标签： Asia

Fresh tensions have erupted across the Persian Gulf region after Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) launched coordinated retaliatory strikes targeting US military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain on Sunday morning, shattering a fragile ceasefire reached between Washington and Tehran just over a week prior.

In an official statement carried by its affiliated media outlet Sepah News, the IRGC confirmed that its naval and aerospace divisions jointly launched the attack, deploying a combination of ballistic missiles and drones against eight key US infrastructure sites. These targets included the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and positions belonging to the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain. The strike, the IRGC emphasized, came in direct response to earlier US airstrikes that hit five Iranian coastal outposts on the same morning.

The IRGC noted that the US carried out its initial strikes under the false pretense of responding to the IRGC Navy’s enforcement action against a vessel that violated Iranian maritime rules. The statement issued a stark warning going forward: any ships attempting unauthorized passage through the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz will face far more forceful responses than in the past, and any act of aggression carried out under any pretext will be met with a crushing counterattack.

Crucially, the IRGC pointed out that the US’s earlier strikes constituted a clear violation of the recent peace memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the United States to end cross-regional hostilities. Any further breaches, the statement added, will result in the full termination of all ongoing diplomatic negotiations between the two countries. Per the terms of the existing MoU, Iran holds formal responsibility for managing all maritime traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s global oil supply passes daily.

Sunday’s strikes drew immediate condemnation from Kuwait, whose foreign ministry decried the attack as a repeated violation of the country’s sovereign territory that undermines regional efforts to de-escalate long-running tensions. In a public statement posted to the social platform X, the ministry called the incident a “flagrant violation” of Kuwaiti sovereignty, adding that it poses a direct threat to the country’s security, stability, and the safety of all citizens and residents living within its borders.

Bahrain also reported tangible damage from the attack: the country’s interior ministry confirmed that a residential building in Muharraq Governorate suffered structural damage, though no casualties were recorded in the incident. Authorities have already launched on-site response and inspection measures, the ministry added in its own X post.

Local Iranian media also reported multiple explosions across southern Iran’s Hormozgan province and Qeshm Island early Sunday, matching reports of follow-up US strikes. US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed in a Sunday X post that it had carried out “additional strikes against multiple targets in Iran”, framing the action as a response to an earlier IRGC drone attack targeting a Panama-flagged commercial tanker transiting near the Strait of Hormuz.

CENTCOM clarified that its latest strikes were a direct response to “continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping”, adding that US military aircraft specifically targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication networks, air defense positions, drone storage sites, and naval minelaying capabilities.

The exchange of fire is the second major escalation in as many days. On Saturday, CENTCOM launched airstrikes along Iran’s southern coast, to which the IRGC responded with its own retaliatory strike against US military positions across West Asia.

The current upsurge in violence comes just 10 days after Iran and the United States signed the initial peace MoU to end cross-regional hostilities, including an end to clashes in Lebanon. Both parties have been engaged in ongoing diplomatic negotiations to work toward a binding final peace agreement ahead of Sunday’s escalation.

KARACHI, Pakistan – A coordinated militant attack on the headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary Rangers force in the southern port city of Karachi has left three service members dead and four others injured, Pakistani military officials confirmed Sunday. The assault unfolded Saturday night, when a militant attacker drove a vehicle packed with explosives into the perimeter of the Rangers’ provincial compound, setting off a blast that sparked hours of intense close-quarters combat between assailants and security forces, according to local police and civilian witnesses.

Following the initial breach, security forces launched a rapid counter-offensive to clear the compound. In a formal statement, the military confirmed that three of the attackers were killed during the gun battle, while a fourth wounded suspect was taken into custody. Officials identified the captured attacker as an Afghan national. As of Sunday, search operations remained ongoing in neighborhoods surrounding the headquarters to root out any remaining accomplices linked to the attack.

Shortly after the assault, the militant faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the strike. Pakistani military officials have alleged the group operates as a proxy for Indian intelligence, though no concrete evidence was provided to support the claim. India has not yet issued an official response to the latest allegation, and New Delhi has consistently rejected similar claims made by Islamabad in previous years.

The attack drew immediate condemnation from Pakistan’s top civilian leaders. President Asif Ali Zardari honored the three Rangers personnel killed in the line of duty, extending his deepest condolences to the bereaved families and offering prayers for a full recovery for the four wounded service members. In his statement, Zardari reaffirmed the country’s unwavering commitment to rooting out terrorism from Pakistani soil and praised the ongoing sacrifices of security forces in the multi-year fight against militancy. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif echoed the president’s remarks, condemning the attack and commending security forces for their rapid response that prevented a larger loss of life.

Military officials also issued a stark warning, stating that Pakistan will take firm retaliatory action against all actors and groups found responsible for the assault. Cross-border militant activity has long been a source of tension between Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. In recent years, Islamabad has launched multiple cross-border airstrikes inside Afghanistan targeting militant groups it says stage attacks on Pakistani targets from Afghan territory. The Afghan government in Kabul has repeatedly denied that it allows militant groups to operate from its territory to carry out cross-border assaults.

The attack comes amid a documented upsurge in militant violence targeting Pakistani security and police personnel across the country over the past several years, reversing years of progress made in large-scale counter-terrorism operations that weakened major militant networks in the region.

A broad coalition of global human rights and legal organizations, led by the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR), has formally submitted a legal request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for a full investigation into high-level foreign officials accused of enabling widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s long-troubled Darfur region. The Article 15 communication, filed Monday, marks the second major push in weeks to hold external actors legally accountable for their alleged role in fueling the Sudanese conflict that has now entered its fourth year.

The filing does not limit scrutiny to parties directly involved in the Sudanese civil war, which pits the country’s official Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) against the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Instead, it outlines detailed allegations that external state actors and their senior officials have continued to supply both warring factions with the weapons, military equipment, financing, logistical backing, and mercenary fighters required to carry out atrocities against civilian populations, in direct violation of a decades-old United Nations arms embargo on Darfur.

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding legal framework, the coalition is pushing prosecutors to examine potential criminal liability for foreign actors under Articles 25(3)(c) and 25(3)(d) — provisions that explicitly cover aiding, abetting, and knowingly contributing to crimes carried out by organized groups acting with a shared criminal purpose.

Specific high-level officials from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other regional states that have openly or covertly backed the RSF are named in the submission, including officials and intermediaries based in Libya, Ethiopia, Chad, Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda. The document also outlines broader alleged links between Iran, Turkey, and Egypt and crimes committed by the SAF, the Sudanese national military.

The coalition’s case draws on a combination of confidential source intelligence and open-source investigative findings from multiple independent outlets and watchdog groups. A detailed annex included with the filing maps out alleged RSF supply lines that originate at three major UAE airports — Abu Dhabi International, Al Ain International, and Ras Al Khaimah International — with suspected arms cargo routed through transit hubs in Chad, Libya, and Ethiopia. The submission notes that transfers of military supplies increased dramatically starting in April 2023, when full-scale civil war resumed between the SAF and RSF, and have continued uninterrupted to the present day.

These allegations align with a growing body of independent investigations that have documented the Gulf state’s material support for the RSF, despite consistent official denials from the UAE that it supplies weapons or military assistance to the paramilitary group. Multiple independent probes have confirmed that weapons and military materiel have been transported to RSF forces via a secret air bridge through Chad’s Amdjarass, with the UAE repeatedly identified as the primary supplier. A January 2024 investigation by Middle East Eye uncovered a sprawling network of supply lines and regional alliances stretching through Libya, Chad, Uganda, and breakaway regions of Somalia that the UAE uses to funnel arms to the RSF. A separate 2024 New York Times investigation found the UAE had disguised weapons shipments to the RSF as humanitarian aid. In April 2024, Middle East Eye revealed the RSF receives covert support from an Ethiopian military base in Asosa, matching the coalition’s allegations. Most recently, Human Rights Watch documented that Colombian mercenaries hired by a UAE-based private security firm transited Emirati military bases before deploying to Sudan to fight alongside the RSF.

the ICC already holds jurisdiction over atrocities committed in Darfur, following a 2005 United Nations Security Council referral that grants the court authority to prosecute any individual — regardless of nationality — for international crimes committed in the region. While legal scholars note this jurisdiction could theoretically extend to Emirati officials accused of aiding RSF crimes, significant procedural obstacles remain: the UAE has never ratified the Rome Statute, and securing evidence and state cooperation would require extensive international support.

Irwin Cotler, the founder and international chair of the RWCHR and former Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General, emphasized that meaningful accountability for Darfur’s atrocities cannot stop at the warring parties on the battlefield. “The suffering of the Sudanese people will not end so long as the perpetrators of atrocity crimes – and the networks of impunity that enable and sustain them – continue to act without consequence,” Cotler said in a statement accompanying the filing.

This submission is the second high-profile request to the ICC in as many weeks targeting foreign complicity in Darfur. Earlier this month, a group of Sudanese atrocity survivors filed their own separate Article 15 communication targeting senior Emirati officials and business leaders, including UAE Vice President Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

ICC officials confirmed earlier this year that the court’s prosecutor’s office is already actively investigating atrocities committed in Darfur since the resumption of full-scale conflict in April 2023, but to date no investigation has been opened into the role of external enablers. In a January 2025 report to the UN Security Council, the ICC prosecutor’s office explicitly acknowledged that external actors have prolonged the crisis, describing the RSF’s 500-day deadly siege of North Darfur’s capital El Fasher as “entirely manmade.” The report noted, “This conflict has been perpetuated by regional and international actors whose material and financial assistance only guarantees that this catastrophe in Darfur worsens and that war crimes and crimes against humanity will needlessly continue.”

To date, the ICC has not issued any arrest warrants for Sudanese individuals connected to the current 2023–2025 conflict. A court spokesperson told Middle East Eye that the prosecutor’s office is currently prioritizing investigations into gender-based violence and crimes against children, abuses that a recent UN report confirmed are widespread: last week, a UN assessment found the RSF is responsible for the vast majority of sexual violence crimes committed by all warring parties in Sudan over the past three years.

The coalition of NGOs that submitted Monday’s communication says it remains hopeful that the ICC prosecutor’s office will agree to open a formal investigation into the foreign officials and networks that have continued to sustain atrocities in Darfur from abroad.