Category: 2. World

The IDF assesses that the entire Houthi cabinet — including the prime minister and 12 other ministers — were likely killed in Thursday’s strikes in Yemen, Channel 12 reported Friday, without citing any sources.

The network said the assessment was not definitive and that the IDF was still working to reach a clearer understanding of the strike’s results.

Yemen’s Al-Jumhuriya channel and the Aden Al-Ghad newspaper reported that Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in an Israeli attack on an apartment in the capital Sanaa, with the latter reporting that several of his companions were killed as well.

It appeared from the reports to have been a separate strike from the one that was said target 10 senior Houthi ministers as they gathered in a location outside of the capital to hear a speech by the group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.

The IDF on Friday confirmed that the Houthi defense minister and chief of staff were targeted in that attack. As of Friday afternoon, it was still awaiting confirmation of the results.

Channel 12 said the two were en route to the location of the cabinet meeting shortly before the strike and were apparently at the site when it was hit.

The outcome of that attack has yet to be fully determined, although political sources cited Thursday by Channel 13 news claimed that “the direction is positive, it seems the attack succeeded,” and Ynet reported that “there is growing assessment that the entire Houthi military and governmental elite were eliminated in the attack.”

At a situational assessment held Friday on the military’s ongoing operations across the region, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, “The Houthis operate as an additional terrorist branch of Iran, continue to attack Israel, and threaten regional and international stability. Our message is clear — there will be no tolerance.”

Israeli intelligence provided real-time details of the gathering, enabling the strike, which was carried out despite heavy air defenses in the area, the IDF said.

As al-Houthi delivered his address, Israel reportedly monitored it to see whether he realized senior officials were being targeted, and he gave no indication of being aware, reports said.

⚡️⭕️ Sayyid Abdul-Malik al-Houthi stressed that many European states are not exerting any real pressure to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Yemen.
28th of August, 2025. pic.twitter.com/AExHIkvd75

— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) August 28, 2025

The defense minister, Muhammad Nasser al-Attafi, has been in his role since 2016, and is considered the senior-most official in the organization’s military establishment, according to Channel 12.

He is reported to have established a close relationship with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and with Hezbollah.

Also targeted was Houthi chief of staff Muhammad Al-Ghamari, who was reportedly seriously hurt, but not killed, by an Israeli strike in Yemen in June, carried out during Israel’s brief war with Iran.

An unnamed senior official told Channel 12 on Thursday that Israel had been ready to target Houthi leadership as part of a different strike on Sanaa on Sunday, but ultimately waited until Thursday.

Officials have cast the strike in dramatic terms. Previous Israeli actions in Yemen have failed to halt the Houthis’ continued drone and missile attacks during the ongoing war, though the earlier attacks usually targeted infrastructure, rather than hitting specific officials based on precise intelligence.

A source from the Houthi defense ministry denied that any members of the group had been targeted in the attack, and insisted that Israel was attacking “civilian targets and the Yemeni people because of their positions supporting Gaza.”

Houthi Minister of Defense, Major General Mohamed al-Atifi, and Chief of General Staff, Major General Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari, are both believed to have been killed in today’s wave of airstrikes by the Israeli Air Force against the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in… pic.twitter.com/dUVwBu4WIB

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 29, 2025

Thursday’s strikes marked the 16th time that Israel has attacked the Iran-backed rebel group in Yemen, located some 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) away.

The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — began attacking Israel and maritime traffic in November 2023, a month after the October 7 Hamas massacre in southern Israel.

The Houthis held their fire when a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas in January 2025. By that point, they had launched over 40 ballistic missiles and dozens of attack drones and cruise missiles at Israel, including one that killed a civilian and wounded several others in Tel Aviv in July, prompting Israel’s first strike in Yemen.

Since March 18, when the IDF resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen have launched 72 ballistic missiles and at least 23 drones at Israel. Several missiles have fallen short.

In response to the Houthi attacks, Israel and a United States-led coalition bombarded rebel-held areas in Yemen, including Sanaa and the strategic coastal city of Hodeida. Israeli strikes knocked the Sanaa airport out of service in May.

US President Donald Trump’s administration in May announced a deal with the Houthis to end the airstrikes in return for an end to attacks on shipping. The terror group, however, said the agreement did not include halting attacks on targets it believed were aligned with Israel.

Stav Levaton contributed to this report.

Is The Times of Israel important to you?

Yes, I’ll give

Yes, I’ll give

Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this

You appreciate our journalism

Join Our Community

Join Our Community

Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir — Forty-year-old Ruksana wails as she looks at her home, a desolate one-storey structure stripped of windows and doors next to the raging Tawi river in Jammu’s rundown neighbourhood of Gujar Nagar. A coarse coating of mud drips down the outer walls of the house.

“My husband is handicapped, and I have built this home by working at people’s homes,” she wails. “I could only rescue my two children and husband. Everything else, their clothes, their books, food has been lost.”

For dozens of families, the loss is even graver. At least 40 people have died and scores have been injured as torrential rains in Indian-administered Kashmir triggered major landslides this week, with flash floods sweeping away homes and knocking down telecommunication networks and powerlines.

The majority of those killed were pilgrims travelling to the Vaishno Devi temple in Jammu’s Katra. The shrine, one of the most popular Hindu pilgrimage spots, is located about 60km from Jammu city. Devotees trek about 12–13km uphill from the base camp to reach it.

“There was chaos. Death had never seemed [so] close. Some people are still missing,” said Rakesh Kumar, 42, who had come to Katra from Madhya Pradesh, a central Indian state. “The internet and phones were dead, which created a lot of panic.”

Jammu recorded its heaviest-ever 24-hour rainfall on Tuesday – 380mm, compared with the previous record of 270.4mm in 1988 – triggering widespread devastation across the region. Some of the deceased pilgrims visiting the Vaishno Devi shrine have been identified as residents of Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh states.

‘We hope they are alive’

Mohan Das, another devotee from the state of Uttar Pradesh, said that he was looking for five friends who were missing. “We don’t know where they are. It has been 12 hours since we last saw them,” Das said.

Jammu abuts the mountains that girdle the Kashmir Valley. The latest crisis came days after a series of flash floods in the remote regions of Kishtwar and Kathua districts killed dozens in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The regional administration has set up relief camps and announced compensation for affected families. The region’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and the federally appointed Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha have toured the worst-hit areas. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised the central government’s assistance, and the authorities said they evacuated more than 5,000 people stranded in the floods.

In Jammu, the floods surged through the city and swept away bridges on the Tawi, a major lifeline for the region. Images showed policemen in Jammu desperately trying to halt traffic approaching a damaged bridge before a side of it collapsed.

Along the steep mountainous routes that trace a winding path through the craggy hills of Jammu, roads caved in under landslides, forcing the only land route from the rest of India to the region to shut temporarily. The Indian government also mobilised a fleet of military transport aircraft to fast-track the delivery of aid and other essential supplies into the region, where air traffic was closed on Tuesday before operations resumed the following day.

‘Waters close in on Kashmir’

Bashash Mahmood, 23, a university law student, was abruptly awakened by a midnight call while sleeping at his hotel in Srinagar. On the line was his cousin, calling from Anantnag—58 kilometres away.

Floodwaters on Wednesday knocked down mobile and electricity towers and severed optical fibre cables, crippling the region’s entire telecommunications infrastructure.

So Bashash could only hear a jumble of crackling words as he tried to make sense of what his cousin was saying. He finally managed to catch an urgent SOS message: floodwaters had surged outside his home in Bijbehara, Anantnag, and his family was in danger.

He took his car and raced along empty roads in the middle of the night, past the Indian army garrison at Badambagh, and through the sprawling saffron fields of Pampore.

When he arrived at Sangam, a canyon where two major rivers in Anantnag join, he rolled down his windows, the rain pelting against his face. “I realised that water had risen dangerously close to the embankment.”

Once he reached home, Bashash got to work and carried household items such as a fridge, furniture and utensils to the second storey of their house, emptying the ground floor.

In the morning, videos went viral showing people paddling rafts through the streets, as water had submerged large parts of South Kashmir, especially Anantnag district.

In Srinagar, the region’s biggest city, panic reached a crescendo on Wednesday afternoon – reinforced by public memories of apocalyptic floods that had struck in 2014.

Back then, floodwaters from swollen rivers had breached the banks, burying large parts of the Kashmir valley. As Bashash recalls, when the waters finally receded 11 years ago, the floods had left two feet of sludge residue that locals scooped up with their bare hands before cleaning their homes to make them livable again. “Just the thought of how hard it was for us to defecate terrifies me. We would rather refuse to eat anything to get ourselves constipated because there were no toilets,” he says.

Haunted by those memories, residents across Kashmir were seen assembling sandbags and plugging gaps to prevent breaches through which the swelling river might come. If it was the Tawi in Jammu, it was the Jhelum river – also a lifeline-turned-threat – that poses the danger in Kashmir. The river crisscrosses its way through the entire length of the Kashmir valley before crossing over into Pakistan.

Echoes of 2014, pain of 2019

On Wednesday, residents rushed to relocate or move their household goods to higher storeys in their homes in a bid to avoid a repeat of 2014. The family of Nazir Wani, a 70-year-old man suffering from a chronic pulmonary disorder that requires him to continuously have oxygen connected, said they were moving to a different neighbourhood, some 14km away, at a higher altitude.

“Where would we go if the waters rise and we get stuck? Where will we get the oxygen supply from? We are not taking any chances,” said Nousheen Wani, his daughter. The family bundled the old man into a large sports car, his eyebags sagging, as he took heavy breaths. They hauled five cylinders and two oxygen concentrators and slid them between the boot space and the rear seats, before driving away.

These floods have hit Kashmir amid crippling economic woes.

Six years ago, the Indian government stripped the region’s historic special status and demoted it from a state to a federally governed region, a move that escalated tensions with archrival Pakistan. To prevent protests, India imposed a major lockdown, suspending telecommunications and jailing thousands of people. The lockdown strangled the region’s economy, with an estimated economic loss worth $1.5bn.

Echoes of those measures continue to be felt across the region even today. According to the latest Indian government statistics, youth unemployment stands at 17.4 percent, much higher than the national average of 10.2 percent.

The floods threaten to compound that crisis. Abdullah, the elected chief minister in the disputed province, drew parallels with the aftermath of the 2014 floods. Back then, too, he was in the same role, but at the time, Indian-administered Kashmir had semiautonomous status, giving Abdullah, in some ways, more power than other Indian state leaders.

In a post on X, he complained about the failure of authorities to learn from the lessons of 2014. “What flood mitigation measures were implemented since Oct (sic) 2014?” he asked, criticising those who ruled between his two tenures, including Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, a coalition partner in the provincial government between 2015 and 2018. “These are all questions that the elected government will seek answers to because the last 48 hours have been a shocking eye-opener.”

‘Decimation of local floodplains’

While extreme weather events continue to occur regularly across India, environmental experts in Kashmir say poor natural resource management and a flurry of reckless developmental projects have amplified threats.

“In the last five years, the authorities have felled up to a million trees for what they call their pasture land retrieval programmes,” explained Raja Muzaffar Bhat, a Srinagar-based activist.

In 2020, authorities in Kashmir began evicting forest-dwelling tribal communities from their homes by cutting down their orchards. Authorities accused the communities of having “encroached” on forest land. However, the “tribals” insist they have been cultivating the land for generations.

Major construction projects, including tunnels bored through mountains, also added to the dangers of ecological collapse, Bhat suggested.

He cited the example of a 61km road project that aims to skirt past traffic-congested Srinagar city and ease access between other districts of Kashmir. The road is being built on floodplains that historically have absorbed surging waters, saving Srinagar from flooding. Instead, Bhat said, it could have been built on elevated pillars.

Tonnes of soil were extracted from precious elevated tablelands called karewas for laying the foundations on which these roads have been built, and they will pass through the floodplains of Kandizal (between the districts of Srinagar and Pulwama), Muzaffar said. The floodplains had an important role as they absorbed the water surge and prevented Srinagar city from being flooded.

Kashmir’s “topographical balance that had existed naturally for hundreds of years” is being disturbed, Muzaffar said. And this week’s floods could soon become the norm.

Wia dis foto come from, SDI Productions/Getty Images

28 August 2025

Wia dis foto come from, Getty Images

Since, president Donald Trump, don enta office e don dey try stop illegal immigration in di United States.

Under dis proposed regulation, F and J visas applicants, international students, journalists, professors and cultural exchange visitors in di US go face limited stay duration for US and DHS go thorough check dia social media pipo dem go fit stay for US.

Bifor now, US bin dey limit di stay period for foreign students and journalists on assignment, but e no dey pass 10 years.

“Dis new proposed rule go end dat abuse once and for all by limiting di amount of time certain visa holders go dey allowed to remain in di U.S., easing di burden on di federal goment to properly oversee foreign students and dia history,” di statement tok.

“Since 1978, foreign students (F visa holders) dey enta into di U.S. for unspecified period wey pio sabi as “duration of status.” Unlike oda visas issued, wit “duration of status” designation dey allowed to remain in di U.S. for an unlimited amount of time without screening and vetting.”

Dis announcement na days afta universities don start dia academic years and many record low enrollment of foreign students afta Trump administration cancel more dan 6,000 international student visas becos of violations of US law and overstay.

Di agency bin expalin say majority of di violations na assault, driving under di influence (DUI), burglary and “support for terrorism”.

Trump administration kotinu to crackdown on immigration and international students blaming dem for supporting terrorism and using tax payers money without any evidence.

Far above Kabul, the cash-strapped Taliban government has located a potentially lucrative revenue stream: Afghanistan’s airspace.

As Israel and Iran’s exchange of missiles threw flight paths into disarray this year, the skies above Afghanistan offered carriers a less turbulent and faster route to ply — for a flat $700 overflight fee, according to industry insiders.

The US aviation authority eased restrictions on the country’s airspace and paved the way for commercial flyovers in 2023, two years after the Taliban takeover.

Airspace that had long been avoided — as the country endured four decades of war and shifting powerbrokers — suddenly became a viable option, allowing carriers to abbreviate routes and save on fuel costs.

But it was not until the 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June that the route really gained traction, allowing the Taliban government to potentially rake in millions.

Faced with shuttered airspace over Iran and Iraq, and unpredictable openings and closures across the Middle East, airlines saw reason to divert course and found refuge over Afghanistan.

While missiles clogged the neighbouring airspace, “the risk of flying over Afghanistan (was) virtually zero”, said France-based aerospace and defence consultant Xavier Tytelman.

“It’s like flying over the sea.”

May’s average of 50 planes cutting through Afghanistan each day skyrocketed to around 280 after June 13, when the Iran-Israel war erupted, data from tracking website Flightradar24 showed.

Since then, in any given day, more than 200 planes often traverse Afghanistan — equivalent to roughly $4.2 million a month, though this figure is difficult to verify as the authorities do not publish budgets and have declined to comment.

Opaque transactions

While not a princely sum in terms of government revenue, the overflight fees offer a much-needed boost to Afghanistan’s coffers as it contends with a massive humanitarian crisis and a war-battered economy.

Around 85 per cent of Afghanistan’s population lives on less than one dollar a day, according to the UN, and nearly one in four Afghans aged 15 to 29 are unemployed.

The World Bank says overflight fees contributed to modest growth in Afghanistan’s economy in 2024, before the route began attracting carriers needing to bypass Iran.

International airlines returned to Afghanistan starting in 2023, with Turkish Airlines, flydubai, and Air Arabia making almost daily flights from Afghan airports.

Others, such as Singapore Airlines, Air France, Aeroflot, Air Canada and Swiss Air, fly over Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif or Kandahar — as practicality outweighs the risks, which remain.

Consultant Tytelman warned that Afghanistan is still a less than ideal place to land in case of technical or medical emergencies, with potential complications due to a lack of spare parts and dilapidated health care services.

Yet he noted, “planes are landing in Kabul every day”.

Airlines were loath to discuss the mechanics of paying the Taliban government, which remains isolated by many countries in part over its restrictions on women.

Multiple companies contacted by AFP said they do not provide overflight payment information.

Afghanistan’s aviation officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and would not confirm the overflight fees or the process by which they are paid.

“Companies are not formally prohibited from trading with Afghanistan, as US sanctions target only certain Taliban officials,” a World Bank expert told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, “some abstain out of fear of being associated with the ruling power”, he added.

Industry insiders speaking on condition of anonymity said the $700 overflight fees are paid to third-party intermediaries, such as the United Arab Emirates-based GAAC Holding, which manages airports in Afghanistan, or overflight brokers.

Some airlines may now even pay directly, as more countries develop diplomatic ties with the Taliban government.

Reinforcing authority

Only Russia has officially recognised the Taliban authorities, who are hamstrung by frozen assets, sanctions on individuals and a lack of trust in the banking sector.

Against such economic headwinds, the airspace revenue stream “is helpful for the cash-strapped current administration”, said Sulaiman Bin Shah, former deputy minister of industry and commerce in the ousted government and founder of the Catalysts Afghanistan consultancy.

But Bin Shah emphasised that the overflight traffic offers more than just financial benefits, as it increases normalisation of the Taliban authorities.

“It reinforces their grip on state functions and supports the image of a functioning government, even without formal international recognition,” he said.

“So while the income itself is not transformative, it plays a meaningful role in the administration’s economic narrative and political positioning.”

TEL AVIV, Israel — The head of the U.N. food agency said Thursday that it was “very evident” during her visit to Gaza this week that there isn’t enough food in the Palestinian territory and that she spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the urgent need for more aid.

The world’s leading authority on food crises said last week the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it was likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Cindy McCain, the World Food Program’s executive director, told The Associated Press that starvation was underway in Gaza.

“I personally met mothers and children who were starving in Gaza,” she said. “It is real and it is happening now,”

Netanyahu, she said, was “obviously very concerned that people aren’t getting enough food.” In the past, he has denied that there is famine in Gaza and said the claims about starvation are a propaganda campaign launched by Hamas.

“We agreed that we must immediately redouble our efforts to get more humanitarian aid in. Access and security for our convoys is critical,” McCain said.

The famine declaration has increased international pressure on Israel, which has been fighting Hamas since the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Israel now says it plans to seize Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, and there have been no public signs of progress on recent efforts for a ceasefire.

Israel rejects the declaration — issued by the authority on food crises known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC — and on Wednesday asked for a formal retraction.

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory, known as COGAT, said Thursday that more than 300 humanitarian aid trucks enter Gaza every day, most of them carrying food.

But aid groups say it’s not nearly enough after 22 months of fighting, the blockade of aid earlier this year and the collapse of food production in Gaza. McCain spent most of Tuesday on a tour of Gaza speaking to displaced families living in tents and facing hunger.

“I got to meet a family who had come from the North, there were 11 of them, and they’d come from the North and they literally had not had enough food at all and they still don’t have enough food,” she said.

McCain said her program is getting more food in to Gaza, but said a surge in food supplies was needed.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said famine in Gaza is “a present-day catastrophe” and the start of expanded Israeli military operations present “a new and dangerous phase.”

He said it will have “devastating consequences” and force hundreds of thousands of traumatized and exhausted civilians to flee again.

“Gaza is piled with rubble, piled with bodies, and piled with examples of what may be serious violations of international law,” he said.

Mediators Egypt and Qatar were still waiting for Israel’s response to a 60-day ceasefire proposal in Gaza, which has been accepted by Hamas, Qatari foreign minister said Thursday.

The proposal, which Egyptian and Qatari mediators delivered to Israel earlier this month, calls for a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for the release of 10 living hostages and the handover of bodies of 18 dead ones, according to Arab mediators. It also calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to a buffer zone on Gaza.

Also Thursday, Israeli airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, in response to attacks by the Arab country’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have launched missiles and drones toward Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea for over 22 months. The Houthis say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians.

Nearly 63,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. The agency reported that 71 people were killed by Israeli strikes over the past day, while scores more were injured. While the ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, it says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 remaining in Gaza, Israel believes around 20 are alive.

The U.N. chief said Israel, as the occupying power, has obligations to protect civilians, facilitate far greater humanitarian access and meet their essential needs.

The systematic dismantling of systems that provide food water and healthcare, Guterres said, “are the result of deliberate decisions that defy basic humanity.”

___ Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

New Delhi, India – In a sprawling market in the Indian capital, Anuj Gupta sits in a corner of his shop as silence hangs over it.

Gupta sources and exports garment accessories – like laces and buttons – to major global brands. But punishing tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump have brought Gupta’s business to its knees.

On Wednesday morning, India woke up to 50 percent tariffs imposed on its goods sold to the US, after the Trump administration followed through on its threat of doubling levies from 25 percent over India’s purchase of Russian oil. The White House says Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, among the top buyers of crude from Russia, is financing Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Indian officials have accused Washington of double standards, pointing towards how the European Union and China buy more from Russia and how Washington, too, still trades with Moscow.

In the fashion world, the cycle runs a year ahead, explains Gupta – clothes are being designed and made for autumn 2026 at the moment. So, the hovering uncertainty in the market has “hampered the work badly”, leaving a “big dent”, he said. Up to 40 percent of his business is in the US market.

Gupta said until Wednesday morning, he was still hoping against hope. “Maybe Trump is just bullying us for optics, or maybe Modi’s good relations with the US will rescue the situation,” he thought. “But we were the worst dealt.”

Five rounds of talks have failed to yield a trade deal between Washington and New Delhi, and Gupta said exporters now fear their customers might give up on India altogether. “If these tensions prolong, then buyers would look for alternative markets for sourcing,” he said.

As New Delhi grapples with Trump’s moves that walk the US back from two decades of diplomatic and strategic investments in India, analysts and economic observers say the tariffs could devastate key export-driven sectors of the Indian economy, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk.

‘It’s so helpless’

Ajay Sahai, the CEO of the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO), the largest government-backed body of Indian exporters, was cautiously hopeful of help from the Modi administration after meeting the country’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday.

“The government has fully assured us that they will provide all kinds of support needed to navigate this problem, perhaps including an economic package,” Sahai told Al Jazeera.

“The government has asked us to prepare a report, and then they will come up with a scheme,” he said. “[Sitharaman] has assured that there will be no layoffs – and that’s something we should honour.”

Yet, that’s easier said than done.

Textiles, gems, jewellery, carpets and shrimp are some of India’s biggest exports to the US – and are expected to be among the worst hit by the tariffs.

K Anand Kumar, who manages shrimp exporting company Sandhya Marines and employs nearly 3,500 workers in a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh state on the Bay of Bengal, said that his business is on the verge of collapse.

More than 90 percent of his company’s cargoes head to the US market.

Last year, India exported an all-time high of 1.78 million metric tonnes of seafood worth $7.38bn. Shrimp dominates, contributing 92 percent of the total value. And the US takes in more than 40 percent of India’s shrimp shipments.

“The shrimp industry is a very highly labour-intensive sector, with small farmers,” said Kumar, who also leads the seafood export association’s Andhra Pradesh chapter. Taking everyone into account, Kumar said, nearly two million people are associated with shrimp exports.

Kumar said more than 50 percent of those workers will bear the direct brunt of Trump’s tariffs.

“We are already laying off because we can’t keep paying salaries with no orders in line for us,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. “The small farmers, who peel the shrimp, will be worst affected because there is no work now to employ them.”

Exporter associations estimate that the tariffs could affect nearly 55 percent of India’s $87bn worth of merchandise exports to the US – and benefit competitors such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and China, which have been tariffed at lower rates.

Moody’s Ratings has noted that Trump’s tariffs on Indian imports could slow India’s economic growth. Beyond 2025, the ratings agency said, the much wider tariff gap compared with other Asia Pacific countries would severely curtail India’s ambitions to develop its manufacturing sector and may even reverse some of the gains made in recent years in attracting related investments.

“It is like being in a nightmare,” Kumar said, “where you do not know what new, random tariff number you wake up to next.”

In the last 30 years of business with the US, Kumar said, the crisis feels uncharted. “The US is toying with us, doing whatever they want,” he said. “And we are forced to adjust. It feels so helpless.”

‘Embargo on Indian goods’

Nearly 1,000km (620 miles) from Kumar’s factory, fear has taken over Tiruppur, a town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu that is the capital of India’s garment export industry.

Lying on the banks of the Noyyal river and next to rocky hillocks, Tiruppur contributes nearly a third of the total $16bn ready-to-wear garment exports. Tiruppur’s earnings in US dollars have earned it the name of ‘Dollar City’. The world’s top fashion brands, including Zara and Gap, source clothes from here.

But while higher margins in the case of big brands give some businesses temporary breathing space, a prolonged crisis could cripple them, said V Elangovan, managing director of SNQS International Group, which exports garments.

“Wherever margins are lower, the production has been halted altogether,” he said. Elangovan’s company employs 1,500 people. He said about 150,000 workers stand to lose their jobs due to Trump’s tariffs in Tiruppur.

“It is very difficult to find a new customer in this economy,” he said. “Customer diversification is not like a switch, which we can turn on and off. Soon, in the future, we will be looking at cash flow issues, and there will be a lot of retrenchment of the workers.”

India’s Modi has meanwhile taken a defiant stance on the trade war with the US.

India “should become self-reliant … Economic selfishness is on the rise globally and we mustn’t sit and cry about our difficulties,” Modi said in his Independence Day speech on August 15 from the ramparts of New Delhi’s Red Fort.

“Modi will stand like a wall against any policy that threatens their interests. India will never compromise when it comes to protecting the interests of our farmers,” the prime minister had said, referring indirectly to sticking points in trade negotiations with the US, which wants greater market access to India’s agriculture and dairy sectors. Almost half of India’s 1.4 billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

But traders fear that they could be left bleeding in the bargain.

“The government is letting us get punched in one eye to save the other eye,” said Elangovan. “A 50 percent tariff is practically an embargo on Indian goods.”

READ MORE

It is not clear whether the recent Israeli and U.S. military strikes have decreased or increased the likelihood of a nuclear-armed Iran. The attacks have certainly inflicted major damage to the country’s nuclear program. But they have not extinguished the Islamic Republic’s interest in nuclear weapons. They have amplified uncertainty about the quantity, location, and current condition of critical elements of Iran’s nuclear program. And they have failed to block Iran’s pathways to building a bomb, including by using its surviving equipment, materials, and expertise in a small, covert operation.

In the aftermath of the strikes, the Trump administration has resumed its pursuit of a new nuclear agreement that would prohibit uranium enrichment and its associated infrastructure in Iran––a “zero enrichment” outcome that would stymie any Iranian intention to build a bomb but that has been firmly rejected by Tehran, at least so far. If, after determined efforts, such an agreement cannot be achieved, the administration may seriously consider relying solely on military and intelligence means to thwart Iran’s efforts to revitalize its nuclear program, an approach strongly favored by the Israeli government. But a military option could lead to perpetual armed conflict in the region without reliably preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. A preferable option would be to negotiate an agreement that permits but strictly limits and rigorously verifies uranium enrichment in Iran.

Back to the Table

Since the ceasefire ending the 12-day war, the Trump administration has sought to resume its bilateral engagement with Iran. But Iran has not been ready to meet, in part due to divisions within Tehran’s elite on the merits of negotiations with the United States. Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, have insisted on preconditions that Washington is unwilling to accept, such as a U.S. guarantee that Iran would not be attacked while negotiations were underway. According to Reuters, however, regime “insiders” say that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and members of the clerical power structure have recently reached a consensus that resumed negotiations are vital to the survival of the regime. If that is the case, Iran and the United States are likely to find a formula for returning to the negotiating table before long.

An urgent U.S. priority in any resumed talks should be to restore International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring activities in Iran, which were suspended by a law signed by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 2. In the wake of the June military strikes, the IAEA can no longer account for roughly 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which may have been buried under rubble or, as some believe, removed from storage facilities before the strikes. The agency also can’t account for an unknown number of centrifuges that were produced after Iran denied the IAEA’s access to centrifuge production workshops in 2021.

Iran remains adamant that it will not give up domestic enrichment.

Bringing all of Iran’s enriched uranium, centrifuges, and other potential components of a nuclear weapons program under IAEA surveillance and accountancy is essential to blocking Iran’s pathways to nuclear weapons. IAEA experts visited Tehran on August 11 to discuss the modalities of resuming the agency’s activities in Iran, but they were not given access to the country’s nuclear sites. Although the Iranians are likely to soon grant the IAEA access to facilities that are not of proliferation concern, such as the Bushehr power reactor and the Tehran research reactor, they will continue withholding the kind of full cooperation essential to giving the IAEA a complete and accurate picture of their nuclear program. They may regard such cooperation as acceptable only as part of a comprehensive agreement and use the denial of cooperation as a bargaining chip to be played much later in the negotiations.

Resumed U.S.-Iranian talks could quickly focus on the issue that stalemated the first five rounds of negotiations during the second Trump administration: whether an agreement should ban all enrichment and enrichment-related infrastructure in Iran. The Trump administration says it remains firmly committed to its “zero enrichment” proposal, as the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff told ABC News on August 18. It may believe that the threat of further military strikes if Iran tries to revive its nuclear program––combined with Iran’s current strategic vulnerability, economic weakness, and international isolation––means that Tehran has little choice but to abandon its enrichment program and perhaps even its nuclear weapons ambitions altogether.

Iran remains adamant, however, that it will not give up domestic enrichment. Iran’s nuclear program, and especially its enrichment program, is a source of national pride, a demonstration of technological prowess, and a symbol of defiance. Iranian officials also claim that it serves as an insurance policy against possible fuel supply cutoffs by possible future suppliers of enriched uranium to Iran. The program, moreover, is an overriding national priority that Iran has pursued at enormous economic and human costs, including the martyrdom of senior scientists and military leaders.

We can assume that Iranian advocates of acquiring nuclear weapons, whether within or outside the leadership, staunchly oppose an enrichment ban, regarding it as tantamount to abandoning their nuclear ambitions once and for all. With hard-liners arguing that capitulating to U.S. demands would be a national humiliation and betrayal, Khamenei may fear that accepting zero enrichment could destabilize the regime.

Seeking Solutions

Outside experts have suggested ways to close what appears to be an unbridgeable gap between the U.S. and Iranian positions on the enrichment issue. One such idea that has received attention in both official and think-tank circles is establishing a multilateral fuel cycle consortium that could produce enriched uranium to help meet the region’s civil nuclear needs. Proponents believe the involvement of more than one country in the ownership, management, and perhaps even the operation of an enrichment facility would promote transparency and reduce the opportunity for any one country to divert the facility to the production of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

But finding a formula for a multilateral consortium that would be acceptable in both Tehran and Washington is likely to be very difficult. A consortium that sited an enrichment facility in a Gulf Arab country and excluded any domestic enrichment in Iran would have little appeal in Tehran. On the other hand, a consortium that permitted continued enrichment in Iran would have little appeal in Washington. Moreover, an enrichment facility managed and operated on a multinational basis, wherever it is located, could risk the dissemination of enrichment technology to additional countries, which would be a significant problem from a nonproliferation perspective.

With disagreement on enrichment blocking a comprehensive agreement, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reportedly considered pursuing an interim agreement. Such an interim agreement would be a limited-duration arrangement that would set aside the enrichment issue for the time being, show progress on a small package of steps valued by one side or the other, and buy time to negotiate a final deal. Both sides might see an interim agreement as a way to keep the talks going rather than face the domestic political consequences of either failing to reach a comprehensive deal or making painful compromises to achieve one.

The two sides will have to come to grips with the enrichment issue.

The elements of a possible interim agreement in the wake of the Israeli and U.S. military attacks would probably be quite different from what may have been considered by negotiators before the June war. For example, the suspension of Iranian production of uranium enriched to 60 percent––which was previously recommended by outside experts as an element of an interim deal––would no longer be of much interest to the United States because such production has already been halted, at least temporarily, by the attacks.

In a postwar interim agreement, the United States might seek an Iranian commitment to accept a significant restoration of IAEA monitoring activities or to refrain from certain nuclear-related activities, such as preparations to resume enrichment at damaged facilities. In exchange, Iran might seek partial sanctions relief, the release of billions of dollars of Iranian funds held in overseas accounts, or a pledge by the United States not to attack or support an attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.

But with each side seeking to maximize its benefits and minimize its concessions, finding a mutually acceptable formula for an interim deal could prove very difficult. And even if one could be found, an interim agreement would probably not last very long. With Iran likely to withhold full cooperation with the IAEA during any interim agreement, the continued uncertainty about unmonitored Iranian nuclear activities could become intolerable for Washington. And Iran’s repeated failure to get major sanctions relief while still refraining from steps such as withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) could become intolerable for Tehran, especially its hard-liners.

Sooner or later, the two sides will have to come to grips with the enrichment issue. It is conceivable that the Iranians could eventually buckle under the threat of further military attacks and accept zero enrichment. But given the fierce hard-line opposition and the leadership’s fear of the potential domestic consequences of surrendering to Israel and the United States, that is very unlikely. And if the Iranians don’t buckle, the Trump administration will have to choose between two main options. The United States could rely on military and intelligence means to stop any Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Or it could revise its negotiating position to seek an agreement that permits enrichment in Iran with tight limits and strong verification.

The Downsides of Ditching Diplomacy

The military option would involve walking away from the negotiations, prioritizing intelligence collection to focus heavily on possible evidence of resumed nuclear activities, and, if necessary, using military force or covert operations to stop Iran from rebuilding its nuclear program and its degraded missile forces and air defenses. Israel would presumably take the lead in implementing this option but would have the support of the United States in terms of collecting intelligence, defending the approach diplomatically, and possibly participating in military or covert operations.

Supporters of this approach, including a significant number of officials and non-governmental experts in Israel and the United States, are confident that the deep penetration of Iran by Israeli intelligence and the dominance that Israel and the United States enjoy over Iranian airspace would enable the allies to detect evidence of resumed nuclear activities and, if necessary, strike Iranian targets with a high probability of success. Moreover, the absence of an agreement, in their view, would give Israel and the United States the ability to act promptly and decisively against Iran at a time of their choosing, without the delays and obfuscations associated with negotiated verification and enforcement procedures. And it would not involve compensating Iran with sanctions relief or throwing a lifeline to a regime struggling to stay afloat.

But pursuing the military rather than the diplomatic track has major downsides. The U.S. and Israeli military attacks were extremely successful against large, well-known nuclear facilities. But an Iranian effort to build an initial nuclear arsenal at much smaller, deeply buried secret sites would be much less vulnerable to preemptive strikes. Because forgoing negotiations would probably ensure that the IAEA’s lack of sufficient access would persist, such a covert program would be easier for Iran to pursue under this approach.

This strategy could require repeated military strikes well into the future. Such a “mowing the grass” approach may prompt Iranian retaliation against Israel, U.S. interests, and U.S. partner countries––which, in turn, would risk drawing the United States into another prolonged armed conflict in the Middle East. It would also alienate the United States’ Gulf partners, which fear regional instability and favor détente with Iran, and reduce prospects for greater regional normalization and integration. And ending negotiations and turning to military means could trigger Tehran’s withdrawal from the NPT and possibly a long-deferred decision to build nuclear weapons.

Course Correction

The better option for the United States would be to reconsider its zero enrichment proposal and, instead, seek to negotiate a tightly restricted and rigorously verified uranium enrichment program. A revised U.S. proposal could be based on the principle that Iran would be permitted to have an enrichment program capable of meeting only the realistic, near-term fuel requirements of a genuinely peaceful nuclear program––a position consistent with Iran’s longstanding (and disingenuous) claim that its program has always been exclusively peaceful. With Russia supplying fuel for the Russian-built power reactors at Bushehr and the operation of Iranian-designed power reactors still a long way off, Iran’s current enrichment requirements are very modest, perhaps confined for the time being to fueling the Tehran research reactor and possible new research and isotope production reactors, whose enriched uranium requirements are much smaller than those of nuclear power reactors.

Such an approach would require Iran to eliminate its current stocks of uranium enriched to over five percent in uranium-235, either by diluting them or transferring them to another country (as Iran’s excess inventory of enriched uranium was transferred to Russia under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA). It would also call on Tehran to dismantle or transfer to another country for secure storage centrifuges in excess of the enrichment capacity needed for meeting near-term fuel production requirements.

Iran would be required to promptly convert uranium enriched to below five percent, whether newly produced or in its existing inventory, from the gaseous form, which could be fed into centrifuges and further enriched for nuclear weapons, to the powdered form, which is less readily usable in a weapons program and is the form needed for the process of fabricating nuclear reactor fuel or targets for isotope production. On-hand inventories of enriched uranium below five percent as well as natural uranium in the gaseous form would be limited to the amount required to meet near-term fueling needs.

Iran would be required to declare to the IAEA and provide a justification for any expanded enrichment capacity, such as more centrifuges, increased enriched uranium inventory, or new facilities, that it believed was needed to support actual, near-term additions to its civil nuclear program––a new nuclear reactor in an advanced state of construction, for example––rather than to support planned additions that would not materialize for quite some time. In addition, the agreement would permit enrichment only at a single, above-ground enrichment facility and would require the permanent closure of the Natanz and Fordow enrichment facilities.

To rebuild the IAEA’s––and therefore the international community’s––complete and accurate understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, especially in light of today’s major uncertainties, monitoring and inspection arrangements in a new agreement would have to include but go beyond the measures contained in the JCPOA. Iran would provide detailed information about unmonitored activities carried out after it suspended application of the IAEA Additional Protocol in 2021, such as the production of centrifuges. Equipment and activities related to the fabrication of nuclear weapons would be banned, with dual-use equipment and activities declared and verified. Advanced monitoring technologies including real-time, online enrichment monitors would be extensively used at the discretion of the IAEA.

Streamlined inspection arrangements would be required to facilitate prompt IAEA access to suspect sites, including military and other sensitive facilities. Expeditious dispute resolution and enforcement procedures could help ensure that the relevant authorities, such as the governments of the parties to the agreement, the IAEA Board of Governors, or the United Nations Security Council, are in a position to take timely and appropriate action to address matters of non-compliance.

Special measures would be needed to deter noncompliance, including the right of parties to the agreement to suspend sanctions relief and other benefits to a noncompliant party. A U.S. unilateral statement reserving the right to take any necessary steps, including the use of force, to respond to violations of the agreement could also help deter noncompliance, although such a statement would not be part of the agreement.

Accommodating Iran’s desire to retain some enrichment would not guarantee a deal.

A new agreement would, of course, include incentives for Iran, including sanctions relief and the release of Iranian funds still frozen in overseas accounts. Reversible commitments by Tehran would be matched by reversible incentives offered by Washington. Primary U.S. sanctions barring U.S. persons and entities from doing business with Iran could be relaxed, both to give American traders and investors opportunities available to their European and Asian counterparts and to give the United States a greater stake in the continuation of the agreement––which would address a key Iranian concern that a future U.S. administration could decide to withdraw from the agreement.

To be durable and to address concerns about the JCPOA’s “sunset provisions,” which terminated key restrictions after ten and 15 years, the agreement would be permanent or have a very long duration, such as 25 to 30 years. It could be negotiated bilaterally between Washington and Tehran, in consultation with interested third parties, and perhaps later be formalized as a multilateral agreement. To make it legally binding and enhance its durability, the agreement should take the form of a treaty, requiring an affirmative two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate, as compared to the JCPOA, which was a non-binding political commitment and did not require affirmative congressional approval.

In parallel with a nuclear agreement, there should be a separate commitment by Iran not to transfer ballistic missiles, rockets, and drones and associated equipment and technology to non-state entities, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Reinforcing such an Iranian commitment would be ongoing cooperation between the United States and its regional partners to block Iranian assistance to its proxy network, using such tools as intelligence sharing, interdictions, sanctions, diplomatic pressures, covert operations, and targeted military attacks.

Tough Talks Ahead

Although the United States and Israel have extraordinary intelligence capabilities, their intelligence services alone cannot provide confidence that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. It will take national intelligence services plus a newly empowered, in-country presence of experienced IAEA personnel, with enhanced rights of access and advanced surveillance technologies, to provide such confidence. Only a new agreement negotiated with Iran can ensure that the IAEA will play such a role.

Restricting Iran’s enrichment program in a new agreement could substantially increase the time it would take Iran to break out of the agreement, if it decided to do so, and produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon. On the eve of the 12-day war, Iran’s breakout time was about a week. Restrictions along the lines suggested here would extend that timeline by several months. Together with enhanced IAEA monitoring measures capable of promptly detecting a breakout attempt, this would provide plenty of time for the United States or others to intervene, including with military force, to thwart such a move. Moreover, the recent military attacks by Israel and the United States will greatly boost the credibility and deterrent value of the threat to intervene to stop an Iranian effort to race for a bomb.

A new agreement would serve U.S. regional security interests––as well as those of the United States’ partners––much better than a strategy of mowing the grass. Instead of a confrontational regional environment characterized by periodic attacks against Iran and Iranian retaliation, a new agreement could bring greater stability and predictability. The United States would need to stay involved in regional affairs, both to assist its partners in defending against resurgent threats from Iran and its proxies and to press for strict Iranian compliance with the agreement. But the risks that the United States would be drawn into an armed conflict in the Middle East would decline significantly. Moreover, the United States’ Gulf partners would welcome the deal and the opportunities it could provide for closer regional economic and political ties. It would also reaffirm Iran’s adherence to the NPT and renunciation of nuclear weapons, which, together with verification measures to make those pledges credible, could help alleviate regional proliferation pressures.

But there are significant obstacles to achieving such an agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump would need to reverse course on zero enrichment and then overcome domestic opposition, including the charge from his base as well as mainstream skeptics of negotiations with Iran that the new deal merely recycles the JCPOA. He would also have to withstand strong criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a vocal advocate of eschewing talks with Iran, and cope with potential unilateral military actions by Israel that––intended or not––could complicate or derail negotiations.

Another potential obstacle is the “snap back,” a provision of the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA. That provision enables JCPOA participants to respond to non-compliance by another participant by bringing back into force all previous UN Security Council sanctions against Iran that were suspended by the JCPOA. On August 28, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (known as the E3) initiated the 30-day snap-back process. If Iran agrees within thirty days to steps that, in the E3’s view, demonstrate Tehran’s willingness to reach a diplomatic solution—such as a resumption of U.S.-Iranian negotiations or the restoration of IAEA activities in Iran—the snap back would not be implemented. In that case, Resolution 2231 (and the right to invoke the snap back) would probably be extended beyond its October 18 expiration date. But if Iran does not agree to such steps, sanctions would be reimposed. Some Iranian lawmakers have warned that implementing snap-back sanctions could lead to Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT, an action that could preclude negotiation indefinitely. Any prospects for productive negotiations could thus depend on the outcome of talks between Iran and the E3 countries over the next month.

Iran, of course, will have a say on whether a new agreement is achievable. In theory, the Islamic Republic should welcome U.S. acceptance of its primary negotiating demand: that it be allowed have a civil nuclear program that includes enrichment. But accommodating Iran’s desire to retain some enrichment would not guarantee that a deal could be reached. Iranian negotiators may balk at restrictions on enrichment that deny them, perhaps permanently, a strategically important threshold nuclear weapons capability. They are also likely to resist monitoring arrangements that are more extensive and intrusive than they have accepted under the JCPOA. It would be a very tough negotiation.

It may not prove possible to negotiate an agreement with the strict limits on enrichment and the rigorous monitoring, inspection, and enforcement measures needed to reliably block Iran’s pathways to acquiring nuclear weapons or to resuming its status as a threshold nuclear weapon state. In that case, the Trump administration will have little choice but to leave the negotiating table and turn to military, economic, and other coercive tools to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. But if Washington must pursue that strategy, it would be of immense value in gaining the domestic and international support needed to sustain it to be able to show that it made a flexible and sincere effort to find a diplomatic solution first––and was turned down by an Iranian regime determined to preserve its nuclear weapons option.

Loading…