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BBC News with Chris Barrow.
The Trump administration has said that America could meet its achievable objectives in Iran in four to six weeks. The White House press secretary didn't give details of what these objectives were, but she said that American and Israeli forces were already well on the way to controlling Iranian airspace. Earlier, President Trump demanded Tehran's "unconditional surrender," saying it was the only way to end hostilities. Will Grant is in Washington. The expectation is, I think, from Middle East experts, military experts, is that the kind of regime that the Islamic regime in Iran is, is most likely to continue to fight to the very, very last moment. Now, of course, the question comes in whether or not, when President Trump says unconditional surrender and, as it were, complete capitulation by the regime in Tehran, that is indeed what he means. Could he claim that that has taken place by eventually working with an acceptable, as he puts it, replacement supreme leader? Fresh explosions have been heard in Tehran after Israel said it was launching a new wave of strikes on the Iranian capital. The Iranian state broadcaster says an area in the west of the city had been hit. Israel also said it had detected a new wave of missiles approaching from Iran and was operating to intercept them. There have been explosions at various locations in Iraq, which is trying to avoid being dragged into the Iran conflict. Drones attacked oil facilities in Basra and rockets targeted a complex near Baghdad airport, which hosts a military base and U.S. diplomatic facility. Other strikes hit Iraq's Kurdish region, where several Iranian Kurdish opposition groups are based. Orla Guerin is in the capital, Erbil. We've had daily strikes since the war began, missiles and drones targeting bases of the Iranian Kurdish opposition. We've also had attacks on facilities linked to the U.S., particularly Erbil International Airport. Now the airport is home to a U.S. military base, which we believe is now empty, but it continues to be targeted. We have had reports of strikes beyond this region of northern Iraq. The headquarters of Ghana's U.N. peacekeeping battalion in southern Lebanon has been hit in a missile attack, critically injuring two soldiers. The Ghanaian army described it as the fallout from ongoing exchanges between Israel and Iranian-backed Hezbollah, but didn't say who was responsible. The army in South Sudan has ordered aid agencies and civilians to leave an opposition-held area in eastern Jonglei state as it prepares an offensive against rebels there. It's given the United Nations and other humanitarian organizations three days to evacuate Akobo County. Civilians have been told to seek shelter in army-controlled villages. The military is seeking to push back forces loyal to South Sudan's imprisoned opposition leader. This is the world news from the BBC. A large swathe of the central United States is bracing for one of the first big storm [se...] systems of the season. More than 50 million people from Texas to the Great Lakes face some level of potentially hazardous weather. Forecasters say the main threats are powerful wind gusts, tornadoes and hailstones, some possibly bigger than a baseball. European police agencies say they have identified 22 people in Poland and Lithuania as being behind a series of exploding parcels two years ago. A number of self-igniting parcels went off in Germany, Poland and Britain. One of the packages exploded just before it was loaded onto an aircraft. Investigators believe the suspects were working for Russian military intelligence, testing a plot to trigger explosions on cargo flights. Moscow has always denied any involvement. Thousands of people, including three former U.S. presidents, have attended a memorial service for the American civil rights pioneer [Jerry] Jesse Jackson, who died last month. Friday's event at a Chicago church was the final public tribute to Reverend Jackson. Former President Barack Obama gave this tribute. "Because of Jesse, the Democratic Party changed its rules, ending the winner-take-all distribution of delegates during presidential primaries, which meant underdogs and outsiders could stay competitive and build momentum instead of getting knocked out early. And it was because of that path that two decades later, a young black senator from Chicago's South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination." The Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics have officially got underway in northern Italy with a controversial opening ceremony that saw athletes from Russia and Belarus march behind their nation's flags. It's the first time competitors from the two countries have been allowed to compete under their flags, rather than as neutrals, at a Paralympics since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In total, more than 600 para-athletes will compete at this year's Games. BBC News. |