live Iran Executes Two More Men On Terrorism Charges

A drone attack hit an oil refinery in Kuwait early on April 3, sparking fires at several of its units, according to the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC).

In a statement on X, the KPC said that the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery had been targeted in a "malicious drone attack," resulting in fires in several operational units.

Emergency teams were working to contain the blazes and there were no reports of injuries, the statement said.

The Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery is one of the most important oil refineries in Kuwait and the wider Gulf region.

Over a month since the start of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Tehran continues to conduct drone and missile attacks on neighboring Gulf states, targeting their energy facilities.

President Donald Trump said the US military "hasn't even started" to destroy what is left of Iran after a month of devastating attacks and threatened to strike more bridges and electrical power plants in the latest social media posts warning the regime in Tehran.

"Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!," Trump wrote on Truth Social late on April 2.

A day earlier, Trump warned Tehran to "make a deal before it is too late" and hailed a US military strike on a key bridge linking the capital to nearby provinces. Iran said eight people were killed and nearly 100 injured in the attack on the B1 Bridge, although the account could not independently be verified.

Read more here.

The UN Security Council has delayed a vote on a draft resolution to allow the use of "defensive" force to protect shipping from Iranian attacks in the crucial Strait of Hormuz.

The vote was scheduled for April 3 at 11 a.m., but late on April 2 the vote was postponed, with the reason given that it was the Good Friday public holiday. A new date hasn't been set.

Earlier Jamal Alrowaiei, the UN ambassador for Bahrain -- which presented the draft resolution -- said: "We cannot accept economic terrorism affecting our region and the world, the whole world is being affected by the developments."

Iran has effectively blocked one of the world’s most important shipping lanes -- creating a bottleneck of oil and natural gas tankers and threatening global fuel supplies -- in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes that have blasted the country since February 28.

The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) backed the call for UN approval of force to protect the strait from Iranian attacks.

"Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, prevented commercial vessels and oil tankers from transiting, and imposed conditions on some to pass through the strait," GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi said.

"We call upon the Security Council to assume its full responsibility and take all necessary measures to protect maritime routes and ensure the safe continuation of international navigation," AlBudaiwi said.

The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman.

Bahran’s text has gone through several amendments and is supported by the United States, but it faces some opposition in the Security Council, especially by Russia and China -- both of which hold veto power.

"The use of force cannot bring peace. Political settlement is the fundamental way forward," Chinese Ambassador Fu Cong told the Security Council.

"Authorizing member states to use force would amount to legitimizing the unlawful and indiscriminate use of force, which would inevitably lead to further escalation of the situation and lead to serious consequences," he added.

AFP reports that a sixth and final draft would allow member states -- either individually or as "voluntary multinational naval partnerships" -- to use "all defensive means necessary and commensurate with the circumstances."

Russia, a close ally of Iran, has denounced what it calls one-sided measures against Tehran.

The resolution applies to the strait and adjacent waters to "secure transit passage and to deter attempts to close, obstruct or otherwise interfere with international navigation through the Strait of Hormuz."

The measure would last for a period of at least six months and emphasizes the defensive nature of any intervention -- a stipulation that seems to have eased earlier French concerns.

With reporting by AFP

Amid vows by the United States and Iran to intensify attacks, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on April 2 called for an end to the "spiral of death and destruction" in the Middle East.

"We are on the edge of a wider war that would engulf the whole Middle East with dramatic impacts around the globe," Guterres told reporters in New York.

Guterres cited the dangers of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has brought shipping to a near standstill, creating a bottleneck of oil and natural gas tankers, which has led to a global energy crisis

"When the Strait of Hormuz is strangled, the world's poorest and most vulnerable cannot breathe," Guterres said.

Read more here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has offered to provide Kyiv's expertise in dealing with freedom of navigation ⁠in the ⁠Black ‌Sea to countries considering ways to keep the crucial Strait of Hormuz open amid conflict in the Middle ⁠East.

In his nightly video address on April 2, Zelenskyy said Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha had participated in a virtual meeting convened by Britain devoted to reopening the strait, which has effectively been blocked by Iran.

"Ukraine has relevant expertise ⁠concerning sea waterways, concerning the defense ‌and reopening of maritime traffic," Zelenskyy said without providing details.

"If [our] partners are ready to act we will consider how we can strengthen them, how we can apply our expertise, knowledge and technological potential."

During the conference, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper condemned Iran's "recklessness" for stopping nearly all shipping through the strait -- causing global economic chaos as flows of oil, gas, and other vital commodities have come to a halt.

Kyiv has developed technology -- including sea drones -- that has enabled it to score dramatic successes over Russian ships in the Black Sea, preventing Moscow from controlling the waterway.

Zelenskyy traveled to the Middle East, meeting with leaders as part of efforts to provide them with defense technology it has developed in four years of fighting against the Russian invasion.

With reporting by Reuters

The Fars news agency, which is close to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, has reported that the B1 highway bridge in northern Iran was damaged in US and Israeli air strikes.

Images on social media show significant damage to the bridge, which links Tehran to Karaj in the Alborz Province.

There were reportedly two strikes, the second coming about an hour after the first. Neither the US nor Israeli militaries have confirmed the attack.

Iranian media have described the bridge as the highest in the Middle East. There were conflicting reports as to whether the bridge was still under construction or had already been inaugurated.

According to Fars, the Alborz governorate said two people were killed and several others injured in the first attack on the bridge.

UPDATE: Posting on TruthSocial, President Trump has said, "The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again -- Much more to follow!"

UPDATE 2: A local Iranian official later said eight people were killed and 95 injured in two rounds of attacks on the bridge, Iranian media reported. The account could not be independently verified.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on April 2 that launching a military operation to "liberate" the Strait of Hormuz is unrealistic and urged cooperation with Iran instead.

"There are those who advocate for the liberation of the Strait of Hormuz by force through a military operation, a position sometimes expressed by the United States," he said during a trip to South Korea, according to AFP.

He added: "I say 'sometimes,' because it has varied. It has never been the option we have chosen, and we consider it unrealistic."

Macron stressed that such an operation "would take an inordinate amount of time and would expose anyone crossing the strait to coastal threats from the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards [Corps], who possess significant resources, as well as ballistic missiles, and a host of other risks."

Prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested on April 1 at her residence in Tehran, her daughter, Mehraveh Khandan, announced on her Instagram account on April 2.

Khandan, who is living outside Iran, said that her mother was arrested while she was alone at home. It is not clear which Iranian security apparatus arrested Sotoudeh and on what charges. Amid the current conflict with Israel and the United States, signs that the clerical authorities are stepping up a crackdown on internal opposition in the country are growing.

According to Khandan, security forces also confiscated personal electronic devices, including Nasrin Sotoudeh's mobile phone and laptop.

Reza Khandan, Sotoudeh's husband, has been in prison since December 2024. Sotoudeh, a vocal advocate for numerous activists, has been arrested several times since 2010.

Her detention has included periods of solitary confinement, highlighting the challenges faced by human rights defenders in Iran.

Mohammad Ali Fathalizadeh, a brigadier general of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and a commander of the IRGC's Fatehin Special Unit, has been killed, a news agency affiliated with the country's Defense Ministry announced.

Without mentioning how or when Fathalizadeh was killed, the news agency said he was killed on April 2.

His name adds to the long list of officials and commanders who have been killed in targeted bombing by US and Israeli forces over the past five weeks. On February 28 alone -- the first day of the US and Israeli attacks -- more than 40 officials and commanders were killed alongside Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to foreign media reports.

Fathalizadeh's has led the IRGC's Fatehin Special Unit for a year. Members of this unit receive special military training beyond the standard training of Basij paramilitary members, and they previously participated in the Syrian civil war and the suppression of protests in recent years.

In December 2022, in a meeting with a group of special forces from the Fatehin Special Unit who were involved in suppressing the protesters, then-President Ebrahim Raisi told them that they "shone well" in their dealings with the protesters.

Ruslan Suleymanov, a Middle East expert at the NEST Center who recently visited Iran amid US and Israeli air strikes, told Current Time he had observed a wide range of attitudes among the Iranian people and that there are currently both supporters and opponents of the regime.

"The opponents are in the majority. But even the opponents of the regime don't fully understand where this war is heading," he told Current Time on April 2. "Although I have met some people who still support the air strikes -- specifically, strikes on military targets and the targeting of leaders -- overall, of course, there is discontent over the fact that strikes are also hitting schools and hospitals," Suleymanov said.

He warned that postwar repressions, such as the mass arrests and death sentences that followed last year's 12-day war, is likely to intensify.

"Security forces, police, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- they are literally everywhere," he said, describing the situation on the streets of Iran. He said that in the past month, several people had already been executed on suspicion of betraying their country and working for Israel, arguing that the war in Iran "has led to the replacement of a harsh regime with an even harsher one."

Suleymanov suggested that the Iranian regime anticipates a US ground operation, expecting it to turn into a kind of war that could become a people's war, which would play into the hands of the authorities in Tehran.