标签： Oceania

As the Middle East slides toward broader military escalation, mediator Pakistan reaffirmed Thursday that direct negotiations between longtime adversaries the United States and Iran remain active, even as Washington launched a massive retaliatory strike campaign against Iranian targets following recent attacks on Jordan. The fast-paced 48-hour period of unrest has drawn in other key regional players, from Saudi Arabia launching its own strikes on militant groups in Iraq to Egypt facing its first direct attack of the expanding conflict, pushing regional leaders to sound alarms over spiraling violence.

The latest round of open hostilities came after a brief lull in fighting that was designed to create space for diplomatic progress. Pakistani Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told reporters Thursday that discussions continue, with particular focus on de-escalation and securing stability around the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints. Pakistan previously helped broker a preliminary agreement between the two rivals that laid the foundation for talks aimed at a long-term settlement, and Andrabi said the country is working aggressively to return all delegations to technical talks outlined in the framework.

Previous negotiations that followed an April ceasefire collapsed earlier this month, after which Iran reclosed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies pass daily. On Thursday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced that two oil tankers attempting to transit the strait with U.S. military support had turned back after one vessel caught fire.

Amid the rising tension, Saudi Arabia announced the formation of a 14-nation regional maritime defense coalition to secure shipping lanes around the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait. The move came one week after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement announced a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia and claimed responsibility for attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. The Bab al-Mandeb has grown in strategic importance for Saudi energy exports after the U.S.-Iran standoff shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the kingdom’s primary export route for crude.

The U.S. military confirmed earlier Thursday that it had completed a heavy wave of strikes against Iran, targeting dozens of Revolutionary Guard sites including key command and control centers. U.S. President Donald Trump had pledged a forceful response after Iran launched an attack on Jordan, marking its second direct regional strike in as many days.

The Revolutionary Guard’s branch in Iran’s northwestern Zanjan Province confirmed that three of its members were killed in the U.S. strikes there. Iran’s official state news agency IRNA also reported strikes across multiple locations in southwestern Khuzestan Province, as well as on Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf, including areas near the major cities of Abadan, Shadegan, Arvandkenar and Ahvaz.

For the second consecutive day, Jordan’s military announced it had intercepted a new round of Iranian missile attacks Thursday morning, shooting down five incoming missiles with no reported casualties. The Revolutionary Guard later confirmed the missile launch, saying it was a response to U.S. airstrikes launched from American bases stationed in Jordan that killed Iranian civilians on Qeshm Island.

In Kuwait, the defense ministry condemned what it called a “heinous” Iranian strike that hit a building owned by a Chinese company in northern Kuwait, killing one foreign worker and causing extensive structural damage.

The broader regional conflict, which began in February with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian targets, has now impacted nearly every country across the Middle East and spilled beyond the region’s borders. While energy infrastructure across the Gulf has faced repeated drone and missile attacks since the conflict began, Egypt remained untouched until Wednesday, when an attack on Egypt’s Mediterranean gas import hub sparked a large fire that damaged two commercial vessels.

Egyptian government officials confirmed Thursday that a drone was responsible for the blaze, noting that no group had yet claimed responsibility. Houthi rebel media issued a statement denying the movement had any involvement in the attack. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on social media platform X that Egypt is a “valued friend and partner” to Iran, suggesting the attack was a false-flag operation carried out by Israel to destabilize the country.

Egypt’s presidency said an official investigation is ongoing to “uncover the full circumstances of the incident and implement all necessary measures to protect Egypt’s national interests and security.” During a phone call with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi emphasized that the international community must act collectively to end the rapidly escalating violence, according to his presidential spokesman.

Maritime trade analytics firm Kpler identified the two damaged vessels as the Energos Winter floating storage and regasification unit and the GasLog Salem tanker, adding that both ships were moved to offshore anchorage following the attack to avoid further risk. UK-based private security monitor Ambrey reported that the floating storage vessel, which is owned and operated by a U.S. firm, was hit by at least one drone. Port authority officials noted that the terminal remains fully operational despite the incident.

A major new influx of irregular migrants into Spain’s North African exclave Ceuta from neighboring Morocco has sparked a diplomatic row between European nations, prompted a military security deployment, and escalated domestic political tensions in Madrid this week.

Hundreds of migrants have crossed into the territory over recent days, with most completing the journey by swimming around the fortified sea-border fence that separates Ceuta from Morocco. By Thursday, recovery teams had recovered the bodies of nine migrants who drowned during the dangerous crossing, according to Spanish government sources speaking to Agence France-Presse.

In response to the crisis, Madrid announced Thursday it would deploy military personnel to reinforce local security forces. The Spanish Interior Ministry confirmed armed forces will back up the Civil Guard to maintain public order in the densely populated exclave, which covers just 18.5 square kilometers. While the exact number of deploying troops was not released, officials confirmed Civil Guard numbers will nearly double from the current 80 officers, with additional diving teams and coastguard vessels also being dispatched to the area.

Local Ceuta leader Juan Vivas confirmed that roughly 1,500 migrants have arrived in the enclave over the past three days, warning that local reception facilities have reached maximum capacity. “There is no more room for anyone,” Vivas told Spanish broadcasters Wednesday. Despite the overstretched infrastructure, on-the-ground AFP reporting Thursday evening found hundreds more migrants, including children, gathered on the Moroccan side of the border near the town of Fnideq, waiting for an opportunity to cross. Many migrants told reporters they had heard rumors the border had been opened, prompting their journey to Ceuta.

Witnesses in Ceuta reported mobs of newly arrived migrants walking through local streets, greeting police and celebrating their arrival after leaving Morocco. Local law enforcement has largely taken a restrained approach, guiding arrivals to the overcrowded local reception center rather than turning them away. Local residents expressed sympathy for the vulnerable arrivals, with one young Ceuta resident telling AFP: “It really breaks my heart to see so many people suffering, and who knows how many have actually drowned along the way. When they arrive, they’re faced with the harsh reality that they have nothing and that people treat them as if they were nobody.”

The crisis has spilled over into international diplomacy, after Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani called Thursday for Spain to be temporarily suspended from the Schengen Area, the 29-nation European open-border agreement that eliminates routine internal border checks. Writing on social media platform X, Tajani argued that “Irregular and uncontrolled immigration poses a danger to national security,” adding that the Spanish government’s prior decision to grant citizenship to more than 500,000 undocumented migrants was “profoundly wrong” and encouraged transnational human trafficking networks.

The call drew an immediate angry rebuke from Madrid, which summoned the Italian ambassador to deliver a formal protest. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Luis Albares accused Tajani of weaponizing the humanitarian crisis for domestic political gain, saying the comments were “improper” for a friendly European partner. “We expect European solidarity, not partisan demagoguery,” Albares said.

Domestically, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has faced intense pressure from right-wing opposition parties over the government’s handling of the surge. Opposition Popular Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo called the situation a national security crisis, saying the government cannot abandon its security duties. Far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal directly blamed Sanchez for the influx of migrants.

Sanchez responded via X, saying his administration was “focussed on providing an immediate response to the crisis in Ceuta”, adding that “We are mobilising all necessary resources, working with Moroccan and international authorities, and preparing the necessary measures to restore normality as soon as possible.” A statement from Ceuta’s regional government confirmed Sanchez spoke with Vivas to receive a first-hand briefing on the severity of the situation, while Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska will travel to Ceuta Friday to personally oversee the government’s response.

Irregular migration across the Morocco-Spain border, which includes Europe’s only two land borders with Africa at Ceuta and the nearby exclave Melilla, has long been a thorny politically sensitive issue between Madrid and Rabat, with large surges of arrivals occurring periodically.

In one of the deadliest large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine in recent months, a massive overnight barrage of missiles and drones launched early Thursday has killed dozens of civilians, including 10 members of a single extended Ukrainian family whose home was completely obliterated in an eastern strike.

Ukrainian emergency service officials confirmed to Agence France-Presse that six deaths have been formally verified at the residential site outside Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, with four additional people still missing and presumed dead amid extensive destruction. Forensic teams are still processing the blast site, where 17 body fragments have been recovered to date amid piles of splintered wood and crumbled concrete. Regional governor officials have released on-the-ground photos showing rescue workers sifting through the rubble of what was once the Voronov family home.

Zelenskyy identified the victims in a social media statement Thursday morning: mother Olena, father Artem, their seven children, and a grandchild, noting the youngest presumed victim was just 18 months old. “It was an ordinary home, blown into smithereens,” he wrote, condemning the deliberate targeting of civilian residential property.

Sergiy Kovtoniuk, press officer for the State Emergency Service in Dnipropetrovsk region, told AFP that the scale of devastation leaves little hope of survival for the 10 people present in the home at the time of the strike: “It can be preliminarily stated that all 10 people who were in the house have died.”

The strike on the Voronov family home was part of a far larger coordinated assault that saw Russia launch 74 missiles and 284 drones across Ukraine overnight, the latest escalation in a four-and-a-half-year war that has seen civilian casualties spike sharply in recent weeks. Zelenskyy had issued a public warning of an impending attack late Wednesday, prompting tens of thousands of Kyiv residents to seek shelter ahead of the first blasts, which rang out shortly after midnight across the capital.

For the first months of the full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s subway system served as a primary bomb shelter for residents, and that long-held routine reactivated quickly Thursday night. More than 56,000 people packed into station platforms, setting up tents, rolling out yoga mats and unfolding sleeping bags in a now well-rehearsed process. Galyna Doschuk, a 27-year-old photojournalist who has taken shelter in the subway repeatedly during the war, summed up the mindset of many Ukrainians amid the ongoing attacks: “I want to live… sometimes our neighbour gets in the way. But we’re fighting on.”

By dawn Thursday, three additional civilian deaths were confirmed across Kyiv, Poltava and Lviv. A popular Kyiv flea market was destroyed in the strike, with its charred, twisted metal framework still smoldering as vendors arrived to salvage whatever belongings they could. In the western city of Lviv, which suffered extensive damage across multiple residential blocks, rescue teams pulled a 93-year-old woman alive from the rubble of a collapsed five-story apartment building, where she had been trapped alone on the top floor. AFP reporters on the ground saw stunned local residents gathering around destroyed apartment blocks, many crying and covering their faces as they surveyed the damage.

The assault also spilled over into NATO territory, triggering new diplomatic tensions after a 10-meter-wide crater was discovered in an agricultural field in eastern Poland, roughly 80 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed Thursday that debris recovered from the site matches a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, confirming the projectile originated from the overnight Russian barrage.

Ukrainian air force officials reported that defense systems successfully intercepted 55 of the 74 Russian missiles and 265 of the 284 drones launched in the attack. However, Ukrainian forces continue to face critical gaps in defense against advanced Russian ballistic missiles, which Moscow has increasingly deployed in recent strikes and are far harder to intercept. Zelenskyy renewed his urgent appeal to Western allies Thursday for additional air defense systems and interceptor missiles to shield civilian population centers.

The appeal comes just two days after Zelenskyy met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss anti-ballistic defense cooperation. Trump previously announced plans to grant Ukraine a license to domestically produce Patriot anti-ballistic interceptors, but neither government has released further details of the agreement to date.

April 2025 has already become the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, according to casualty tallies, as Russia has dramatically scaled up the frequency and size of its missile and drone strikes across the country. Russia’s defense ministry claimed in a statement Thursday that the overnight barrage exclusively targeted Ukrainian military-industrial sites, military communications hubs and logistics centers, a claim that contradicts extensive on-the-ground reporting of civilian damage and casualties.