Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy has seized a container ship in a helicopter operation near the Strait of Hormuz, state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

Shredded Lebanese and Hezbollah flags tower over a destroyed boardwalk where a panoramic view of Israel’s Upper Galilee stretches out for miles.

There remains a “real,” “credible” and “viable” threat of Iranian retaliatory strikes against Israel, the White House said Friday, as President Joe Biden receives constant updates on the situation from his national security team.

The US transferred thousands of machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition seized from Iran to Ukraine last week, US Central Command announced on Tuesday.

Six months into Israel’s war with Hamas, President Joe Biden is becoming ever more entangled in a foreign crisis that he cannot control but which is having deep consequences for US domestic politics and is weighing heavily on his reelection bid.

The US is on high alert and actively preparing for a “significant” attack within the next week by Iran in response to Monday’s Israeli strike in Damascus that killed top Iranian commanders, a senior administration official tells CNN.

President Joe Biden’s scheduled call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday will not simply test the leaders’ increasingly sour relationship.

Iran may feel compelled to respond to an apparent Israeli strike on its embassy complex in Syria, despite Tehran’s unwillingness to enter war with Israel and the US.

The United States told Iran it was not involved and had no advance knowledge of Monday’s strike on an Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, a US official said.

Iran has vowed to retaliate after it accused Israel of bombing its embassy complex in Syria on Monday, in a deadly escalation of regional tensions over the war in Gaza that once again appeared to raise the risk of a wider Middle Eastern conflict.

The attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday may be the most dangerous escalation outside of Gaza since the start of the Hamas-Israel war nearly six months ago.

A top commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been killed in an airstrike on the country’s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, according to Iranian state-affiliated media.

The threat of ISIS, also known as Islamic State, might have seemed to be waning as headlines turned to Ukraine, Gaza and the next US election. But last week’s attack on a Moscow concert hall reminded the world of the enduring danger of Islamist terrorism and the ambitions of what is known as IS Khorasan (ISIS-K) far beyond its camps in the mountains of Afghanistan.

A prominent exiled Iranian journalist was stabbed outside his home in central London on Friday, prompting British police to launch a counterterrorism investigation.

A series of Israeli airstrikes targeting areas close to the Syrian city of Aleppo city have led to casualties among both civilians and military personnel early on Friday, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

The G7 issued a strong joint statement warning that the international community’s response will include “new and significant measures against Iran” if the country moves ahead with sending ballistic missiles to Russia to use in its war effort against Ukraine.

Warships from China, Russia and Iran have held live-fire exercises in a key Middle Eastern waterway this week as the three partners put on a show of force in the volatile region, according to reports in state-run media.

US officials held indirect talks with Iranian officials in Oman in January amid rising tensions in the Middle East, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

Iran’s “repression of peaceful protests” and “institutional discrimination against women and girls” has led to human rights violations, some of which amount to “crimes against humanity,” according to a United Nations’ report.

Iran has recorded the lowest electoral turnout since the Islamic Republic’s founding in 1979, with officials portraying the participation of those who did vote as a victory against the country’s “obstinate opponents.”

Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour, whose song became popular during mass protests in 2022, has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison and ordered to write a song about US “atrocities,” a human rights group reported.

The 2024 US election will feature more foreign adversaries that are trying to meddle in the election than previous voting cycles thanks to artificial intelligence and other technological advances, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday.

Iran is scrambling to boost turnout ahead of legislative elections on March 1, but calls on voters to show up to the polls may be falling on deaf ears as Iranians grapple with an ailing economy, growing political distrust and a quashed protest movement.

Iran reduced its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium between October 2023 and February 2024, according to a confidential report from the IAEA viewed by CNN on Tuesday.

The Conservative Political Action Conference has been the venue for some of former President Donald Trump’s most dishonest speeches – lengthy lie-filled addresses in which he has regaled friendly crowds with many of his favorite false claims.

The United States and the United Kingdom carried out strikes against dozens of Houthi targets in Yemen, according to two US officials, marking the fourth time the international coalition has launched a combined attack on the Iran-backed rebel group.

The Biden administration is struggling to stop the ongoing attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis against ships in the Red Sea and the group is continuing to fortify its weapons stockpile inside Yemen, even though the US has carried out significant strikes on the group in recent weeks, US officials told CNN.

Four mariners who were caught by Navy sailors while attempting to deliver Iranian-made missile components to the Houthis are now facing federal charges, according to a new indictment unsealed Thursday.

An alleged leader of a Japanese organized crime syndicate has been charged with attempting to sell weapons-grade nuclear materials from the leader of an ethnic insurgent group in Myanmar, according to a new indictment from the US Justice Department.

A North Korean ballistic missile fired last month by the Russian military in Ukraine contained hundreds of components that trace back to companies in the US and Europe, according to a new report.