Refugees
Alarm grows after the US inserts itself into Israel’s war against Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The world grappled Sunday with the United States inserting itself into Israel’s war by attacking Iranian nuclear sites, an operation that raised urgent questions about what remained of Tehran’s nuclear program and how its weakened military might respond.
Experts warned that worldwide efforts to contain the spread of nuclear weapons by peaceful means would be at stake in the days ahead, while fears of a wider regional conflict loomed large. The price of oil rose as financial markets reacted.
Iran lashed out at the U.S. for crossing “a very big red line” with its risky gambit to strike the three sites with missiles and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs.
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. “decided to destroy diplomacy,” and that the Iranian military will decide the “timing, nature and scale” of a “proportionate response.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Moscow to coordinate with close ally Russia.
Tens of thousands of American troops are based in the Middle East. Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said any country used by the U.S. to strike Iran ”will be a legitimate target for our armed forces,” the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
At first, the Trump administration indicated it wanted to restart diplomatic talks with Iran. “Let’s meet directly,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the U.S. “does not seek war.”
But President Donald Trump, who has warned of additional strikes if Tehran retaliates against U.S. forces, later mused about the possibility of “regime change ” in Iran.
The U.S. strikes, confirmed by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, hit the Fordo and Natanz enrichment facilities, as well as the Isfahan nuclear site. Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog said there were no immediate signs of radioactive contamination around them.
AP AUDIO: US inserts itself into Israel-Iran war and strikes 3 Iranian nuclear sites
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports the US inserts itself into Israel-Iran war and strikes 3 Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump claimed the U.S. “completely and fully obliterated” the sites, but the Pentagon reported “sustained, extremely severe damage and destruction.” Israeli army spokesman Effie Defrin said “the damage is deep,” but an assessment with the U.S. continued.
“We are very close to achieving our goals” in removing Iran’s nuclear and missile threats, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday.
The head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, told the Security Council that no one was in a position to assess the underground damage at Fordo, which is dug deep into a mountain, but visible craters tracked with the U.S. announcements. He said IAEA inspectors should be allowed to look at the sites. The IAEA’s governing board planned an emergency meeting Monday.
Grossi stressed that a path for diplomacy remained, but if that fails, “violence and destruction could reach unthinkable levels,” and global efforts at nuclear nonproliferation “could crumble.”
Satellite images analyzed Monday by The Associated Press appear to show at least one crater at the Natanz site. A hole of around 5 meters (16 feet) could be seen in images taken by Planet Labs PBC and Maxar Technologies on Sunday after the American strikes. That hole sits directly over the underground portion of the site, which includes centrifuge halls.
Iran has offered no assessment of how much damage has been done at the site. Previous Israeli strikes destroyed an above-ground centrifuge hall, as well as all of the power equipment at the site, likely cutting its electrical supply.
With the attack that Washington said was carried out without detection, the United States inserted itself into a war it spent decades trying to avoid. Success could mean ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions and eliminating the last significant state threat to the security of Israel, its close ally. Failure — or overreach — could plunge the U.S. into another long and unpredictable conflict.
For Iran’s supreme leader, it could mark the end of a campaign to transform the Islamic Republic into a greater regional power that holds enriched nuclear material a step away from weapons-grade levels. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last spoke publicly on Wednesday, warning the U.S. that strikes targeting the Islamic Republic will “result in irreparable damage for them.”
Iran, battered by Israel’s largest-ever assault on it that began on June 13, has limited options for retaliation, as key allies have mostly stayed out of the conflict. It could attack U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East with the missiles and rockets that Israel hasn’t destroyed. It could attempt to close a key bottleneck for global oil supplies, the Strait of Hormuz, between it and Oman.
Or it could hurry to develop a nuclear weapon with what remains of its program. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said its program will not be stopped.
New questions about Iran’s nuclear stockpile
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program was peaceful, and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran is not actively pursuing a bomb. However, Trump and Israeli leaders have argued that Iran could quickly assemble a nuclear weapon.
Israel has significantly degraded Iran’s air defenses and offensive missile capabilities and damaged its nuclear enrichment facilities. But only the U.S. military has the bunker-buster bombs that officials believe offered the best chance of destroying sites deep underground. A total of 14 of the bombs were used on Natanz and Fordo, according to the Pentagon.
Experts scrambled to answer the urgent question: What has happened to Iran’s stockpile of uranium and centrifuges?
Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC after the U.S. strikes, analyzed by The Associated Press, show damage to the facility. Other images from Maxar Technologies suggest Iran packed the entrance tunnels to Fordo with dirt and had trucks at the facility ahead of the strikes.
Several Iranian officials, including Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, have claimed Iran removed nuclear material from targeted sites.
Before the Israeli military campaign began, Iran said it had declared a third, unknown site as a new enrichment facility.
“Questions remain as to where Iran may be storing its already enriched stocks … as these will have almost certainly been moved to hardened and undisclosed locations, out of the way of potential Israeli or U.S. strikes,” said Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute focused on nonproliferation issues.
Global leaders responded with shock and calls for restraint. Egypt warned of “grave repercussions” for the region. Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Middle East-based 5th Fleet, called on Iran and the U.S. to “quickly resume talks.”
The State Department advised U.S. citizens worldwide to “exercise increased caution.”
Trump’s decision and the risks
The decision to attack was a risky one for Trump, who won the White House partly on the promise of keeping America out of costly foreign conflicts.
But Trump also vowed that he would not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. He initially hoped that the threat of force would bring the country’s leaders to give up its nuclear program.
For Netanyahu, the strikes were the culmination of a decades-long campaign to get the U.S. to strike Israel’s chief regional rival and its disputed nuclear program. Netanyahu praised Trump, saying his decision “will change history.”
Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with nuclear weapons, which it has never acknowledged.
Iran and Israel trade more attacks
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Amir, called the U.S. attack a key “turning point” but added: “We still have targets to strike and objectives to complete.”
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a barrage of 40 missiles at Israel, including its Khorramshahr-4, which can carry multiple warheads. Israeli authorities said more than 80 people suffered mostly minor injuries.
Late Sunday, the Israeli military said it again struck military infrastructure sites in Tehran and western Iran.
The Israeli military confirmed other attacks on Iran late Sunday which included strikes on Hamedan and Kermanshah in western Iran, as well as strikes in Tehran, Iran’s capital. Israel also hit what its military described as a missile production site in Shahroud.
Earlier, explosions boomed in Bushehr, home to Iran’s only nuclear power plant, three semiofficial media outlets reported. Israel’s military said it struck missile launchers in Bushehr, Isfahan and Ahvaz, as well as a command center in the Yazd area where it said Khorramshahr missiles were stored. Iran has not acknowledged losses of military materiel in the war so far.
Iranian state media reported air defense systems were firing in Tehran early Monday, while explosions could be heard in the nearby city of Karaj.
A social media account associated with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published a propaganda post Monday portraying missile strikes on a darkened city with a giant skull bearing the Star of David on it. “The punishment continues,” the poster read.
Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 950 people and wounded 3,450 others, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists. The group said of those dead, it identified 380 civilians and 253 security force personnel. In Israel, at least 24 people have been killed and over 1,000 wounded.
At Turkey’s border with Iran, one departing Iranian defended his country’s nuclear program.
“We were minding our own business,” Behnam Puran said.
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This version corrects that the Strait of Hormuz is between Iran and Oman, not the United Arab Emirates.
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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Nasser Karimi, Mehdi Fattahi and Amir Vahdat in Iran; Aamer Madhani in Morristown, New Jersey; Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Lolita Baldor in Narragansett, Rhode Island; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Rusen Takva in Van, Turkey; Joah Boak in Washington; Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this story.
ISTANBUL (AP) — The death toll from Turkey’s second school shooting in two days rose to 10 Thursday after another victim died while being treated in hospital, authorities said.
Six of the wounded were in critical condition before the death early Thursday following the shooting the previous day, officials said.
Isa Aras Mersinli, 14, opened fire on two classrooms at a middle school in the southern city of Kahramanmaras on Wednesday, killing a teacher and eight students and wounding 13 others.
The gunman, who was also killed, arrived at the school with five firearms and seven magazines belonging to his father, a retired police superintendent, who was arrested after the attack.
Wednesday’s attack came just a day after 16 people were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Sanliurfa province. The victims were mostly students. The assailant later killed himself. As of Thursday, 20 people had been detained in connection with Tuesday’s shooting in Sanliurfa.
The interior and education ministries held a joint school security meeting in the capital, Ankara, on Thursday, that was attended by both ministers and all 81 of Turkey’s provincial governors, as well as police chiefs and provincial education directors.
Turkey’s national police headquarters revealed the suspect’s profile picture on the messaging platform WhatsApp was a photo of Elliot Rodger, a college student who killed six people in California in 2014.
The Ministry of Family and Social Services announced Thursday it had set up a team to “provide psychosocial support” to students and their families. It also plans to conduct a comprehensive investigation of similar incidents.
Funerals were held Thursday afternoon for each of the eight students, all age 11, who were killed Wednesday. Math teacher Ayla Kara, 55, who died during the attack, also was buried Thursday.
Cevdet Yesil, whose son Adnan Gokturk Yesil was among the victims, said he rushed to the school Wednesday after being informed of the shooting.
“And unfortunately we searched for our child, our son, until 5 p.m. One way or another, our security forces found him,” Yesil said. “We went to the hospital and identified (his remains). We saw he had died.”
Hundreds of educators gathered in Ankara and the city of Izmir to demand greater school security. Until this week, school shootings were rare in Turkey. But dozens of students were arrested Thursday over social media posts implying they might stage similar attacks. Justice Minister Akin Gurlek announced that 67 social media users were detained over posts targeting 54 different schools.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A student opened fire randomly at two classrooms at a middle school in southeast Turkey on Wednesday, killing four people and wounding 20 others, an official said, in the second such shooting in the country in two days.
The student, who was also killed, arrived at the school, armed with guns believed to belong to his father, a retired police officer, Kahramanmaras provincial Gov. Mukerrem Unluer said. The gunman was carrying five firearms and seven magazines.
The victims included a teacher and three students, Unluer said. At least four of the wounded were in serious condition. The motive of the attack wasn’t immediately known.
The attack came just a day after 16 people, mostly students, were wounded when a former student opened fire at a high school in nearby Sanliurfa province. The assailant later killed himself.
Until this week, such school shootings were rare in Turkey.
Earlier, media reports said that authorities sent police and ambulances to the school in the Kahramanmaras’ Onikisubat district, after gunfire was heard there. Images from the scene showed at least two people being put into ambulances.
Parents rushed to the school after hearing reports of an armed attack, NTV television reported, adding that police took security measures around the school.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A former student opened fire at a high school in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, wounding at least 16 people, before killing himself, an official said.
The 18-year-old attacker fired randomly inside a vocational high school in Siverek, Sanliurfa province. He later killed himself with the same shotgun after being “cornered by police,” Gov. Hasan Sildak said.
The attack wounded 10 students, four teachers, a canteen employee and a police officer, Sildak said. While most of them were being treated in Siverek, five of the teachers and students were transferred to a hospital in the provincial capital because their conditions were more serious, the governor said.
The motive for the attack was unclear. School shootings are rare in Turkey.
The attacker did not have a criminal record, Sildak said. The school had been declared safe and no permanent police officer was assigned to protect it, he added, calling the shooting an “isolated incident.”
NTV television and other media reports said the assailant had threatened an attack on the school on social media prior to the shooting.
One student told the state-run Anadolu Agency that he and a friend jumped out of their classroom window to flee the attacker.
“He suddenly entered the classroom and fired. He fired four or five times. Two people were hit. He then went into the next classroom,” Anadolu quoted Omer Furkan Sayar as saying. “We first threw ourselves to the ground and then two of us jumped out of the window.”
Sayar continued: “He didn’t say anything, he entered and started to shoot directly.”
Earlier, media reports said all students were evacuated and police special operations units were deployed after the assailant refused to surrender.
“The individual was cornered inside the building through police intervention and died after shooting himself,” Sildak told reporters, adding that a “comprehensive” investigation into the shooting would be carried out.
Video footage showed dozens of students running out of the school toward the gate and onto the street.
The United States is familiar with Australia, Paraguay and Turkey heading into their World Cup Group D matchups.
The U.S played all three opponents in friendlies last year, losing 2-1 to Turkey in June and defeating Australia and Paraguay by 2-1 scores last fall.
The Group D games will be played in Vancouver, British Columbia; Seattle; Santa Clara, California, south of San Francisco; and Inglewood, California, next to Los Angeles.
This group is one of only four played within one time zone, joined by Group G on the West Coast and C and I on the East Coast.
United States
The Americans have their weakest goalkeeper group since the 1980s and only one central defender playing in a top European League, Chris Richards.
However, they benefit from being seeded as a co-host of the tournament, The 16th-ranked U.S. opens against No. 27 Australia before facing 40th-ranked Paraguay and No. 22 Turkey.
Christian Pulisic, the top U.S. player, entered April in a scoring slump and hasn’t gotten an international goal since 2024.
Midfielder Tyler Adams and right back Sergiño Dest, veterans of the 2022 team that lost to the Netherlands in the Round of 16, faced fitness issues ahead of the tournament.
No U.S. team has reached the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930 and the Americans haven’t advanced to the quarterfinals since the 2002 team sparked by 20-year-olds Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley.
Coach Mauricio Pochettino replaced Gregg Berhalter after the U.S. was knocked out in the group stage of the 2024 Copa America.
Turkey
The Crescent Stars reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup and 2008 European Championship but missed five straight World Cups before qualifying this year by beating Kosovo in a playoff. This will be just the third World Cup appearance for the Turks, who reached the tournament for the first time in 1954.
Captain Hakan Çalhanoğlu has 22 international goals and Kerem Aktürkoğlu has 15, including the winner against Kosovo.
Coach Vincenzo Montella, a former Roma striker, took over from Stefan Kuntz in September 2023 and led the team to the quarterfinals of the 2024 European Championship.
Turkey needed to win playoff games against Romania and Kosovo to reach the World Cup. It hasn’t faced Australia since 2004 and met Paraguay for the only time in 1995.
Paraguay
La Albirroja earned the sixth and final automatic berth from South America with a 0-0 draw against Ecuador, returning to soccer’s top event for the first time since 2010.
Paraguay will be appearing in its ninth World Cup. Its best performance was reaching the 2010 quarterfinals, where it lost to Spain on David Villa’s 83rd-minute goal.
Miguel Almirón, 32, and Antonio Sanabria, 30, are the veterans who head the offense while 22-year-old Julio Enciso and Diego Gómez, 23, have provided an injection of youth.
Gustavo Alfaro took over as coach from Daniel Garnero following an 0-3 performance at the 2024 Copa America.
Australia
After four straight group stage eliminations, the Socceroos beat Tunisia and Denmark at the 2022 tournament and then were knocked out by eventual champion Argentina, which won their round of 16 game 2-1.
Goalkeeper Matthew Ryan, the team captain, is headed to his fourth World Cup.
Former Australia defender Tony Popovic replaced Graham Arnold as coach in September 2024 after a home loss to Bahrain and a draw against Indonesia in qualifying. Arnold, who had been in his second stint as Socceroos coach, was hired to coach Iraq in May 2025.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup
ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish authorities have detained nine people as part of an investigation into an attack on police outside a building housing the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul that left one assailant dead, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.
Two other assailants were wounded and captured during Tuesday’s shootout in the city’s financial and business district, while two police officers sustained slight injuries, officials said.
Israel had withdrawn its diplomats from Turkey over security concerns and deteriorating relations with Ankara shortly after the start of the war in Gaza, and officials said the consulate was closed at the time of the attack.
Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci said one of the assailants had links to a group that he said “exploits religion,” without naming the organization.
The Islamic State group has carried out deadly attacks in Turkey in the past.
Anadolu Agency reported that security forces detained nine suspects in operations conducted in Istanbul as well as in the provinces of Konya and Kocaeli. They were being questioned along with the two injured assailants, the agency reported, without providing further details.
Cifti said the attackers had traveled from the city of Izmit, in Kocaeli province, in a rented car. The two wounded assailants are brothers, identified as Onur C. and Enes C. The first has a criminal record related to drugs.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned the attack and praised the Turkish authorities for preventing further violence.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Mircea Lucescu, the Romanian soccer great who was a serial trophy winner as a player and a coach, has died. He was 80.
Lucescu’s death was confirmed by Bucharest University Emergency Hospital on Tuesday. He had been hospitalized after reportedly suffering a heart attack on Friday morning.
“Mr. Mircea Lucescu was one of the most successful Romanian football coaches and players, the first to qualify the Romanian national team for a European Championship, in 1984,” the hospital said in a statement. “Entire generations of Romanians grew up with his image in their hearts, as a national symbol.”
Lucescu had a lengthy coaching career and was in his second spell with the Romanian national team until stepping down last Thursday after falling ill during training. Three days earlier, Romania had missed out on qualification to the World Cup after losing to Turkey in a playoff.
As a player, Lucescu captained his country at the 1970 World Cup.
Lucescu’s coaching career spanned almost half a century, from late-1970s Romania to 2026 World Cup qualifying, as Eastern European soccer was transformed by political and economic changes after the fall of communism, and later by the effects of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Lucescu spent 12 years as coach of Shakhtar Donetsk, where billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s backing assembled a squad filled with up-and-coming Brazilian talents. Lucescu forged a team that became a Champions League regular and won the UEFA Cup in 2009.
By the time Lucescu left in 2016, Shakhtar had left its home city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine after a takeover by Russia-backed separatists.
His later moves to Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg and to Shakhtar’s bitter Ukrainian rival Dynamo Kyiv were less well-received by Shakhtar fans.
Internationally, Lucescu coached Turkey as well as Romania. His second spell with Romania started in 2024, 38 years after he’d left the national team the first time. His last game was the loss to Turkey.
Lucescu coached Pisa, Brescia, Reggiana and Inter Milan in Italy and is remembered fondly in the north of the country, especially at Brescia — despite his tenure being marked by several ups and downs.
His team there was dubbed Brescia Romeno after Lucescu signed four of his compatriots, including one of Romania’s greatest ever players Gheorghe Hagi — between stints at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Minister Gürlek spoke to A Haber: The punishment of children dragged into crime will be increased
Assembly members slam Istanbul municipality squandering resources
Minister Çiftçi: “Content that normalizes violence leaves deep effects”
Minister Gürlek spoke to A Haber: The punishment of children dragged into crime will be increased
Assembly members slam Istanbul municipality squandering resources
Minister Çiftçi: “Content that normalizes violence leaves deep effects”
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