Day News Recap: US Iran strikes widen as Europe hardens sanctions and Asia reels from deadly fires

US forces carried out another wave of strikes on Iran, deepening a confrontation that has now spread across the Gulf, while President Donald Trump said the United States would act as the “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz and restart a naval blockade of Iran.  🔗  🔗  🔗

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In the Middle East, Iraq’s prime minister Ali al Zaidi is heading to Washington for talks on energy, trade and security, and Israel has set national elections for 27 October, a vote widely seen as a test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.  🔗  🔗

Europe moved to tighten pressure on Moscow and its networks, with the EU and Britain imposing coordinated sanctions on Russian military intelligence linked officials, hackers and companies over cyberattacks, and the EU separately sanctioning nine people and four entities over an alleged Russian cyber spying campaign.  🔗  🔗

Brussels also saw foreign ministers discuss Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Middle East and the Black Sea, while EU ministers considered possible sanctions on trade from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the European Commission launched a Gaza recovery initiative worth 883.6 million euros with 15 partners.  🔗  🔗  🔗

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On the battlefield and in Russia’s rear, Russia and Ukraine traded drone and missile salvos that killed at least nine people, Russian fuel shortages and unrest intensified pressure on Vladimir Putin, and a Russian anti war politician, Boris Nadezhdin, was detained near Moscow after announcing a Duma run.  🔗  🔗  🔗

Elsewhere in the former Soviet space and Asia, Russia was accused of running a spy network in Japan to smuggle battlefield technology for the war effort, while Japan moved to create its first centralised intelligence agency since World War II.  🔗  🔗 In Iran, a report said former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been placed under house arrest.  🔗

Security concerns also sharpened in the UK and France, where counterterrorism police took over the probe into the death of former MP Ann Widdecombe, 12 people were arrested over an alleged right wing terror threat to an Islamic event in Suffolk, and three hundred people were evacuated in Sarcelles after weapons were found near a synagogue.  🔗  🔗  🔗

France and Britain were also battling wildfires, with firefighters still tackling a blaze in the Fontainebleau forest south east of Paris and emergency services in north Wales declaring a major incident as crews fought a wildfire near Conwy Mountain and the Sychnant Pass.  🔗  🔗

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In Asia and Africa, at least 27 people died in a bar fire in Bangkok, with investigators examining whether an air conditioner fault helped spread the blaze, Bangladesh said floods and landslides had killed at least 50 people and left millions stranded, Mali’s army retook Anefis after nearly a week of fighting, and the Houthi movement in Yemen accused Saudi Arabia of striking Sanaa International Airport and vowed retaliation.  🔗  🔗  🔗  🔗

Separately, the Swiss Army’s cyber command joined the multinational CYBER FLAG 26 exercise in the United States, and UNODC held workshops in Belgrade and Tirana to help Western Balkan customs and postal operators detect firearms in parcels.  🔗  🔗

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