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US President Donald Trump said his “biggest surprise” since unleashing a war in the Middle East has been Iran’s attacks on the Arab Gulf states, which the US counts as some of its closest and richest partners.

“Unbelievable,” a former US intelligence official told Middle East Eye in response to Trump’s comment.

“It’s as if the US was operating and planning in a bubble for the last year. This is what Trump was warned of in conversations with Gulf rulers, and presumably his own intelligence briefings,” the person added.

Not even a year has passed since Trump gave a speech in Riyadh praising the “gleaming marvels” of the oil and gas-rich region’s cities, and now Iranian drones and ballistic missiles are slamming into those very towers and the energy infrastructure that made them possible.

In his May speech, Trump also trashed “interventionists”. His remarks were welcomed not only by ordinary people in the Gulf but also by its wealthy rulers, who are increasingly seeking to manage the region on their own - sometimes through violent means, as in Sudan, and at other times through negotiation.

Now, the US’s willingness to engage in an all-out war on the Islamic Republic as its Gulf allies take the retaliatory blows is shaking the foundations of their security partnership in the first place, analysts and officials in the Gulf say.

“To my knowledge, the US has not spelt out to leadership what our gain is if we join a full-scale war on Iran,” a Gulf official told MEE. “But the cost is obvious.”

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Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) tore into Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in a 10-minute tirade criticizing her from everything to her handling of the deaths of two Minnesotans to killing her own dog in a monologue that garnered applause from the audience of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I’m giving you a performance evaluation here – I’m not looking for a response,” said Tillis, adding that “time after time after time, I’ve been disappointed.”

Tillis, who is retiring at the end of his term next year, accused Noem of holding up federal emergency funding, violating U.S. citizens rights in carrying out immigration enforcement and quashing independent oversight of her department in a move he said would prompt him to renew his hold on DHS nominees.

He faulted her for indiscriminate immigration enforcement.

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As groups of families and others gathered Sunday evening at cafes around Niloofar Square—a middle-class area in eastern Tehran—after breaking their fast for Ramadan, a series of explosions struck the area, leveling several buildings and killing over 20 people, according to witnesses at the scene and later reports from local news sources.

Witnesses who spoke to Drop Site said two explosions hit the area—a smaller strike in the vicinity, followed by a larger one that devastated much of the neighborhood, a tactic known as a “double tap” strike that is used to inflict maximum casualties.

Videos of the immediate aftermath of the attack showed several individuals dead and wounded as well as massive destruction on the street outside. In Cafe Ahla, next to the square, blood and debris soaked the floors. Several patrons who had been sitting there when the attack struck could be seen dead on the floor or with their mutilated bodies still sprawled across their seats.

“We were sitting here around 8:00-8:30 p.m. and suddenly there was the noise and explosion. We got up and a few people ran away. We turned around to get our belongings and we saw that blood was spraying everywhere. Someone’s hand had fallen on the floor, a head had fallen on the floor,” said Shahin, a witness who had been at the cafe and asked to be identified by first name only. “There were scalps torn off, hands severed, a few people were laying here all cut up and two people were martyred.”

As has been the case with nearly all of the bombings in Iran, it remains unclear whether this attack was carried out by the U.S. or Israel. Israel has used “double tap” strikes in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. In one prominent incident, the Israeli military killed 22 Palestinians, including five journalists, in a double tap strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in August. The U.S. repeatedly engaged in double tap strikes during the so-called “War on Terror” in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen and, most recently, in a September 2025 attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boat in the Caribbean.

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Concerns about an extended conflict, the mounting U.S. death toll and a perceived lack of clarity about the mission’s purpose are percolating among President Donald Trump’s MAGA base as the military operation in Iran puts the president at odds with some of his most ardent supporters.

Hanging over the debate is the memory of previous Middle Eastern conflicts, which stretched for years and claimed the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

Trump's presidential campaigns tapped into the American public’s disenchantment with the long and costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He described the Iraq war as a "disaster" and "one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country."

But Trump’s second attack on Iran has already resulted in the deaths of six American service members, and the president is warning that more lives could be lost in a conflict with an uncertain timeline.

The president has launched a series of dramatic military operations in his second term, though. The first two in Iran and Venezuela were quick, and no U.S. soldiers died, limiting the blowback from his political base.

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Cuba’s communist government is facing a breaking point in its battle for survival under pressure from President Trump, whose energy quarantine against the country is aimed at collapsing the regime.

The consequences are hitting the population of 10 million people hard, with the U.S. fuel blockade exacerbating a decades-long economic crisis, disrupting access to water and worsening food and medicine shortages.

“There’s a number of epidemics rippling through the population right now, repression is increasing as the regime feels cornered, and they are not signaling any willingness to negotiate with the United States,” said Sebastián Arcos, interim director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

“These people are really, really bad guys, and they have shown this capacity to survive difficult crises,” he added. “I don’t think they can survive this one.”

Trump on Friday suggested the U.S. could achieve a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, perhaps mirroring America’s approach to Venezuela, where the military took out its leaders but kept the regime largely in place while demanding greater economic cooperation.

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There's electricity on Kyiv's left bank today, so a small elevator carries visitors up to Liliya Martynivna Lapina's 10th-floor apartment. The 88-year-old has been spending her days in her bed under a pile of blankets by a bright but cold window, trying to stay warm.

She sits bolt upright and seems to come alive as visitors enter her apartment, erupting in a stream of words and enthusiasm over the care package of pasta, sugar, tea and cooking oil that has been delivered. Lapina is wearing multiple layers of colorful wool sweaters and a headscarf.

NPR is accompanying the aid group Starenki, which delivers food and fellowship to the mostly older people stuck in their apartments this winter as they try to survive the frequent heat and power cuts brought on by Russia's assault on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin fails to make significant progress on the battlefield, he is trying to break the Ukrainian people's will by plunging them into the cold and dark in one of the coldest winters in years. The capital, Kyiv, has been particularly hard hit. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged those who could to leave the city. But many people, especially older adults, have nowhere else to go.

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Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been killed, Iranian state media confirmed early on Sunday, in the opening salvo of a war aimed at regime change that was launched on Saturday by the US and Israel.

Khamenei had not been heard from since the strikes began, and satellite imagery showed that his secure compound was heavily damaged in the initial barrage on Saturday.

The confirmation came hours after Donald Trump announced the death of the ayatollah, who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, in a post on Truth Social.

“Khamenei, one of the most evil people in History, is dead,” Trump wrote. “He was unable to avoid our Intelligence and Highly Sophisticated Tracking Systems and, working closely with Israel, there was not a thing he, or the other leaders that have been killed along with him, could do.”

Trump said that the goal of the military campaign, which began on Saturday morning with a barrage of missiles and airstrikes, was regime change.

“This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country,” he wrote.

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Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday.

Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured.

Later Dubai authorities said debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire at the city’s famous luxury hotel the Burj Al Arab.

“Civil Defence teams responded immediately and brought the incident under control. No injuries have been reported,” the Dubai media office wrote on its X account.

The media office also said that part of Dubai’s international airport “sustained minor damage in an incident,” without giving further details.

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