The Levant Files

Iranian state-affiliated media is projecting a posture of open defiance toward Washington, with senior commanders, lawmakers, and intelligence officials quoted as vowing to "forcefully break" what Iranian sources call an American "naval blockade" of Iran's ports and warning the United States that "this is not Venezuela." The framing, carried across Mehr News Agency, Tasnim News Agency, and Press TV, casts the Strait of Hormuz as sovereign Iranian territory and rejects any US role in setting its rules. The following account is based entirely on Iranian sources and could not be independently verified. The sharpest formulation came from Brigadier General Mohammad-Jafar Asadi, deputy for inspection at the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, in remarks carried by Mehr News Agency. Asadi was quoted as declaring that "Americans have no right to express opinions about the Strait of Hormuz," describing the Persian Gulf as a matter solely for Iran a...

Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced Sunday that he will postpone any decision on whether to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a pardon in his ongoing criminal corruption cases, urging that mediation efforts between Netanyahu and the state be fully "exhausted" before any presidential action is taken. According to Haaretz, Herzog stated that a negotiated agreement between Netanyahu and the state represents the "proper and correct solution," and called on all parties to first pursue "a process that could lead to the formulation of a settlement between the parties, outside the court." He added that "efforts to reach such an agreement are an essential part of attempting to bring the sides to a consensus." The New York Times had first reported on Saturday that Herzog did not plan to issue a ruling imminently, citing two senior Israeli officials familiar with the matter. Herzog's Sunday statement appeared to confirm that assessment. Netan...

Mali is taking stock after one of the boldest insurgent operations against the country in more than a decade, with al-Qaeda–linked jihadists and Tuareg separatists claiming joint responsibility for coordinated dawn attacks that struck Bamako and at least four other cities on Saturday. The army said overnight it had repelled the assault and killed "several hundred" attackers, with sweep operations under way in Bamako, Kati and elsewhere. The whereabouts of junta leader Gen. Assimi Goïta remained unknown into Sunday, and his government had yet to appear publicly in any sustained way. The strikes began shortly before 6 a.m. Saturday with explosions and sustained gunfire near the main military base at Kati, where Goïta lives. Witnesses said a vehicle bomb destroyed most of the home of Defence Minister Gen. Sadio Camara; his entourage said he was unhurt. Gunfire also erupted around Bamako's Modibo Keïta International Airport, forcing flight cancellations and the closure of Air...

Iran's front pages on Sunday presented the dramatic collapse of the latest round of Pakistan-brokered diplomacy. President Donald Trump, who had unilaterally extended the ceasefire with Iran just days earlier, abruptly canceled the planned trip by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad at the last minute, hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had already departed Pakistan. Tabnak reported Trump's remarks that he told his team, "We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want" — a statement Iranian commentators widely read as an attempt to project leverage while talks stall. According to Tasnim News Agency, the semi-official outlet close to the IRGC emphasized that there were "no negotiations with the Americans on the agenda" during Araghchi's Islamabad visit, characterizing the trip as consultations with Pakistani mediators on Iran's own terms rather than any concession to direct US-Iranian talks. Araghchi hims...

In remarks broadcast by Iranian state media, President Masoud Pezeshkian declared on Saturday that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not participate in any negotiations conducted under conditions of pressure, threats, or naval blockade, drawing a sharp contrast between Washington's stated desire for diplomacy and what Tehran characterises as continued acts of hostility, the Iranian Press Tv reported.  Pezeshkian made the remarks during a telephone conversation with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose government has assumed a mediating role between Tehran and Washington in recent weeks. Pakistan hosted the first round of indirect talks between Iranian and American delegations in its capital, Islamabad, earlier this month. According to the Iranian president, the United States' simultaneous application of pressure tactics and its professed willingness to engage in a diplomatic process are fundamentally contradictory. "The contradiction has increased the level of mi...

In its sharpest warning yet to Washington, Iran's central military command declared on Saturday that the continued American naval "piracy, blockade, and banditry" in the region will be met with a decisive response from the Iranian armed forces, the latest in a wave of escalating messages from Tehran cautioning the United States against further provocation. "If the aggressive US military continues its blockade, piracy, and maritime banditry in the region, they can be certain that they will face the reaction of Iran's powerful armed forces," the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said in a statement, stressing that Iran's military possesses "greater strength and readiness" than before to defend the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national interests. The headquarters reminded Washington that parts of the US military had already experienced Iran's offensive power during the latest US-Israeli aggression against Iran, whi...

A wave of coordinated attacks struck Mali on Saturday in what analysts are calling the most serious militant offensive in West Africa since 2012 — a development that reverberates far beyond the Sahel and underscores the deepening operational link between jihadist networks active across Africa and the broader Levant. Al-Qaeda's regional affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), working in apparent coordination with the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), launched simultaneous strikes on the capital Bamako and on the cities of Kati, Sevare, Gao and Kidal, exposing the fragility of a security order that stretches from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the eastern Mediterranean. Heavy gunfire and explosions began at dawn near the Kati military base outside Bamako — home to junta leader General Assimi Goita — and spread to the international airport and the residence of Defence Minister General Sadio Camara, which witnesses said was largely destroyed by a blast. Heli...

A high-stakes diplomatic push to end the US-Israel war on Iran hit a fresh roadblock on Saturday after President Donald Trump abruptly cancelled a planned trip by his envoys to Islamabad, just hours after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi departed Pakistan without meeting American officials. In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump confirmed he had unilaterally called off the journey of his two senior envoys — presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff — who had been expected to travel to Islamabad for indirect negotiations with Tehran. "Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work!" Trump wrote. He added that there was "tremendous infighting and confusion" within Iran's leadership, claiming no one in Tehran knew who was in charge. "We have all the cards, they have none," he declared, leaving the door open for Iran to initiate contact: "If they want to talk, all they have to do is call." Araghchi'...

The Levant Files team condemns this attack with every fibre of our being — and condemns every act of violence against journalists, anywhere in the world, by anyone who carries it out.  They went to document the dead. They became the story. On Wednesday, April 22, two women journalists drove into the southern Lebanese village of At-Tiri to cover yet another Israeli strike — and were hunted down in broad daylight, in what Lebanese officials and press freedom groups are now calling a calculated "double-tap" assassination. One came home in a body bag. The other survived, barely, to tell the world what happened. Amal Khalil was 43 years old. She had spent nearly two decades chronicling life and death in southern Lebanon for Al-Akhbar — a woman who refused to look away, who kept reporting when others fled. On Wednesday, she was killed — not on the front line, but while sheltering from a strike, trapped under rubble, burning. Beside her, photographer Zeinab Faraj, just 21 years old,...