The China Story
at your Fingertips
OPEN
China offers $200,000 emergency humanitarian assistance to Iran after school attack.
Iran says death toll of US-Israeli strikes reaches 1,230.
Iran's IRGC official says will burn any ship trying to pass through Strait of Horm.
WASHINGTON -- Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, announced on social media Tuesday that he has decided to resign from his position, noting that he "cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran."
Message from top security official Ali Larijani to be released shortly - Iranian media report
China will provide emergency humanitarian assistance to Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian announced on Tuesday.
The announcement came after the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had warned that the crisis constitutes a major humanitarian emergency, with an estimated 25 million people displaced across affected areas.
The current conflict has inflicted a profound humanitarian disaster on the people in the region, Lin said,?adding that China hoped the emergency assistance would help alleviate the dire situation faced by the affected populations.
Lin emphasized that China will continue its efforts to promote peace and work toward an early restoration of regional peace and stability, and to prevent the further spread of the humanitarian crisis.
Israeli military believes Iran's top security official Ali Larijani killed -- Israeli media report
European Union foreign ministers considered extending the bloc's Aspides naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz at a meeting in Brussels, Belgium on Monday, amid the ongoing conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
On the weekend, US President Donald Trump urged several countries to deploy vessels to help secure the waterway.
EU ministers plan to take up the possible expansion of Aspides to the strait during Monday's Brussels session, Euronews reported.
However, Germany's Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Sunday that he was cautious about expanding the naval mission.
Wadephul said that the deployment intended to facilitate commercial transits through the Red Sea was "not effective".
"And that is why I am very skeptical that extending Aspides to the Strait of Hormuz would provide greater security," he said in an interview with Germany's ARD television.
Aspides is an EU naval mission launched in the Red Sea in February 2024 in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping. The mission currently has one Italian and one Greek warship under its command and can draw on a French frigate and another Italian vessel for backup.
With the Strait of Hormuz largely closed since US and Israeli strikes began on Feb 28, some European officials are weighing whether the EU operation could help reopen sea lanes in the Gulf.
Washington is ramping up pressure on European and Asian partners to help secure the vital oil corridor after energy prices spiked following US–Israeli strikes on Iran.
About 20 percent of the world's oil transits through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran said last week it would shut the waterway in retaliation for the US-Israeli strikes against it, and has since targeted several vessels in the area.
Despite Washington's efforts to calm energy markets, oil has climbed past $100 a barrel, stoking concerns about inflation and slower growth.
Greece will not join military operations in the Strait of Hormuz, a government spokesperson said.
Denmark's foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, said Copenhagen must "remain open" to consider contributing to securing the strait.
A German government spokesperson stated on Monday that the conflict in Iran does not involve the military alliance NATO, and Germany will not take part in military action to keep the strait open for merchant shipping during the crisis.
jonathan@mail.chinadailyuk.com
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said Monday the US forces have sunk all the Iranian mine-laying ships but it remains unclear if Iran has started laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil passes.
"We don't know that they have dropped anything," Trump said at a press conference.
"With more than 30 mine-laying ships destroyed, we hit, to the best of our knowledge, all of their mine-laying ships," Trump claimed, while noting that Iran now can put mines on other types of ships and drop them in the strait.
Trump said the US military has struck more than 7,000 targets across Iran and "literally destroyed everything" on Iran's Kharg Island except oil facilities.
"As you know, we attacked Kharg Island and knocked it ... literally destroyed everything on the island except for the area where the oil is, I call it the pipes," Trump said.
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said on Monday that six of its members were killed and four others wounded in an Israeli attack in the western province of Anbar.
According to a PMF statement, the strike targeted a checkpoint in the town of al-Qaim near the Syrian border.
The group described the location as an "official security site", stating the casualties occurred while the members were "performing their duty of protecting the land and sovereignty."
The PMF added that the incident is part of repeated attacks targeting its security forces in recent days.
Over the past few days, dozens of PMF members have been killed in attacks, for which the group blamed US-Israeli operations.
The attack came amid heightened tensions following joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran starting on Feb 28, to which Iran and its regional allies responded with attacks on Israeli and US interests across the Middle East.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian has repeated China's call for all parties to immediately cease military operations, de-escalate the situation, and prevent further disruption to regional stability and the global economy.
Lin made the remarks at Monday's daily news briefing when asked for China's response to claims by US President Donald Trump that the United States was discussing jointly ensuring safety of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz with other countries.
"The recent tension in the waters near the Strait of Hormuz has impacted international cargo and energy trade routes, undermining peace and stability in the region and the world," Lin said.
"We are maintaining communication with all parties on the current situation and are committed to promoting de-escalation and cooling down of the situation," he added.
JERUSALEM -- The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that it has begun "limited and targeted ground operations" against key Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, aimed at expanding the forward defence area.
Gulf countries reported fresh cross-border attacks on Sunday, a day after Iran urged civilians to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that it labeled "legitimate targets" for use by US military forces in strikes against Iran.
As the conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel entered its third week with no signs of de-escalation, Washington has sharply raised the stakes by targeting Iran's most critical oil export lifeline.
In recent days, the US has carried out strikes on more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island — the strategic choke point handling roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports — marking a dangerous new phase of the escalating conflict.
Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that no specific initiative has been proposed to end the conflict.
"The end of the war depends on guaranteeing that it will not be repeated and on paying compensation," he said in an interview with news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Araghchi said earlier that the US attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island from two locations in the UAE. He called the situation extremely dangerous and said Iran would exercise restraint to avoid striking civilian-populated areas in the UAE.
Behind the scenes, resentment has already been mounting in Gulf Arab states over being drawn into a war that they neither initiated nor endorsed, but are now bearing economic and security costs, sources told Reuters.
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on social media late on Saturday that his country has the right to defend itself but "still prioritizes reason and de-escalation, and continues to exercise restraint".
Intercepting projectiles
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have all alerted residents that they were working to intercept incoming projectiles. In a statement, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said they launched 10 missiles and an unidentified number of drones against US forces at the UAE's Al Dhafra air base.
However, there were no signs of an attack on Dubai's Jebel Ali Port — the busiest in the Middle East — or Abu Dhabi's Khalifa Port. Debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility at Fujairah Port, the third targeted hub, with TV footage showing plumes of thick black smoke rising into the air.
Authorities said civil defense teams were working to manage the situation and urged the public not to spread misinformation, advising reliance solely on official updates.
Kharg, a small coral island around 30 kilometers off Iran's southwestern coast, is where petroleum from the country's oilfields arrives through undersea pipelines to be loaded onto tankers.
Oil exports from the island were continuing normally despite the US attack, Ehsan Jahanian, deputy governor of Bushehr Province, was quoted by Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency as saying.
In a phone call with French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Iran's Araghchi urged other countries to "refrain from any action that could lead to escalation and expansion of the conflict", according to an Iranian foreign ministry statement.
His remarks came after Washington called for warships from other nations to help protect world oil supplies passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been virtually blocked by the threat of Iranian attacks.
US President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News that Washington is not ready to strike a deal with Iran because "the terms are not good enough".
The initial attacks "completely demolished" most of the Kharg Island, he said. "We may hit it a few more times just for good measure."
Meanwhile, Iran's joint military command accused "the enemy" — the US and Israel — of using replica Iranian drones to attack neighboring countries and shift blame to Tehran, state media reported on Sunday.
The statement said copies of Iran's Shahed-136 drone, designated LUCAS, were used to hit "unrelated targets in regional states", including attacks in Turkiye, Iraq and Kuwait. No evidence was provided to support the claim.
Araghchi also told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Tehran has information that the US and Israel are launching attacks from certain locations against Arab states in the West Asia region, questioning the origin of attacks on them that have been blamed on Iran.
In another development, the Revolutionary Guards vowed on Sunday to hunt down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"If this criminal, the killer of children, remains alive, we will spare no effort to track down and eliminate him with all our strength," the Guards said in a statement.
Agencies contributed to this story.
cuihaipei@chinadaily.com.cn
TEHRAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Tehran has information the United States and Israel are launching attacks from certain locations against Arab states in the West Asia region.
He made the remarks in an interview with pan-Arab news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, parts of which were published Sunday, questioning the origin of attacks on regional Arab states that have been blamed on Iran.
Araghchi said Iran is ready to meet with regional states and form a joint committee to investigate the nature of the attacked targets.
Iran's strikes only targeted US bases and interests in retaliation for attacks launched from those sites, he added.
Araqchi said the United States has developed a drone similar to Iran's Shahed 136, named "LUCAS," to target locations in Arab countries.
He also accused Israel of targeting Arab civilians to sabotage their relations with Iran, adding, "Iran has not targeted any civilian or residential areas in the region so far."
He said contacts continue with neighbors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman, and that regional countries are mediating to reduce tensions and propose ideas to end the war.
Commenting on the Strait of Hormuz, Araghchi said it is open to all except US and US-allied ships.
He described Iran's situation as "stable," noting no defections in state or military institutions, and that Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is in good health and fully in charge.
Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said Sunday that a recent drone attack on Riyadh region and the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia was not related to Iran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Also on Sunday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Araghchi spoke by phone Saturday night with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot to discuss the regional situation.
Araghchi said the United States and Israel are the sole causes of insecurity in West Asia and the Strait of Hormuz, calling on all countries to condemn the "aggressors' criminal act" of attacking Iran and avoid escalating the conflict.
He also said Israel's "aggression and hegemony" are the root cause of instability in Lebanon, noting that peace there depends on ending Israel's "occupation, attacks and aggressions."
On Feb 28, Israel and the United States launched joint attacks on Tehran and other Iranian cities, killing Iran's then Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, senior military commanders, and civilians. Iran responded with waves of missile and drone strikes targeting Israeli and US bases and assets across the Middle East.
JERUSALEM -- Shrapnel from an Iranian missile fired into central Israel has hit the residential building used by the US consul in Israel, Israel's state-owned Kan TV News reported on Sunday.
Gulf countries reported fresh cross-border attacks on Sunday, a day after Iran urged civilians to evacuate three major ports in the United Arab Emirates that it labeled "legitimate targets" being used by US military forces for strikes against Iran.
As the three-week-old conflict between Iran, the United States and Israel shows no sign of de-escalation, Washington has sharply raised the stakes by targeting Iran's most critical oil export lifeline.
In recent days, the US has carried out strikes on more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island — the strategic chokepoint handling roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports — marking a dangerous new phase of the escalating conflict.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday that no specific initiative has been proposed to end the war so far. "The end of the war depends on guaranteeing that it will not be repeated and on paying compensation," he said in an interview with Al Araby Al Jadeed.
He said earlier that the US attacked Kharg Island and Abu Musa Island from two locations in the UAE: Ras Al-Khaimah and a site "very close to Dubai". He called the situation extremely dangerous and said Iran would exercise restraint to avoid striking civilian-populated areas in the UAE.
Behind the scenes, resentment has already been mounting in Gulf Arab states at being drawn into a war they neither initiated nor endorsed, but are now bearing economic and security costs for, sources told Reuters.
Anwar Gargash, a diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said on social media late on Saturday that his country has the right to defend itself but "still prioritizes reason and de-escalation, and continues to exercise restraint".
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all alerted residents that they were working to intercept incoming projectiles. In a statement, Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), said they launched 10 missiles and an unidentified number of drones against US forces at the UAE's al-Dhafra airbase.
But there was no sign of an attack on Dubai's Jebel Ali port — the Middle East's busiest — or Abu Dhabi's Khalifa port. Debris from an intercepted Iranian drone struck an oil facility at Fujairah port, the third targeted hub, with TV footage showing plumes of thick black smoke rising into the air. Authorities said civil defense teams were working to manage the situation and urged the public not to spread misinformation, advising reliance solely on official updates.
Kharg, a small coral island around 30 kilometers off the south-western coast, is where petroleum from Iran's oilfields arrives through undersea pipelines to be loaded on to tankers. Oil exports from the island were continuing normally despite the US attack, Ehsan Jahanian, deputy governor of Bushehr Province, was quoted by the IRNA news agency as saying.
US President Donald Trump said in a telephone interview with NBC News that the US is not ready to strike a deal with Iran because "the terms are not good enough". He added that initial attacks "completely demolished" most of the island and that "we may hit it a few more times just for good measure".
Meanwhile, Iran's joint military command accused "the enemy" — the US and Israel — of using replica Iranian drones to attack neighboring countries and shift blame to Tehran, state media reported on Sunday.
The statement said copies of Iran's Shahed-136 drone, designated LUCAS, were used to hit "unrelated targets in regional states", including attacks in Turkiye, Iraq and Kuwait. No evidence was provided to support the claim.
In another development, the IRGC vowed on Sunday to hunt down Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a statement carried by state media, the IRGC said: "If this criminal, the killer of children, remains alive, we will spare no effort to track down and eliminate him with all our strength."
Since the US and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb 28, more than 2,000 people have been killed, the majority in Iran, while major disruption has been caused to global oil supplies, pushing international prices higher.
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said Saturday that he's not ready to make a deal to end the military campaign against Iran "because the terms aren't good enough yet."
"Iran wants to make a deal, and I don't want to make it because the terms aren't good enough yet," he said of ending the war with Iran in an interview with NBC News, adding that any terms will have to be "very solid."
Trump, though declining to tell what his terms would be, said that a commitment from Iran to completely abandon any nuclear ambitions would be part of those terms for a ceasefire.
His remarks came two weeks after the United States and Israel started massive attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, which are disrupting global shipping, sending oil prices soaring, and shaking the global economy.
As the strikes entered the third week, they are wreaking increasingly severe havoc on global energy and economic markets.
Trump said he is asking the countries affected by the war to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open and safe amid surges in global oil prices.
The strait is one of the world's most critical shipping lanes, particularly for oil tankers. Trump said Saturday that several countries have committed to helping secure the strait, but declined to name any of them.
"They've not only committed, but they think it's a great idea," he said.
In a post on Truth Social earlier on Saturday, Trump called on the countries that receive oil through the strait to "take care of that passage," claiming the United States will "coordinate" the joint efforts.
Separately, he wrote in another post that many countries "will be sending war ships" to keep the strait open, without offering any details.
When asked in the telephone interview with NBC News whether the US Navy would start escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the president said, "I don't want to tell you anything about that," but added that "it's possible."
WASHINGTON -- The US forces "executed a large-scale precision strike" on Kharg Island, a key oil export hub of Iran, on Friday night, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed on Saturday.
"U.S. forces successfully struck more than 90 Iranian military targets on Kharg Island, while preserving the oil infrastructure," CENTCOM said in a post on X.
The strike destroyed naval mine storage facilities, missile storage bunkers, and multiple other military sites, the post said.
Kharg Island lies in the Persian Gulf about 25 km off Iran's coast and accounts for about 90 percent of Iran's crude exports.
US President Donald Trump said Friday night on social media that the bombing "totally obliterated" the military targets in Kharg Island, and threatened to target the strategic island's oil infrastructure if shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is disrupted.
In response, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, warned Saturday that any attack on Iran's oil and energy infrastructure would trigger retaliation against regional facilities linked to US companies.
CAIRO -- The Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil shipping route, remains open and under Iranian control, a senior Iranian commander said on Saturday, amid rising tensions with the United States and its allies.
Alireza Tangsiri, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, said in a statement that claims by the United States about destroying Iran's navy or providing safe escort for oil tankers were false, Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
"The Strait of Hormuz has not been militarily blocked and is merely under control," the statement said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi echoed the message, telling US media that the strait remained open for international shipping except for vessels belonging to the United States, Israel, and their allies.
"The Strait of Hormuz is open. It is only closed to the tankers and ships belonging to our enemies, to those who are attacking us and their allies. Others are free to pass," Araghchi said.
The Strait of Hormuz is a strategic chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passes. In his first message as Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei pledged to maintain leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged countries dependent on oil shipments through the strait to take responsibility for keeping it open, with American assistance. Washington has been trying to ease high oil prices amid the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran, triggering Iran's retaliations on US assets across the region.
BEIRUT -- Hezbollah fighters clashed directly with Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese border town of Khiam on Saturday night, the militant group said, as Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people across southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah said its fighters engaged Israeli troops using light and medium weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, with fighting still ongoing at the time of the statement.
Lebanon's official National News Agency reported that Israeli airstrikes killed at least nine people and wounded seven others across southern Lebanon Saturday night.
In the border district of Marjayoun, an airstrike on a house in Qantara killed four members of the Al-Saghir family, including both parents and their two children. In the nearby Nabatieh district, four members of the Al-Souli family died when Israeli warplanes struck a house in Mayfadoun where they had taken refuge after fleeing their home village of al-Taybeh. The dead included two brothers, the wife of one and their child. Five others were wounded. A separate strike in Majdal Selm killed one person and wounded two.
Hezbollah said it carried out multiple retaliatory strikes against Israeli military targets, including rocket barrages near the Khiam detention center and the Metula site. The group also claimed to have destroyed an Israeli tank with a guided missile near al-Taybeh and launched a drone attack on a maintenance facility south of Haifa.
The fighting marks a sharp escalation since Hezbollah fired rockets toward Israel on March 2 -- its first since a ceasefire took effect Nov 27, 2024 -- prompting an Israeli military campaign of airstrikes across southern and eastern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs.
BEIRUT -- Israel launched a heavy airstrike on Haret Hreik in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Saturday night, local media reported.
The densely populated area is widely known as a stronghold of the militant group Hezbollah and has been a frequent target of Israeli military operations. Details on casualties or the extent of damage were not immediately available.
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said Saturday on social media that "many countries" would send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, without offering any details.
"Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe," he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
He added that "the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian Boats and Ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!"
The US president told reporters on Friday that his country's Navy will soon start escorting tankers through the strait. "It'll happen soon, very soon," he said.
Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Thursday called for the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping route carrying one-fifth of oil consumed globally, and pledged to open new fronts in his country's conflict with the United States and Israel.
Iran's permanent representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani said Thursday that "the current situation in the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, is ... the direct consequence of the destabilizing actions of the United States in launching aggression against Iran and undermining regional security."
Drone attack hits US embassy in Baghdad: media
