By Alexandra Sharp
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at renewed fighting between U.S. and Iranian forces, Russia’s failed drone attack on German soil, and a damning United Nations report on global warming.
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A destroyed vehicle is seen at the site of an overnight strike in Kuhestak, Iran, on Sept. 2.Masoud Mohamadi/Tasnim News/AFP via Getty Images
Tehran accused Washington on Wednesday of committing a war crime after a U.S. missile strike hit a wedding party in southern Iran the day before. According to local media, the attack targeted a private coastal residence, killing at least four people—including a 4-year-old and a 16-year-old—and injuring around 68 others.
“If a power acts like Satan, picks targets like Satan, and kills like Satan, it’s Satan,” chief Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X on Wednesday, likening the deadly assault to two devastating attacks on Feb. 28: a strike on an elementary school in Minab that killed 156 civilians, including 120 schoolchildren, and dual strikes on a sports hall in Lamerd that killed at least 21 people and injured roughly 100 others.
A preliminary U.S. military investigation reportedly determined that the United States was at fault for the Minab strike, and the U.K.-based investigative nonprofit Airwars has attributed the Lamerd attack to a new U.S. missile. Yet the U.S. military has denied responsibility for both strikes and slow-walked an investigation into the incidents.
The U.S. military said it targeted Iranian air defenses, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities, and communications sites on Tuesday. Regarding the attack on the wedding party, U.S. Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins said that he was aware of reported civilian casualties but that the “U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” referring to Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Tuesday’s strikes were the latest U.S. barrage against Iran since the United States resumed active fighting over the weekend. The IRGC confirmed that four members of its aerospace division were killed in the western city of Kermanshah.
In response, Iranian forces launched missile and drone strikes at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf—including in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates—in what Iranian officials said was an effort to drive the U.S. military out of the region.
“American evil in the region will be met with heavier, more widespread, and devastating responses, and any country that cooperates with the aggressive American army must accept its dangerous consequences,” Iran’s military command said on Wednesday.
Mohsen Rezaei, a top Iranian security official, later wrote on X that Tehran’s adversaries “will soon see that Iran’s new strategy on the battlefield, in diplomacy, and in countering the economic siege will shatter your very foundations.” He did not specify what this new strategy could be.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump does not appear concerned. “I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Tuesday. “I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement. I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing. They are just playing out the inevitable.”
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Failed drone attack. The European Union weighed possible responses on Wednesday for a failed drone attack at a German airport on Aug. 4, which Berlin has accused Moscow of orchestrating. “It is clear that it has all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism,” EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said. “The question is: What do we do about this?”
According to German authorities, an explosive-laden drone was found near Ukrainian cargo planes at Leipzig Airport, which acts as a hub for military aid to Ukraine. Berlin formally blamed Moscow for the attempted assault on Tuesday, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to accuse Germany of planting evidence to make Russia a scapegoat for Germany’s political problems.
Berlin dismissed those allegations and tightened restrictions on Russian travelers, shut down a Russian diplomatic mission in the German city of Bonn, and called on the EU to impose more sanctions on Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers and cargo ships. EU foreign ministers on Wednesday also reportedly discussed implementing new visa restrictions and closing Russian consulates, among other potential measures.
Irreversible consequences. The world has failed to achieve the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, according to a damning United Nations report published on Wednesday. This means that humanity has lost its chance to prevent some of the worst consequences of climate change despite advancements made in green energy, such as in wind and solar power.
More than 10 years ago, 195 parties formally ratified the Paris Agreement, pledging to try to prevent global warming from surpassing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by the end of this century. However, commitment to the deal ebbed, particularly from the United States, where Trump has pushed climate denialism, advocated for greater fossil fuel use, and pulled out of the Paris Agreement. The United States is one of the world’s largest carbon emitters.
According to the 141-page report, the world should now focus on brainstorming ways to limit this “overshoot,” including by potentially pulling massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. To achieve this, countries would need to blanket enormous swaths of the Earth in forests or rely on advanced technologies that have yet to work on a major scale. Even if this strategy is successful, though, high temperatures would likely not return to normal for decades—if not centuries—and some changes, such as rising sea levels and melting glaciers, would remain irreversible.
“This is by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway,” the U.N. wrote in its report. “It is simply the best remaining option.”
Xi courts Cairo. Chinese President Xi Jinping flew to Egypt on Tuesday for his first trip to the Middle East in four years. During remarks alongside his Egyptian counterpart the following day, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Xi issued a thinly veiled rebuke of the United States’ actions against Iran. “We must uphold the principle that the people of the Middle East are the masters of their own affairs, oppose external interference, [and] support regional countries in strengthening dialogue on peace and security,” Xi said, according to Chinese state media.
The two leaders also vowed to bolster counterterrorism coordination, prioritize trading in each other’s currencies, broaden semiconductor and data center cooperation, and help secure critical supply chains. As part of this, Cairo announced plans on Wednesday to expand a Chinese-developed industrial area in the Suez Canal Economic Zone, which has already attracted around $4 billion in Chinese investment.
China is Egypt’s largest trading partner. Cairo is also an important partner for Beijing, as the Suez Canal is a vital thoroughfare for China to get its exports to Europe. In addition, China is a growing defense partner for Egypt. In recent years, Egypt has increased military cooperation with China despite maintaining strong defense ties with its rival, the United States; Cairo receives more than $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid each year.
As part of a two-day trip to the United Kingdom, French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday joined King Charles III, Queen Camilla, and British Prime Minister Andy Burnham at the British Museum in London to view the Bayeux Tapestry, a nearly 1,000-year-old embroidery that depicts the 1066 Norman conquest of England. This is the first time that the Bayeux Tapestry has been loaned to the British Museum since it was made, and its exhibit has already generated around $3.4 million in advance ticket sales. Public viewing will open on Sept. 10.
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