was also in attendance, and called again for two permanent seats for Africa on the UN Security Council.

The rotational chair passed from Angola to Burundi, putting leadership of the AU for 2026 with the latter’s President Évariste Ndayishimiye.

Outgoing chair João Lourenço, president of Angola, parted with the warning that: “Normalising coup-makers who retake power through elections cannot become standard practice.”

With 10 military coups having taken place on the continent since 2020 and elections held in a climate of repression, plus wars in Sudan and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and insurgency in the Sahel region, observers agree that Africa needs stronger institutions and leadership.

We spoke with Liesl Louw-Vaudran, senior advisor for the AU at the International Crisis Group (ICG), and Désiré Assogbavi, an international development strategist with more than two decades of experience in policy analysis.

African Union summit opens, as continent faces conflict and climate extremes

Imprints of violence

Also in this episode, we meet South African photographer Jo Ractliffe, whose images focus on the residues of violence left by apartheid, regional conflict and population displacement.

South African photographer Jo Ractliffe captures imprints of violence

 

RFI’s Isabelle Martinetti met her in Paris, where her latest exhibition “Out of Place” is showing at the Jeu de Paume, displaying work from the past four decades.

With photographs taken in South Africa and Angola, several of which are being shown in France for the first time, the exhibition explores places marked by history and trauma.

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Episode edited by Melissa Chemam and mixed by Erwan Rome. Spotlight on Africa is produced by RFI’s English service.

The destruction of the city of Aghdam in the contested enclave of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh is among the most visible signs of the decades-long conflict between Azerbaijanis and ethnic Armenians. Now efforts are underway to bring the city back to life.

A loud explosion breaks the winter silence as the latest disposal of collected mines takes place. ‘We’ve cleared three hundred thousand square meters and found more than ten thousand landmines,” proudly declares Elnur Gasimov, head of mine clearance operations in Aghdam.

The dangerous work, done in freezing weather, carries significant risk. Gasimov’s right hand is missing several fingers.

“We have more than 10 deminers who have lost their legs, and we lost two deminers during the explosive disposal,” Gasimov told RFI.

He explains that, with Aghdam once close to the frontline in fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, the area was among the heaviest mined during the conflict.

Azerbaijan lifts Armenia border restrictions, but hurdles to peace remain

Clearing the mines

Nagorno-Karabakh was historically home to a predominantly ethnic Armenian population. In 1993, they broke away from Azerbaijan, declaring a breakaway Republic of Artsakh. But in 2023, during a lightning war, Azerbaijani forces recaptured the region.

With access to Aghdam still tightly controlled since the end of the fighting, RFI joined a small group of journalists on a trip organised by the Azerbaijani authorities.

The city of Aghdam was once home to 40,000 people, predominantly Azerbaijani. Long a cultural centre of the region, the city was also home to Azerbaijan’s most famous football club – Qarabag – which now plays out of the capital, Baku.

Today, not a single house remains standing – all were razed to the ground, and even the trees didn’t escape the conflict. It’s a barren wasteland.

The historical Juma mosque was one of the few buildings that survived, partially intact, and was used as a shelter for farm animals by ethnic Armenians.

Imam Mehman Nesirov, 45, is the proud custodian of the fully restored mosque, where up to 100 worshippers now attend Friday prayers as life slowly returns to the city.

Nesirov fled Aghdam in 1993 as a child: “We were forced to leave because of the sound of fighting, which was getting closer and closer. Everyone was terrified and panicked.”

Nesirov explained to RFI that he and his family spent the first years of their lives living in a railway wagon. “I will never forget those years. We always prayed to God that one day we could return and pray at this mosque,” said Nesirov. “We can’t put into words how we feel that dream we had as a child, a teenager, and an adult is finally realised.”

Azerbaijan must allow ‘safe’ return to Nagorno-Karabakh: UN court

Returns and ruptures

Around a thousand people have returned to Aghdam, all housed in new state-built accommodation, as the city itself remains uninhabitable. While Azerbaijanis are slowly returning, ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have now become refugees following the victory of Azeri forces in 2023.

“What we saw within 24 hours was the forced expulsion of the remaining 110,000 Armenians from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Richard Giragosiyan, director of the Regional Studies Center, a Yerevan think tank.

“They were leaving behind whole homes, personal possessions, family graves, and coming to Armenia, which was more of a foreign country than many people understand,” added Giragosiyan.

However, Giragosiyan claims that Azerbaijan’s forces’ success in Nagorno-Karabakh opened the door to a “diplomatic breakthrough,” with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan committing themselves to improving relations in the aftermath of the conflict. Baku in January opened its border to allow oil and grain from Kazakhstan to reach Armenia, which is important for Yerevan as it tries to rely less on Russia and move closer to Europe.

In Aghdam’s newest hotel, manager Aykhan Jabbarov welcomes rapprochement efforts between Yerevan and Baku.

 

Jabbarov, a veteran of the last Nagorno-Karabakh war whose family fled Aghdam thirty years ago, looks forward to a time when Azerbaijanis and Armenians can again live together in the city. “If we look to history, we lived together before now, every leader talks about peace … We have to build a good relationship. It will help both countries’ economy, people’s social life and the regional economy, everything.”

However, diplomatic efforts to restore relations and normalise Armenian-Azerbaijani ties still have plenty of work ahead. With repercussions of the past never far away, Ruben Vardanyan, a leading member of the breakaway Armenian administration captured by Azeri forces, was convicted this week of war crimes and sentenced to 20 years in jail by an Azerbaijani court.

In what could mark a major turning point in the history of arms control, New Start expired on 5 February. Neither US President Donald Trump nor his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has shown interest in renewing it. 

The treaty was signed between the United States and Russia on 8 April 2010 and came into force on 5 February 2011. Initially planned to last 10 years, it was extended for another five in 2021.

Its goal was to limit each side to 800 missile launchers and 1,550 nuclear warheads, with the two countries authorised to inspect each other’s stockpiles.

It was never a global treaty. Other countries signed up to the broader Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which came into force in 1970 and now has 191 parties, including the US and Russia.

But Washington and Moscow also had bilateral arms control agreements in place continuously since 1972 – until now, notes Benoît Pelopidas, an expert on nuclear threats at Sciences Po university in Paris.

“But it would be false to deduce from that that the arms race has not started yet and might start now,” he tells RFI. 

“There are reasons to think that the arms race started as early as the spring of 2010.”

Europe confronts ‘new nuclear reality’ as Macron signals broader deterrence role

‘Possible acceleration’

Even before New Start expired, implementation of the treaty deteriorated over time, culminating in Russia suspending its participation in 2023.

“And now we’re at a full level where it’s no longer implemented at all,” says Pelopidas. “It’s new diplomatically, and it enables the possible acceleration of an ongoing arms race.”

NATO called for “restraint and responsibility” after the treaty expired.

“Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and coercive signals on nuclear matters reveal a posture of strategic intimidation,” an official told French news agency AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“NATO will continue to take the measures necessary to ensure its credibility and the effectiveness of its overall deterrence and defence position.”

The Kremlin had proposed continuing to comply with New Start’s limits until February 2027, but the White House did not respond.

Moscow considers the treaty’s expiration “a negative development”, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “We express our regret in this regard.”

China shuns calls to enter nuclear talks after US-Russia treaty lapses

Disarmament still possible

According to Pelopidas, disarmament is possible and has been partially achieved before, especially in the early 1990s after the end of the Cold War. 

“In 1991, we had 58,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. And we’re now at a level of roughly 12,000 in 2025, which is a massive decrease,” he says. 

“We have, between 1986 and today, dismantled or retired over 80 percent of the existing arsenal in the world. So it is not materially impossible to dismantle or disarm.”

The world’s remaining nuclear stockpile still has the potential to wreak huge destruction, he stresses, a fact that he believes should drive all nuclear powers to work towards de-escalation.

“If the theory of nuclear winter is correct, a so-called limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan that led to the explosion of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs – that is, roughly 1 percent of the existing arsenal – would lead to the death of 2 billion people by starvation due to its indirect consequences over two years,” Pelopidas says.

“That’s how destructive the capacity of the existing arsenal is.”

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Episode mixed by Erwan Rome.

The African continent is rich in resources that are critical to the energy transition, as well as to the electronics and high-tech industries. Africa holds vast reserves of coltan, gallium, cobalt, tantalum, lithium, nickel, and many other strategic minerals that sit at the heart of this global competition.

The Trump administration is seeking to counter China‘s growing dominance over the continent’s metals and mining sectors.

DR Congo weighs price of security in minerals deal with US

 

For the moment, Trump is focused on a  US – DRC agreement, which would prioritise American interests in the central African country’s supply chain. The DRC sits on vast mineral wealth and is currently engaged in a peace process with Rwanda, brokered by the United States.

DRC takes on Apple: can conflict mineral mining be stopped?

To help us analyse the context of these deals, we are joined today by three guests.

First, Clionadh Raleigh, head of ACLED – the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. We also have Akin Adegoke, Chief Digital Officer at Lotus Bank, who brings experience in driving technology-led, inclusive banking.

And finally, Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director at the California-based Oakland Institute, who argues that, that under the guise of peace and development, the US–DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement rewrote Congo’s laws to favour American mining interests.”

Delegates also gathered at the Cape Town International Convention Centre for the 32nd edition of the African Mining Indaba, the continent’s largest conference on the sector.

You’ll also hear reactions from people on the ground in the DRC, as well as from leaders in South Africa and Zambia, on what has already been dubbed the new scramble for Africa.

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Episode edited by Melissa Chemam and mixed by Erwan Rome.

Spotlight on Africa is produced by Radio France Internationale’s English language service.

In a conspicuous display of military strength, Turkish F-16 fighter jets roared over the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in late January.

According to Turkish officials, the deployment was aimed at protecting Turkish interests and supporting Somali efforts to counter an insurgency by the radical Islamist group al-Shabaab. 

It follows Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December, which Ankara condemned as a threat to Somalia’s territorial integrity.

Turkish international relations expert Soli Ozel said the jets send a message to Israel: “Don’t mess with our interests here.”

Somalia is poised to become the latest point of tension between the countries, he predicts. “I don’t think they will fight, but they are both showing their colours. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and the Turks sending F-16s and drones are attempts to set limits to what the other party can do,” he said.

“Could it get out of hand? I don’t know. It may.”

The risky calculations behind Israel’s recognition of Somaliland

Mutual suspicion

The episode reflects broader strains in Israeli-Turkish relations, which remain fraught over Ankara’s support of Hamas and Israel’s war in Gaza.

“It’s a new chapter in the competition between the two countries, which are now the dominant military powers in the Middle East,” said Norman Ricklefs, CEO of geopolitical consultancy Namea Group.

According to Gallia Lindenstrauss, an Israeli foreign policy specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Israel is not seeking to challenge the interests of Turkey or Somalia.

Instead, she argues Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and its commitment to deepening cooperation are motivated by the breakaway’s state strategic location facing Yemen, where Houthi rebels launched attacks against Israeli cities last year.

“The Houthis were the last ones who were still launching missiles against Israel, from the Iranian proxies. This is the most major threat for Israel,” she said. 

However, Lindenstrauss acknowledges that both sides increasingly view each other’s actions with suspicion. “What Israel sees as defence, Turkey sees as something against Ankara.”

Rival blocs

Turkey’s suspicions could grow if Israel deploys military hardware in Somaliland to counter threats from Yemen, a move an anonymous Israeli expert suggested is Israel’s aim.

Ricklefs warns Israel needs to tread carefully, given the significant investments Turkey had made in Somalia over the past 15 years. Turkey has its largest overseas military base and embassy in Somalia, while Ankara has signed agreements with Mogadishu to explore potential energy reserves, as well as a naval accord.

“Turkey is running the [Mogadishu] port, counterterrorism training, charities, NGOs, and all that kind of stuff. So it appears very important to Turkey’s regional strategic ambitions,” said Ricklefs. He noted that Somalia’s location on the Horn of Africa, with coastlines in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean, makes it “key for regional influence”.

With Somalia naval deal, Turkey steers into strategic but volatile region

Lindenstrauss observed that the Turkish-Israeli rivalry over Somalia is further complicated by the emergence of two competing axes: “On the one hand, you see Greece, Cyprus, Israel, the UAE. On the other hand, you see Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and Qatar,” she explained.  

“They are loose axes, but you do see that on many issues, these two axes think differently. And that’s also a cause of the rising tensions.”

Ricklefs noted that tensions have already spilled over into confrontation elsewhere. “We’ve already seen the pretty strong competition leading to violence in Libya, between blocs aligned with the Emirates and, on the other side, blocs aligned with Turkey in Libya,” he said.

As for whether the same could happen in Somalia, Ricklefs said he doesn’t believe the situation has yet reached that point. 

“I don’t think we’re there just yet with Somaliland and Somalia,” he said. “And frankly, the only party that can play a mediating role, a conflict-reducing role, in this situation is the United States.”

Madhya Pradesh is often referred to as the Heart of India. Located right in the middle of the country, the Indian region shows everything India has to offer through its abundant diversity. The IFTM trade show, which took place in Paris at the end of September, presented the perfect opportunity for travel enthusiasts to discover the region.

Sheo Shekhar Shukla, Managing Director of Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board, sat down to explain his approach to sustainable tourism.

“Post-covid the whole world has known a shift in their approach when it comes to tourism. And all those discerning travelers want to have different kinds of experiences: something offbeat, something new, something which has not been explored before.”

Through its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Shukla wants to showcase the deep history Madhya Pradesh has to offer.

“UNESCO is very actively supporting us and three of our sites are already World Heritage Sites. Sanchi is a very famous buddhist spiritual destination, Bhimbetka is a place where prehistoric rock shelters are still preserved, and Khajuraho is home to thousand year old temples with magnificent architecture.”

All in all, Shukla believes that there’s only one way forward for the industry: “Travelers must take sustainable tourism as a paradigm in order to take tourism to the next level.”

In partnership with Madhya Pradesh’s tourism board.

Also known as the Land of the Beautiful Islands, Malaysia’s landscape and cultural diversity is almost unmatched on the planet. Those qualities were all put on display at the Malaysian stand during the IFTM trade show.

Libra Hanif, director of Tourism Malaysia, explained the appeal of the country as well as the importance of promoting sustainable tourism today: “Sustainable travel is a major trend now, with the changes that are happening post-covid. People want to get close to nature, to get close to people. So Malaysia being a multicultural and diverse [country] with a lot of natural environments, we felt that it’s a good thing for us to promote Malaysia.”

Malaysia has also gained fame in recent years, through its numerous UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which include Kinabalu Park and the Archaeological Heritage of the Lenggong Valley.

Green mobility has also become an integral part of tourism in Malaysia, with an increasing number of people using bikes to discover the country: “If you are a little more adventurous, we have the mountain back trails where you can cut across gazetted trails to see the natural attractions and the wildlife that we have in Malaysia,” says Hanif. “If you are not that adventurous, you’ll be looking for relaxing cycling. We also have countryside spots, where you can see all the scenery in a relaxing session.”

With more than 25,000 visitors at this IFTM trade show this year, Malaysia’s tourism board got to showcase the best the country and its people have to offer.

In partnership with Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board. For more information about Malaysia, click here.