05/06/2026

FRIDAY | JUNE 5, 2026

9

US votes to curb Trump on Iran war as talks stall

Ukraine strikes kill three KYIV: Ukraine has launched attacks on the two main centres in the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula, Kremlin-installed officials in the region said yesterday, a day after Moscow and Kyiv traded strikes on each other’s cities. Russia-appointed Crimea head Sergei Aksyonov said Ukrainian forces hit a non-residential part of Simferopol, the peninsula’s main administrative town. The strike killed three people and injured seven, he said. In the Crimean port of Sevastopol, Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said air defence units intercepted more than 20 Ukrainian drones. Razvozhayev made no mention of casualties but said drone debris damaged some buildings. Leaders in Crimea have taken measures to address fuel shortages after an intensifying campaign of Ukrainian strikes on oil industry targets in Russia. In the Boryspil area outside Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, firefighters were extinguishing a blaze after an industrial facility was hit in a drone attack overnight, with one person injured, Ukraine’s emergency service said. On Wednesday, each side struck the other’s cities. In Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s critical “fortress cities” along the 1,200km front line, Russian shelling killed at least three civilians, according to Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region Governor Vadym Filashkin. In the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said Russian forces injured eight people near the main regional centre of Dnipro. Ukraine’s attacks on Moscow’s oil industry included a strike on an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Wednesday. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes enable Ukraine “to end this war on equal footing”. In Russia’s border region of Bryansk, Acting Regional Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said a Ukrainian drone killed a crane operator working for the local utility. US-brokered talks aimed at moving towards an end to the war have stalled as Washington remains focused on the conflict in Iran. – Reuters European aid fuels Kyiv drone boom PARIS: European countries have funnelled billions of dollars of military aid to Ukraine since US funding ended, with this year’s contributions helping boost its booming drone sector, Germany’s Kiel Institute said yesterday. In the first four months of the year, 12% of European military aid to Ukraine was allocated to drone production, according to the Kiel Institute. Of the €12.33 billion euros (RM57 billion) in military aid allocated by European nations from January to April, €1.5 billion was earmarked for drone production, more than for all of 2025, which amounted to €1.24 billion. Aid funds allocated to drones tripled between 2022 and 2026, with the trend accelerating in March and April. Britain also announced on April 15 that it will provide 120,000 drones. Germany and Norway have each provided €500 million, and the Netherlands €250 million, to help Ukraine acquire the weapons, which have become essential in fighting off Russian strikes. And a growing number of European countries are making drones for the conflict with Ukrainian companies, which are relocating part of their manufacturing to allied nations. – AFP

in the south killed at least nine people, including two paramedics. Israeli troops are staging their deepest ground offensive into Lebanon in two decades. A truce to halt the fighting in Lebanon was meant to take hold on April 17 but has never been observed. Kuwait’s military condemned the drone strike on its airport as an act of “criminal Iranian aggression”. India’s Foreign Ministry said the one fatality was an Indian national. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards denied attacking the airport and said it was “an error in the American Patriot systems, which landed on the terminal after failing to intercept Iranian missiles”. The Revolutionary Guards also accused US forces of provoking a response by targeting a tanker and a communications tower on the country’s Qeshm Island. The fresh attacks constitute one of the more severe tests of the April 8 ceasefire that paused more than a month of war sparked by the US-Israeli bombing of Iran, and has largely held despite sporadic exchanges of fire. Trump played down the renewed hostilities, saying “in that part of the world, ceasefire is when you are shooting in a more moderate manner”. – AFP

resumption” of the conflict. “Communications with the Americans have not been cut off and messages have been exchanged regarding the need to stop aggression against Beirut, but no tangible progress has been made in the negotiation process,” the Tasnim news agency quoted Abbas as telling Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV. “Our armed forces are ready to strike Israel if it attacks Beirut.” In Washington, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire after two days of direct talks. Notably, the agreement requires a “complete cessation” of fire by Hezbollah. They further agreed “with the guidance of the United States” to create “pilot zones” in which Lebanese armed forces, which have struggled to contain Hezbollah, “will take exclusive control of the territory to the exclusion of all non-state actors”, a joint statement said. Further talks are planned in the week of June 22, with a view towards reaching a “comprehensive agreement”. However, Israel and Hezbollah have continued to trade fire, with Hezbollah claiming missile attacks on northern Israel on Wednesday and Lebanon saying Israeli strikes

o Resolution largely symbolic as president can veto measure if it gains Senate approval

KUWAIT CITY: The US House of Representatives has backed a resolution seeking to halt military action in Iran, a symbolic move that deals a political blow to President Donald Trump as efforts to find a deal with Tehran stagnate. Weeks of talks marked by sharp rhetoric and flare-ups of violence have not managed to reach a deal to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is essential to oil supplies. Washington and Tehran have sent divergent message in recent days, with Iran saying on Wednesday “no tangible progress” was made while Trump again voiced optimism by saying “it could happen over the weekend”. But in the latest episode of violence, Kuwaiti officials said renewed hostilities on Wednesday included an Iranian drone strike on a passenger terminal at Kuwait International Airport that killed one person and wounded 63. In the wake of the flare-ups, four Republicans joined Democrats on Wednesday to vote 215-208 in favour of the

public rebuke. The resolution was largely symbolic as Trump can veto the measure if it gains Senate approval. “This is a loud and unambiguous message to Trump on behalf of the American people. It is time to end his deeply unpopular and illegal war of choice in Iran,” Democrats posted on X. At a congressional hearing, US State Secretary Marco Rubio said Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles are at the centre of discussions with Tehran. Washington insists that Tehran must turn over its near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, agree to curb its nuclear activities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for any peace agreement to take hold. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said lines of communication with the United States are still open but warned that any Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut as part of its campaign against Hezbollah would trigger a “full-scale

A Palestinian walking past the site of an Israeli strike on an apartment block in Gaza. – REUTERSPIC

Eight dead after Israeli attack on Gaza GAZA CITY: Israeli attacks on Gaza killed at least eight people yesterday, a spokesperson for the civil defence agency in the Palestinian territory said. Despite a truce technically in effect since October, daily violence has rocked the Gaza Strip, over half of which is under Israeli military control, in defiance of the ceasefire terms.

disarmament and a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli army, has been stalled for months. Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has ordered the military to take control of 70% of the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Odeh, the latest head of the Hamas armed wing in Gaza, was killed in an Israeli strike last week, a month after his predecessor was also killed. – AFP

United Nations. Both Israel accuse each other of violating the ceasefire. The first phase of the truce involved the release of the last Israeli hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinians detained by Israel. A transition to the second phase of the ceasefire, which was supposed to involve Hamas Hamas and

Seven were killed in strikes on residential buildings and one died in the Al-Shati refugee camp to the west of Gaza, said Mahmoud Bassal. Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza also reported 15 people wounded in the strikes, he added.

Israel has killed at least 936 people since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the