The elementary school sent an urgent message about her son.
“The war has begun,” he was told. Come pick him up.
The mother, who declined to be identified, said she had just dropped the boy off and couldn’t leave immediately because, as a midwife, she had patients to attend to. Then the earth shook. And she ran away.
It’s too late. Three air strikes hit the Shajareh Taybeh primary school in Minab, killing 168 people, according to the city’s mayor. Many of them were children. One of them was his son.
“By the time we arrived, the entire school had collapsed on top of the children,” the mother told NBC News. “People were pulling the arms and legs of children. People were taking out severed heads.”
The site of an attack on a girls’ school in Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, on Saturday. Ali Najafi/AFP – Getty Images
Four days later, grief and anger grew over the deaths at the school, which has become a point of protest against the US and Israeli attacks. There is also anger and uncertainty over the fact that no one has accepted responsibility for the most publicised civilian casualties since the beginning of the war.
Videos and images published by state media showed large crowds gathered to bury the children on Tuesday. There is a mass burial consisting of rows and rows of what appear to be individual graves dug side by side.
The US and Israel have since hit thousands of targets inside the country, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and about 800 others. , according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Tehran is retaliating, attacking Israel and several other countries in the region allied with the US, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Those killed in the retaliatory strike included six US service members, as well as 11 people in Israel, while dozens of people have been killed in Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Smoke rising from a girls’ primary school in Minab after the airstrike. Alex Mita/IRIB TV via AFP – Getty Images
Asked about the deaths on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. military “would never intentionally target a school,” adding that the Defence Department would “investigate whether this was our attack.”
Over the weekend, US Central Command, or CentCom, said it was looking into reports of civilian deaths. The Israeli military has so far declined to comment.
According to satellite footage, the school appeared to be located near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) site, which British broadcaster BBC News reported had been targeted previously.
Civilians and rescue workers look through the debris after an attack on a school in Minab, Iran, on Saturday. Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News/Wana/via Reuters
Both the MinB official and the mother who spoke to NBC News said the school facility was built on an IRGC base. He stated that the base shut down approximately 15 years ago, leading to the relocation of all military personnel, while the school continued to operate.
Satellite images from 2011 show the building was once part of the same complex before it was fenced.
Result after the strike on Saturday. Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News via Reuters
Iran’s education ministry spokesman Ali Farhadi said on Sunday that there had been three attacks on the school, which he said had 264 students.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that the school was “bombed in broad daylight, when it was packed with young students.”
The increase in gas prices in the last 48 hours is without precedent.
Even in the chaotic early weeks of the Ukraine war in 2022, the price of gas never doubled. But that is exactly what has happened to wholesale methane prices in the UK.
And since gas prices are arguably the most important price in the UK – the linchpin of our electricity network, setting electricity prices, underpinning industrial production and the manufacture of chemicals, and indirectly factoring into the price of food and other miscellaneous goods – the drop is a huge consequence.
Latest Markets: FTSE 100 loses £100bn and fuel warning issued
Iranian drones are bombing oil and gas facilities in the Gulf, causing a sharp increase in gas prices. It seems no one knows how long this will last, but that is the most important of all questions.
The longer this scenario goes on, the more gas prices are likely to rise. Although the pace of increase over the past 48 hours has been faster than any other comparable period in history, the absolute level of gas prices is much lower than at the peak of the Ukraine war in 2022. Again, given that an unprecedented energy price shock swept across Europe, not to mention the forced deindustrialisation of the continent that continues today, this is far from reassuring.
Are energy prices going to rise again?
The longer this continues, the greater the impact will be on household bills in the UK, which are fixed until June (and benefited from a £150 rebate for one measure in the last budget) but are due to reflect wholesale prices until July.
This is why the events happening in and around Iran remain important for the economy of this country.
The latest big forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility doesn’t leave much room for interpretation. Judging from this and Rachel Reeves’ presence in the House of Commons today, one might assume that Britain has now overcome the cost-of-living problems it has faced for the last four or five years. This outlook paints a picture of inflation falling to 2% for an extended period.
The Chancellor opened his spring forecast
But the most important data point is on page 109 of the spring forecast. The OBR’s latest forecasts were based on the gas price expectations found in Table A.3. They are more or less flat. After all, these were the prevailing expectations for energy prices when the report was finalised last week.
Britain’s bills cannot escape the forces of Iran war
But since then, as you know, gas prices have skyrocketed. So, essentially, most of the report’s key assumptions about inflation are not worth the paper they are written on.
It is still too early to assess what effect the report will have on the UK economy. Gas prices could potentially decrease in the coming weeks. But equally, it is also possible that they may go even higher. And if they do, the implications for Britain barely recovering from the last energy price shock will be deep and somewhat serious.
Forget science fiction. The era of AI in warfare has arrived.
Israel uses AI systems in Gaza. These systems are capable of identifying potential targets and aiding in the prioritisation of operations.
The United States military reportedly used Anthropic’s model, Cloud, which is an AI system designed for various applications, during its operation to kidnap Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela.
Even after this incident, Anthropic encountered difficulties with the US administration over the appropriate use of AI in warfare.
while the US military clearly used the cloud in its attack on Iran.
Iran latest: Trump criticizes Starmer over UK stance
Experts suggest that AI-powered systems could potentially target the missiles currently flying over Tehran.
Craig Jones, senior lecturer in political geography at Newcastle University, says, “AI is changing the nature of modern warfare in the 21st century. Its impact is difficult to underestimate.”
“This is a potentially catastrophic scenario
Terrible or not, it seems there is no going back. If you want to understand how much importance the US military places on AI, a good place to start is a memo sent to all senior military leaders earlier this year by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who calls himself Secretary of War.
“I direct the War Department to accelerate America’s military AI dominance by becoming an “AI-first” fighting force across all components from front to rear,” Mr. Hegseth wrote.
image: The US might be already using AI to inform its missile strikes. Photo: AP/Centcom
Yet the scenario in question is not the one that first comes to mind.
Yes, autonomy is increasing in some areas. In Ukraine, for example, there are drones that are capable of continuing missions even after losing contact with the human operator.
But we are not at the stage of autonomous killer robots stalking across the battlefield.
“We are not in the Terminator era yet,” says David Leslie, a professor of ethics, technology, and society at Queen Mary University in London.
The systems into which AI is being embedded—known in military jargon as “decision support systems”—are advisors who flag targets, rank threats, and suggest priorities.
AI systems can take satellite imagery, intercepted communications, logistics data, and social media streams—thousands or even hundreds of thousands of inputs— and pull together surface patterns far faster than any human team.
The concept is that they assist in piercing the murkiness of war, enabling commanders to concentrate resources on the most crucial areas, potentially outperforming fatigued, overburdened, and stressed human soldiers in accuracy.
This means they are not just a tool, says Dr Jones, but a new way of making decisions.
“AI, as we see it in our lives, is like an infrastructure,” he says. “It’s built into the system.”
“We can aggregate that surveillance that we’ve been doing for a few years.
“But now AI gives us the stability to act on that, to kill the leader of Iran, to take out serious adversaries and enemies, and to find them in ways that might not have been possible before.”
‘A very motivating tool’
Professor Leslie agrees that the new systems are extremely capable from a military perspective.
“The race to speed is driving this acceleration,” he says. “Speeding up decision-making cycles gives the military a lethality advantage.”
One crucial aspect of decision support systems is their ability to function without the need for human intervention. A human being does. This fact has been a central assurance in the debate about military AI. A human is always present in the process.
As OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, announced a partnership to supply AI to the Pentagon, it stated: “We have approved forward-deployed OpenAI engineers to help the government, as well as security and alignment researchers in the loop.”
OpenAI has also stressed that it has reached an agreement with the Pentagon that its technology will not be used in ways that cross three “red lines”: mass domestic surveillance, direct autonomous weapons systems, and high-risk automated decisions.
But even with a human in the loop, a question remains.
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When you’re fighting a war, can humans really scrutinise every decision the AI makes? In situations where time is limited and information is incomplete, how should we interpret “human observation”?
Dr Jones asserts that humans are technologically informed.
“In my opinion, that doesn’t mean they are empowered to make effective decisions and have enough information to actually monitor what happened. AI… is a very persuasive tool for people making decisions.”
Or, as Professor Leslie puts it, “We’re really facing a potentially huge danger of rubber stamping, where, because of the speed, you don’t have active, significant human participation to assess the recommendations that are being given by these systems.”
And then there’s the question of AI’s own mistakes.
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Testing by Sky News found that neither Claude nor ChatGPT could tell how many legs a chicken had if the chicken did not look as expected.
Furthermore, the AI insisted that it was right, even when it was clearly wrong.
The example comes from a paper showing dozens of examples of similar failures. “This is not the only example of animal legs,” said lead author Anh Vo.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating – but how fast is too fast? Roland Manthorpe looks at the latest research.
“The problem is common across all types of data and functions,” Vo said.
This is because AI doesn’t actually see the world in a human sense—it just guesses what’s most likely to happen based on past data.
Most of the time, that kind of statistical reasoning is surprisingly effective. The world is so predictable that probabilities work out.
But some environments are, by their very nature, unpredictable and high-risk.
We are testing the limits of this technology in more adverse conditions than we could ever imagine.
San Jose, Costa Rica — Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines said on Tuesday that his government had not sanctioned the US for a recent attack on an alleged drug boat in local waters that killed three people.
Prime Minister godwin friday Said in a press conference
Prime Minister godwin friday Said in a press conference that his administration learned about the deadly February 13 strike Through social media and online reports.
“There has been no direct communication with us regarding the attacks,” he said, adding that Caribbean leaders are concerned. “It was agreed that this is a serious matter because of the potential danger it poses to our people going about their normal business. … People travelling by water want to know they are safe.”
The US military said three people were killed in the attacks but did not confirm their identities.
A relative of a boat captain recently from St Lucia told the associated press They believe 35-year-old Ricky Joseph, a father of four, died in the attack, as he is missing and was taken away in a boat, as shown in photos posted on social media after the attack.
Caribbean leaders recently met to talk among themselves about the safety and security concerns of US drone strikes “in our waters”, it said Friday.
He said Caribbean leaders who met for a regional summit in St Kitts last week, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended, “agreed that this is a serious matter that will affect us all” and that they would raise it with US officials.
The attacks began in early September and have killed at least 151 people as the administration of US President Donald Trump targets what it calls “narco terrorists” in small vessels.
Caribbean officials also discussed with Rubio a request to use St Vincent and other Caribbean countries as transit points for migrants stopped at the U.S. They will remain at the southern border until they can be returned to their countries of origin, it said Friday.
“I stressed that for any such transit programme to go forward…for a country of our size, with our borders, it must be clearly defined, transparent and manageable,” he said on Friday.
He said he requested data about the number of people in transit and the specific time frame spent at transit points because he questioned what the legal status of such migrants would be in the Caribbean and what would happen if they could not be sent back.
“The objective is to have a coordinated approach,” Friday said, noting that there is free movement of people within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.
Friday, said Caribbean leaders at last week’s summit. Also agreed to send humanitarian aid to Cuba “To help alleviate the current serious situation.”
A man has been convicted of murder and manslaughter after giving a semi-automatic, assault-style rifle to his teenage son, who is accused of using it to kill two high school students and two teachers.
Collin Grey was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2024 shooting deaths at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast Atlanta, in the deaths of two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of teacher Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimi, 53. Another teacher and eight other students were injured in the mass shooting, which has been blamed on Mr Grey’s teenage son, Colt.
The teen’s mother, Marci Grey, testified that she had urged his father to take all the guns and lock them inside his truck so that her son, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, could not reach them.
image: Colin Grey is one of several parents being sued over the shootings. Photo: AP
The couple had separated in the months before the shooting.
Grey is one of several parents whose children were prosecuted after being charged in deadly shootings across the US.
Prosecutors said he gave his son access to the gun and ammunition “after receiving adequate warning that the Colt Grey would cause harm and endanger the physical safety of another.”
The father was also convicted of several counts of negligent conduct and cruelty toward children.
His son has been charged with a total of 55 cases, including murder.
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The teen has pleaded not guilty at a hearing to be held in mid-March.
Investigators allege he carefully planned the September 4 attack on the school of 1,900 students two years ago.
They reported that he boarded a school bus with a semiautomatic, assault-style rifle in his book bag, its barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board.
After leaving his second-period class, he allegedly emerged from the bathroom with the weapon and shot people in the classroom and hallway.
A prosecutor said Colin Grey had given him a gun as a Christmas gift and allowed his son to have access to the gun, despite knowing that the boy’s mental health had deteriorated.
European officials have cautioned citizens to exercise “vigilance” due to concerns that Iran might activate terrorist sleeper cells, potentially causing chaos across the continent.
Iran’s lead in targeted bombings ended (Image: AP)
Fears are growing that Iran could attack targets inside Europe, amid warnings that sleeper cells could be active across the continent to spread chaos.
Tehran’s remaining leadership has fired missiles and drones wildly at US allies after Donald Trump and his Israeli counterpart approved devastating air strikes on Iran on Saturday morning. The barrage wiped out Iran’s leadership, including the assassination of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at Arab states, Israel and even the island of Cyprus, which is home to British air bases. Iran’s arsenal includes the Khorramshahr 4 missile. The missile has a range of 1,242 miles to 1,864 miles and can carry a destructive warhead.
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Trump previously claimed that Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been “destroyed” (Image: Kyle Mazza/Shutterstock)
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The missiles could reach Rome, Copenhagen, Budapest and Athens. Dr Siddharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told The Daily Mail that the missile was “derivative” of missiles used by North Korea.
He said, “It was always anticipated that if the Iranians ever developed a nuclear weapon, this would be the delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon. ” The Khorramshahr-4 missile can be launched in a volley and, if used, could reach large areas of Europe, including Greece, Italy, Germany, Poland and Denmark.
Tehran was targeted in the attacks (Image: AP)
Trump claimed last year that Iran’s nuclear weapons programme had been “destroyed” but raised fears the country could develop weapons of mass destruction if left alone. The Shahid suicide drone, with a range of 1,242 miles, can even reach parts of Europe – a range of short-range missiles are already reaching Middle East countries, including Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Although drones are slower than missiles, they are easier to launch in large numbers and can increase pressure on targeted countries if used in repeated waves to weaken air defences. Dr Kaushal warned that as the US and Israel continue to attack Iran’s senior defence leadership, the country’s ‘mosaic warfare’ doctrine could make it more difficult to predict next steps.
Iran’s ‘Mosaic War’ Theory May Make It Hard to Predict Their Next Moves
“Since the 2000s, the Iranian concept of the so-called ‘Mosaic War’ [has been] built around the idea that their leadership could be paralysed in a war with the United States, and so they would have to transfer control to the command level to ensure that their forces could continue to function,” he said. The basic concept is that people at lower levels [who] may have been given standard…rules of engagement in peacetime are considered more authoritative if they cannot communicate with higher command. The question is how much authority do they now have to do things that could escalate the war [ordinarily] controlled?”
The joint US-Israeli airstrikes have also raised fears that Iran could use sleeper terror cells to attack targets across Europe. Sleeper cells usually infiltrate a country and remain hidden until they become active to carry out terrorist attacks.
Iran is already firing short-range missiles at its Middle Eastern neighbours.
Mark Heinrichmann, a member of the German parliament’s intelligence committee, warned yesterday that the attacks would not be limited to the Middle East. Speaking to local outlets, he said, “Tensions in the Middle East do not only affect the region.
“The Iranian regime has repeatedly demonstrated in the past that it has spread its terror beyond its borders. Iranian sleeper cells in Europe cannot be ruled out as a part of Tehran’s retaliation strategy. Vigilance is today’s order.”
It appears the war with Iran is unpopular among many Americans, and only one in four agrees with Trump’s decision to attack. In contrast, 43 per cent disapproved and 29 per cent said they were not sure, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Trump says he is ‘very sad’ that UK-US relations ‘are not what they used to be’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. US President Donald Trump has said he is “very sad” to see that UK-US relations are “not what they were” after criticising Keir Starmer for taking “too long” to allow US forces to use his airbase to attack Iran.
In a telephone interview with Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, Trump said:
It really is a different world. This is a completely different kind of relationship from what we have had with your country before.
It’s heartbreaking to see that the relationship is clearly not what it was before.
Speaking to The Sun from the White House on Monday evening, Trump compared Starmer’s actions to France’s support for the attacks and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s support for them.
He said, “That hasn’t been helpful. I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hold hands as they hold a press conference at Checkers at the end of a state visit to Aylesbury, England, last September. Photograph: Leon Neal/Reuters
In a significant and rare break from Washington on foreign policy, Starmer said on Monday the UK does not believe in “regime change from the sky” as he defended his decision not to allow the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks.
But the prime minister said the situation changed on Sunday as Iran’s “outrageous” response posed a threat to the British people and Britain’s allies.
He has now agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, accused the government of being “too scared” to take a tough stance against Iran.
We will focus primarily today on the UK’s political response to the rapid developments in the Israel-US war on Iran, as conflict escalates across the region with Israeli forces launching new attacks on Tehran and Beirut.
You can follow our Business Live blog to see the market reaction as the war pushed oil and gas prices higher after Iran expanded its retaliatory attacks on US targets in the Gulf region.
Minister says Britain is not going to get involved in ‘wider conflict in the Middle East’
Asked whether the so-called “special relationship” had changed, Darren Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
UK-US relations are important. This has been the case for a long time and will continue to be so, and we are currently working collaboratively on defensive action to protect British citizens in the Middle East.
I think it’s the President’s frustration The way he expressed it is that we were not involved in the initial American and Israeli attacks in Iran But as the Prime Minister said in the House of Commons yesterday, we will only involve British armed forces when it is in the British interest. a clear plan and on one legal basis.
Now we are doing this for defensive action, but we are not going to get involved in any broader conflict in the Middle East.
Asked whether the initial attacks were lawful, he said, “Okay, this is a question for Americans and the US administration.”
Darren Jones has said that, despite criticism from Donald Trump, Britain is still working together with America.
In his interview with The Sun last night, Donald Trump also suggested that Keir Starmer was “baiting” Muslim voters in formulating his policy regarding Iran, a baseless claim that the Prime Minister’s chief secretary described as unfounded. Darren Jones was asked about on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.
Jones said:
It’s just, it’s not right. The UK will prioritise its citizens, regardless of their religion or location.
I think the public will rightly say that they do not want to get involved in a widespread war in the Middle East, but they will expect us to do everything possible to protect British citizens.
Keir Starmer has often been praised in the past for his ability to maintain relations with the volatile US president, but in the House of Commons on Monday the prime minister expressed scepticism about US actions in Tehran. legality.
“We all remember the mistakes of Iraq, and we’ve learned those lessons. Any UK action must always have a legitimate basis and a pragmatically considered plan,” he said. “That’s the principle I applied to the decisions I took over the weekend.”
Speaking in the Commons on Monday, Starmer said Britain was deploying aircraft and allowing the use of bases for defensive purposes as Iran launched attacks on Britain’s allies in the region in retaliation.
Keir Starmer defends decision not to engage in US strikes after Trump criticism – video
He said the RAF had intercepted an Iranian drone attack headed toward a coalition base in Iraq, where British forces were stationed. Two drones were also fired at the British base in Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, which Starmer said was launched before Sunday night’s statement on US use of UK bases.
The UK and US are expected to allow the use of RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia to bomb Iran’s “missile cities” in the Chagos Islands, sites where high-speed ballistic missiles, Iran’s most dangerous weapons, are stored and from which they can be launched.
You can read more from the Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, here:
Trump says he is ‘very sad’ that UK-US relations ‘are not what they used to be’
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. US President Donald Trump has said he is “very sad” to see that UK-US relations are “not what they were” after criticising Keir Starmer for taking “too long” to allow US forces to use his airbase to attack Iran.
In a telephone interview with Harry Cole, political editor of The Sun, Trump said:
It really is a different world. This is a completely different kind of relationship from what we have had with your country before.
It’s heartbreaking to see that the relationship is clearly not what it was before.
Speaking to The Sun from the White House on Monday evening, Trump compared Starmer’s actions to France’s support for the attacks and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s support for them.
He said, “That hasn’t been helpful. I never thought I’d see that. I never thought I’d see that from the UK. We love the UK.”
Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hold hands as they hold a press conference at Checkers at the end of a state visit to Aylesbury, England, last September. Photograph: Leon Neal/Reuters
In a significant and rare break from Washington on foreign policy, Starmer said on Monday the UK does not believe in “regime change from the sky” as he defended his decision not to allow the use of UK bases for the initial wave of attacks.
But the prime minister said the situation changed on Sunday as Iran’s “outrageous” response posed a threat to the British people and Britain’s allies.
He has now agreed to a US request to use British military bases for “defensive” strikes on Iranian missile sites.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, accused the government of being “too scared” to take a tough stance against Iran.
We will focus primarily today on the UK’s political response to the rapid developments in the Israel-US war on Iran, as conflict escalates across the region with Israeli forces launching new attacks on Tehran and Beirut.
