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Conflict Events Archive
16,146 documented events · latest Sep 19, 2026 — chronological archive with full summaries and multi-source verification.
Iran stages show of force during mobilisation campaign in Tehran
Armed women, anti-aircraft guns and Shaheed drones were seen in Tehran as hundreds of thousands marched in the capital.
Turkiye revokes operating licence of Iran’s Bank Mellat in Istanbul
The Iranian lender has faced years of Western sanctions over alleged ties to Tehran's nuclear programme.
Labour Party Must Do More Than Just Ban Trade
Labour Party Must Do More Than Just Ban Trade (machine-translated headline from a Turkish-language source)
NAZA: Why are old Gaza allegations causing new fury in Israel?
Israeli soldiers' Gaza testimony causes backlash across much of the country's political establishment.
Iranian women defy law and run Tehran race without hijab
Hundreds of Iranian women defy hijab law in Tehran 10K race.
Iran war live: Trump extends sanctions on Iran, Houthi supporters in Sanaa
Thousands take to the streets in support of Houthis in Sanaa, Trump extends sanctions on Iran.
Iran war live: Tehran says efforts ongoing to return to Islamabad MoU
Iran's interior ministry spokesperson also says 'rising prices are causing concern for the people'.
WW3 Near-Miss? AI Hallucinated Nuclear Weapons Components Aboard Chinese Vessel Bound For Iran
WW3 Near-Miss? AI Hallucinated Nuclear Weapons Components Aboard Chinese Vessel Bound For Iran Could runaway artificial intelligence (AI) spark a future WW3? We don't need movies like Terminator 2 and its SkyNet to help us imagine this, it's 2026 and there is already a terrifying real-world precedent that could have kicked off a shooting war with nuclear-armed China. A human analyst within the US intelligence community utilized data gathered by AI for a report that was later widely circulated across classified Pentagon channels, except that the chatbot which was relied upon in effect hallucinated nuclear weapons components being transported aboard a Chinese vessel bound for Iran. Illustrative: US 7th Fleet file image, Recon Marines conduct exercises Naturally this set off the highest alerts in Washington in the middle of an active hot war which President Trump launched ostensibly to prevent this very thing - Iran obtaining a nuke and atomic weapons components. From there military planning kicked into high gear, with a special forces boarding operation imminent. Supposedly elite assets were already airborne, ready to descend on the Chinese ship in question. But then, "the operation was halted only after officials took a closer look at the intelligence report and discovered that it had been produced with assistance from an AI chatbot," CNN reports in a bombshell Friday exclusive. The episode reportedly happened last spring. The severe error was realized with barely enough time to call off what could have been the geopolitical blunder and disaster of the century, "The chatbot had incorrectly identified the material the vessel was carrying." In essence the United States found itself based on completely manufactured 'intel' potentially headed for conflict with China. As if to to preempt anyone who might be tempted to think the account is merely being hyperbolic or needlessly sensational, one official (unnamed) source told CNN that the intelligence assessment, which was "entirely false" - in the end "almost started a war." While Pentagon leadership, including US Special Operations Command Pacific, has yet to respond to CNN's queries, the outlet pieces together the alleged chain of events and how this could have possibly happened in the following: In this particular instance, the analyst queried a chatbot about some intelligence reporting on the ship’s manifest that originated with US Special Operations Command Pacific, based in Hawaii. It was not clear whether the chatbot was a commercially available one or a US government product. “The internal tools are mostly just copies of the commercial stuff wearing lipstick,” a former senior US official familiar with the AI systems used by military and intelligence analysts. The bot fused together open-source intelligence with secret signals intelligence in government holdings and reached its fateful conclusion about the material the ship was carrying. The analyst then used AI again to package the findings into a standard intelligence report — the kind that is trusted by military officials — and disseminated it. The report seems to be suggesting that the unknown AI tool that was utilized would be deemed substandard and weak for such an important assessment in the first place. Further "comforting" for readers is that given heavy AI-integration seems the "irreversible" trend of the day across the DoD/Depart of War and IC, similar near-misses in the near and distant future are bound to happen. CNN underscores, "Across the US military and the intelligence community, officials are pushing to weave AI into nearly every facet of their work, from analyzing the huge volumes of raw intelligence the US collects and selecting targets for strikes, to more mundane applications like managing budgeting, logistics and supply chains." Meanwhile, another botched AI job perhaps?... SCOOP: A shipment of F-35 parts, including a canopy, wound up in Hong Kong — sparking an investigation on Capitol Hill and raising the possibility that China could have access to key components of the highly-classified program. with @marksatter https://t.co/Y0ufsqEcY0 — Audrey Decker (@audrey_decker9) September 18, 2026 So apparently it's not just lazy college undergrads who've become over-reliant on AI as a substitute for deep research and critical thinking, but now we apparently have a generation of US INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS making potentially world-altering mistakes with the technology. Tyler Durden Fri, 09/18/2026 - 19:40
Russia’s drones threaten Kyiv-bound Western officials as war effort stalls
Russia’s drones threaten Kyiv-bound Western officials as war effort stalls Russia strikes Ukraine’s border crossings with Poland and Moldova as its offensives peter out in the east. Russia has threatened the safety of Ukrainian, American and European officials travelling to and from Kyiv using drones. These attacks have come as Russia’s ground war stumbles. Recommended Storieslist of 4 items - list 1 of 4Efforts under way for Zelenskyy-Trump meeting at UN next week - list 2 of 4At least 19 injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine - list 3 of 4Ukraine fires drone barrage as Russia launches elections - list 4 of 4The view from Russia: ‘No party can be antiwar’ in parliamentary election Details emerged this week of its latest setback when an attempt to seize the city of Lyman resulted in the loss of 85 square kilometres (33 square miles) of territory Russia had previously occupied in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. On September 13, Russian drones struck a Ukrainian train locomotive 5km (3 miles) from the border with Poland, endangering European officials travelling to Warsaw after they attended the Yalta European Strategy conference, an annual gathering of global political, business and civil society leaders in Kyiv. Boris Johnson, Britain’s former premier, and European political and security officials were on the train. Ukraine’s railway company, Ukraliznytsia, said the locomotive of the passenger train had been struck. A Russian drone also struck a petrol station 2km (1.2 miles) from the Polish border, destroying or damaging a number of trucks. Polish premier Donald Tusk said he expects a period of “very intensified actions by Russia”, possibly including an “escalation will also affect our territory”. “This is Putin’s terror ‘knocking’ directly on the doors of the EU and NATO,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on social media. In another incident on September 8, a Russian drone entered Moldovan airspace as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane prepared to depart Chisinau, delaying the flight. Norway’s prime minister said it nearly struck the aircraft, though Moldova has not confirmed the claim. On September 6, US diplomatic envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff flew to Poland before taking a train to Kyiv after Russian strikes disrupted flights to the Ukrainian capital. Russian drones and missiles have also struck four Ukrainian border crossings to Moldova in recent weeks. Kremlin Ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik said the strikes were justified as part of Russia’s effort to stop Western military aid from reaching Kyiv. Ukraine has turned its ports, border crossings and logistics centres into “military targets”, he wrote on social media, boasting that Kyiv was “reaping the inevitable consequences”. Five people were killed on Wednesday when a drone struck their intercity minibus near Nikopol in the northern Kharkiv region in what Zelenskyy called “another act of brutality”. Three more were killed on Saturday. “Just this week, Russia has launched approximately 2,100 drones at Ukraine,” along with 78 missiles, Zelenskyy said on Sunday. Hope for more aid came on Thursday, when both houses of the US Congress passed a bill sponsored by Senators Darline Graham and Richard Blumenthal imposing secondary sanctions on countries buying Russian oil and gas. If implemented, the bill could deprive Russia of export revenues it needs to replenish its budget, one-third of which goes to defence. Russia has ‘no grand illusions’ on peace Ukraine has struck 26 Russian refineries this year. In the past week it struck eight, aiming for their desalination and vacuum distillation units that take months to repair. Numerous reports estimate that Ukraine has deprived Russia of at least 30 percent of its actual refining capacity. Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina recently said inflation over the summer was “primarily driven by the situation in the fuel market”. “We continue to assess inflationary risks as predominant and believe they have increased,” she said. Ukraine has proposed a ceasefire on strikes to energy infrastructure since 2025, but Russia has signalled that it is ready for talks only on its terms. These include surrendering the remaining one-fifth of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region it does not control and a broad demilitarised buffer zone beyond that. “We have no grand illusions here,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Kushner told the Yalta European Strategy conference this week that an agreement between the US and Russia was largely prepared, claiming Ukraine’s refusal to surrender the remainder of Donetsk was the main obstacle. Over the past week, Ukrainian drones also set fire to the Tolyattikauchuk synthetic rubber factory in Samara near the border with Kazakhstan. The rubber is used in the production of solid rocket fuel for tactical and ballistic missiles. Ukraine also struck the Atlant Aero factory in Taganrog, which builds Molnya reconnaissance and attack drones and makes parts for Orion drones. On September 17, Ukraine struck an Antonov-12 and two Antonov-26 military transport aircraft on the tarmac at Rostov air base near the southern Ukrainian border and also destroyed three helicopters. Russia has been repeatedly frustrated in its efforts to seize the “fortress belt” of cities in Donetsk – Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Druzhivka. Putin’s December 31 deadline for achieving this is his 15th of the war. Russian forces have tried to outflank the fortress belt from the north by seizing the cities of Lyman and Svyatohirsk to its northeast, said brigadier-general Andriy Biletskyi, commander of the Third Army Corps defending the area. A separate offensive was from the south, he said. The southern flanking movement was defeated in August this year, taking back 745 sq km (290 sq miles) of territory around Dobropillya. Ukraine also pushed back in Lyman and retook 85 sq km (53 square miles) of territory, its Third Army Corps revealed this week. “The northern pincer has effectively been defeated and destroyed,” Biletskyi said. “Over the space of several months, Ukraine has executed two quiet yet successful counteroffensive operations in different parts of the country,” noted military strategist Mick Ryan, a former Australian army general. “Ukrainians have been investing in the hard intellectual work of finding new methods of conducting successful offensive action at the tactical and operational levels.” Ukraine’s military said Russian losses in 2026 crossed the 300,000 threshold over the past week, with 20,360 casualties for the first half of September, putting Russia on track for over 40,000 casualties for the month – higher than its reported recruitment rate. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify casualty claims by either side. Ukraine’s chief of military intelligence said Russian generals have asked Putin for 800,000 troops above normal recruitment levels.
Trump signs legislation expanding sanctions against Russia — White House
The legislation also extends existing sanctions on Iran
What else is the Pentagon hiding from us?
More US military personnel have reportedly died during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has shared publicly, the latest and most serious evidence of the Trump administration’s ongoing cover-up around disastrous military failures in that conflict. In a Washington Post report released Friday, six US officials with knowledge of internal Defense Department data on military casualties, attested that at least 22 service members have died. The Pentagon’s public database reports 14 military casualties as of Friday as a result of Operation Epic Fury, which began with the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February. Four more deaths are labeled in a separate category, “Overseas Operations,” despite the Defense Department previously reporting 18 deaths related to Iran. In July, the New York Times reported that one reason the Trump administration removed four service members who were killed days earlier from the casualty list—three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq—was that they died after the president declared a ceasefire in April. One official told the Post that the four additional deaths were not all directly tied to the Iran war, but included military personnel who were separately stationed in the Middle East. When a US service member’s death is formally accounted for, the military initiates an investigation to determine whether they died while performing official duties. The evaluation directly affects the amount of benefits their families receive. The Trump administration also appears to be hiding the extent of damage to US military bases. Earlier this week, CBS News shared photos leaked by active service members of a destroyed Boeing aircraft in an Air Force base in Saudi Arabia. Other photos show destroyed buildings and military barracks at the base. Camp Buehring, a US staging post in Kuwait, had damaged aircraft, as well as armored vehicles, that the administration had not previously acknowledged. In addition, the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report earlier this week that the war in Iran “has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” In the first four months, the inspector general valued the cost of military operations at $33.4 billion, not accounting for costs of damaged facilities, while the Trump administration struggles to accelerate weapons production—a move that the report says has “significant lead times.” Trump’s attempts to conceal those failures—with even less believable claims that the US has “wiped every single force in Iran out very completely” or that the war is “pretty much” over—are prolonging a war that the White House seems determined to lose, and that has killed thousands of people across the region.
UK court clears woman of voicing support for Hamas in university speech
Sarah Cotte said her comments were not in support of Hamas, but in support of Palestinians' right to resist.
Iran war’s cost grows to $43.6 billion in new US military estimate
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military's price tag for the Iran war has grown to $43.6 billion as of Sept. 3, according to a new estimate provided this week to lawmakers. The figure from U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, offers the most up-to-date cost for the conflict since it was launched by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28. A Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday said the war had cost $38 billion through Aug. 1 and will continue to rack up expenses of around $3 billion a month depending on the conflict's intensity. The new breakdown, seen by The Associated Press and reported earlier by Punchbowl News, also showed the continued use of expensive munitions by American forces. Weapons costs jumped by more than $6 billion in just over a month, from $21.7 billion listed in the CBO report to $28.1 billion in U.S. Central Command’s estimate. The financial cost is just one measure of the impact of the Iran war, which also is affecting oil prices and the stock market and has led to deaths and injuries of American troops. The political costs will be calculated in November's midterm congressional elections, with Republicans facing increasing headwinds from the war's unpopularity. The U.S. military's one-page breakdown to Congress includes costs for operating warships, planes and bases as well as for equipment losses and medical support for troops. Casualties tallied by the Pentagon have included 18 dead and more than 830 wounded, according to the Defense Casualty Analysis System. The report does not include damage to U.S. bases in the Middle East, which the Islamic Republic has attacked with ballistic missiles and drones. A report from the Pentagon inspector general released Monday said Iranian strikes have damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and other structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan. In the new report to Congress, the figure for munitions was by far the largest, constituting well over half of all costs. The advanced weapons that have been in the most demand are defensive missile interceptors, such as those launched by the Army's Patriot and THAAD systems. The diminished stockpiles also have caused alarm in Europe, where U.S. and NATO officials have told the AP that there is a “beyond critical” shortage of missile interceptors. Saudi Arabia also is running low on interceptors and has turned to regional and Western allies for assistance as its standoff with Houthi rebels in Yemen drags on.
‘Daughter of Damascus’ Assala performs in Syria after 15-year exile
Thousands of people cheered as they welcomed Syrian icon Assala Nasri back at a sold-out concert in Damascus.
Number of US servicemen killed in war with Iran higher than official figures — WP
According to the newspaper, Pentagon officials are dissatisfied that the accurate figures are not reflected in official documents of the US Department of Defense
More troops died in the Iran War than Trump’s administration has revealed: report
More troops have died in the Iran War than Trump’s administration has revealed: report The deadly conflict began at the end of February after the US, alongside Israel, began launching strikes against Iran More American troops have died in the Iran War than President Donald Trump’s administration has revealed, according to a new report. At least 22 service members died in the conflict, five U.S. officials familiar with the Pentagon’s internal casualty accounting data told The Washington Post. The estimate accounts for four more than the 18 military fatalities posted on a public government database known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, according to the Post. The Independent has reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command, which conducts military operations in the Middle East, for comment. A sixth U.S. official who spoke to the Post said 23 troops have died in the Middle East during the war, but noted that not all of the undisclosed fatalities are directly tied to the conflict. As of Friday, the Pentagon’s database showed seven hostile and seven non-hostile deaths during the U.S. military campaign against Iran, which it has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.” An additional four hostile deaths were listed in a separate category called “Overseas Operations” that started on July 7 — around the time when a fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran collapsed. This is a developing story... Join our commenting forum Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their repliesComments
Syria arrests five former al-Assad-era officers over strikes on civilians
Former air officers, including an air force general, were arrested in a series of operations.
Lebanese artist turns Israeli missile debris into art
In southern Lebanon, visual artist Lina Jouni transforms debris from Israeli missile strikes into pieces of art.
Two injured by Israeli shelling as troops advance in southern Lebanon
Israeli forces withdraw from outskirts of a town in southern Lebanon after a standoff with Lebanese forces.
Trump believes Iran wants to make deal with US
The US president stated that if the deal is not a correct deal, he will not consider it