The Levant Files

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,...

As the United States Navy maintains its blockade of Iranian ports, questions are emerging about the potential duration of the standoff between Iran and Washington over the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint that once facilitated the free flow of approximately 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, as highlighted in Priyanka Shankar’s recent analysis published in Al Jazeera. The US naval blockade began on April 13, 2026. Since then, American forces have fired on and seized an Iranian-flagged tanker near the strait and redirected ships in international waters carrying cargo to or from Iran. Tehran has responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz to all foreign shipping and capturing several foreign-flagged vessels, calling the American actions "an act of piracy." Iran's parliamentary speaker and lead ceasefire negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has stated that a full ceasefire is only possible if the blockade is lifted. President Donald Trump cl...

The Pakistani capital is holding its breath. On this Friday, the fate of the Middle East hangs over a single question: will Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sit across from American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Islamabad — and will the words spoken in those rooms be enough to pull the region back from the edge of full-scale war? After nearly two months of conflict, mounting ceasefire violations, naval confrontations in the Strait of Hormuz, and a week of tortured diplomatic signals, today may be the last realistic window for peace. The backdrop is a war now entering its eighth week. It began after Israel launched strikes on Iran in early 2026, drawing the United States into the conflict. A fragile two-week ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan on April 8, has been repeatedly violated by both sides, and President Trump extended it by 24 hours this week with a stark warning: a further extension is "highly unlikely." On April 22, US officials confirmed that Washing...

As Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected to arrive in Islamabad tonight with a negotiating team, the Pakistani press remained cautiously optimistic about a diplomatic breakthrough in the US-Iran crisis, the Pakistani news outlet Dawn reported. Citing official sources, the newspaper said a second round of peace talks with the United States was also anticipated, with a US logistics and security team already present in the capital. The development follows a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire extension and weeks of shuttle diplomacy. Iran’s state media confirmed Araghchi’s visit as part of a regional tour that includes Muscat and Moscow, describing it as “bilateral consultations” on the “war imposed by the United States and the Israeli regime.” The foreign minister himself called it a “timely tour” to coordinate with partners, emphasising that “neighbours are our priority.” According to Dawn, the first historic direct talks in Islamabad on April 11–12 ended without agreement but al...