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Iran Urged to Release Reporter Who Covered Mystery Poisonings

A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023. WANA/Reuters TV
A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023. WANA/Reuters TV
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Iran Urged to Release Reporter Who Covered Mystery Poisonings

A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023. WANA/Reuters TV
A young woman lies in hospital after reports of poisoning at an unspecified location in Iran in this still image from video from March 2, 2023. WANA/Reuters TV

Leading media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Wednesday urged Iran to release a journalist arrested after closely covering a spate of mystery poisonings of schoolgirls, saying the detention appeared to be an attempt to silence him.

The spate of poisonings has affected over 5,000 pupils, mainly girls, since November, according to the authorities.

Rights groups based outside Iran have accused the authorities of failing to do enough to protect women's education and there were protests across Iran outside education authorities on Monday and Tuesday, according to monitors.

But supreme leader Ali Khamenei called Monday for the perpetrators of the "unforgivable crime" to be tracked down "without mercy".

Paris-based RSF said Ali Pourtabatabaei began covering the story for the Qom News website and on Twitter as soon as the first cases of poisoning were reported in the city of Qom at the end of November, and he was still covering the story when he was arrested on March 5.

It said he managed to phone his sister to tell her he had been arrested but it was not clear where he was being held.

Pourtabatabaei had criticized the lack of any reaction from the authorities in Qom to the first reported cases of poisoning, it added.

The mystery poisonings have intensified tensions in Iran almost six months into the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for allegedly violating the mandatory dress code for women.

Since the early days of the protest movement, Iran has held the two Iranian female journalists, Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who helped expose the Amini story.

"As they already did with the journalists who revealed what happened to Mahsa Amini, the Iranian authorities are trying to silence those who dare to investigate and report other stories that are embarrassing for the government," said Jonathan Dagher, the head of RSF´s Middle East desk.

He said some 30 journalists and media workers were currently held by Iran. Most were arrested in the crackdown on the protest movement.

"Ali Pourtabatabaei must be released unconditionally... The systematic persecution of journalists who still dare to do their job must end," he said.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Tuesday "a number of people" suspected of manufacturing hazardous substances had been arrested in six provinces, including a pupil's parent.

With public anger rising, protests took place this week over the authorities' response in several cities including Tehran, Mashhad and Shiraz, Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said.

It said authorities fired on protesters and arrested teachers to disperse a protest in the city of Sanandaj in western Iran.

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World

Former Rivals Unite in New Front Against Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is welcomed by President Ismail Guelleh during a visit to Djibouti on Thursday. (Ethiopian News Agency)
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is welcomed by President Ismail Guelleh during a visit to Djibouti on Thursday. (Ethiopian News Agency)
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Former Rivals Unite in New Front Against Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is welcomed by President Ismail Guelleh during a visit to Djibouti on Thursday. (Ethiopian News Agency)
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is welcomed by President Ismail Guelleh during a visit to Djibouti on Thursday. (Ethiopian News Agency)

Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018 on a promise of peace and unity for an Ethiopia scarred by decades of conflict. The path earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. Eight years later, some of his closest allies have become his enemies.

The break has taken a sharper turn. Former allies now lead an armed coalition seeking to end his rule and have gained ground in the north.

Tensions are also rising with Eritrea, which backed Abiy in his 2020 war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front before the two countries fell out.

Experts who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat disagree over whether the crisis will deepen or prove short-lived. They point to a widening rift between Abiy and his former allies, as well as outside support, particularly from Asmara.

An unlikely alliance

Ethiopia’s crisis entered a new phase on Sunday when seven armed groups announced the “Ethiopian Forces for Survival Alliance.”

Its members include the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Amhara Fano National Movement and the Oromo Liberation Army. The alliance says it aims to end Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rule and form an inclusive transitional administration.

Until recently, some of its members were fighting on opposing sides, African affairs expert Ali Mahmoud Kalni told Asharq Al-Awsat. Fano’s shift in Amhara is “one of the clearest signs” that old alliances are changing, he said.

Fano factions fought alongside federal forces against the Tigray front in the 2020–2022 war. They later turned against the government as disputes grew over security in Amhara and arrangements following the Pretoria agreement.

A particular flashpoint was the government’s 2023 decision to disband regional special forces and absorb their members into the army and police.

The move raised widespread fears in Amhara that the region’s security forces would be weakened. Fano fighters and federal forces have clashed there since 2023.

In Tigray, the 2022 Pretoria agreement left disputes over territory, security and the front’s future relationship with the federal government unresolved. Renewed tensions in 2026 brought the Tigray front into the new armed alliance against Abiy.

In Oromia, the government’s conflict with the Oromo Liberation Army has continued. The movement returned to Ethiopia after Abiy took power, then resumed its armed campaign.

Kalni said the coalition’s formation showed how far the gap had widened between the federal government and regional armed groups. For now, he said, opposition to central government policies unites them more than a shared political program.

Ethiopian political analyst Zahed Zidan attributed their move toward coordination to regional complications and outside support.

He cited Eritrea’s stance, political hostility and regional and historical claims that the groups believe the federal government has ignored.

That rapprochement has come despite deep divisions among the groups themselves: Fano forces once backed the federal army against Tigray.

Fighting intensifies

A day after the Tigray front seized airports in northern Ethiopia, the Ethiopian army said on Thursday it had killed 272 rebels in fighting in the north.

Abiy, meanwhile, arrived in neighboring Djibouti to announce a joint project to strengthen economic ties. He did not directly comment on the fast-moving events.

US Ambassador to Ethiopia Ervin J. Massinga said on Wednesday he was disappointed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front leadership’s decision to launch a large-scale attack.

“I am disappointed by the decision of the TPLF leadership, which the United States sanctioned earlier this year, to launch a large-scale attack today,” he said.

“Rejecting African Union-sponsored dialogue led by President Obasanjo and entering a fight that cannot be won does nothing for the people. Other armed groups would be wise to avoid this course.”

On Wednesday, Tigrayan rebels seized the airport in Mekelle, the regional capital, from federal police. Ethiopian Airlines suspended flights to the region because of “the current situation,” security and local sources told Reuters and Agence France-Presse.

Kalni said the alliance was a significant step for the armed opposition, bringing groups from Tigray, Amhara, Oromia and elsewhere under one political umbrella. But a common banner does not make a cohesive front, he said.

Disputes over land, identity, the structure of the state and the distribution of power remain, especially between Amhara and Tigray. Each movement also has its own local agenda and history with the government and the other groups.

With Ethiopia and Eritrea at odds, war in Sudan and powers competing for influence in the Red Sea region, an escalation inside Ethiopia could have consequences beyond its borders, Kalni said.

For Abiy’s government, the threat is that separate local conflicts could become a joint political and military campaign.

Zidan sees the alliance as temporary. Human losses and instability will grow before it ends, he said, because its members lack a common political or military basis for building a state.

He also cited the refusal of major groups in Afar and Benishangul-Gumuz to join, and said Ethiopians opposed the alliance and recognized outside influence behind it.

World

North Korea Rejects Call to Halt Nuclear Tests

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the country's nuclear material production base and nuclear weapons institute, at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on January 29, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the country's nuclear material production base and nuclear weapons institute, at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on January 29, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
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North Korea Rejects Call to Halt Nuclear Tests

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the country's nuclear material production base and nuclear weapons institute, at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on January 29, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the country's nuclear material production base and nuclear weapons institute, at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on January 29, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo

North Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday rejected an international statement urging it to halt nuclear tests, with a spokesperson calling it "a grave political provocation against our state" by "hostile forces".

A meeting of ministers from the Friends of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty — a grouping of Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands — said any new nuclear test by North Korea would be irresponsible and unacceptable.

The meeting in New York on Tuesday urged Pyongyang to fully comply with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The spokesperson for North Korea's foreign ministry described the country as a responsible nuclear-armed state, in a statement carried by state media KCNA, Reuters reported.

In another statement carried by KCNA earlier in the day, North Korea's foreign minister Choe Son Hui said Pyongyang's nuclear weapons status is irreversible.

Choe was responding to a separate meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week between the United States, South Korea and Japan at which they reaffirmed their commitment to the complete denuclearisation of North Korea.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, agreed in 1996, bans "any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion" anywhere in the world, with the goal of reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons.

World

Russian Strikes Kill 8 in Ukraine, Damage Maternity Clinic

A woman walks in front of a house destroyed in a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman walks in front of a house destroyed in a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
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Russian Strikes Kill 8 in Ukraine, Damage Maternity Clinic

A woman walks in front of a house destroyed in a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman walks in front of a house destroyed in a Russian strike on a residential neighbourhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine's capital Kyiv and its northeast killed eight people on Thursday in attacks that included a maternity hospital and a farm, officials said.

Moscow has stepped up its air war in recent months, deploying more of its faster and harder-to-stop drones while Ukraine is short of interceptors to down ballistic missiles.

Two people died in the latest assault on Kyiv, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly.

"As people were sleeping, flashes from explosions ⁠lit up the sky," ⁠Zelenskiy said on Telegram.

"Once again, the main targets of their strike were Kyiv and civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, a maternity hospital, energy infrastructure, and logistics."

Police said nine homes, a post office, warehouses and dozens of cars were also damaged in Kyiv.

A separate Russian attack on a vegetable storage facility at a farm in a village of the northeastern Kharkiv region killed six people and injured a further ⁠12, prosecutors said.

The overnight barrage around Ukraine included an unspecified number of hypersonic and ballistic missiles, 282 drones and other weapons, Ukraine's air force said.

In Kyiv, eight people were injured as well as the two fatalities, one of whom was in the parking lot of the maternity hospital, Reuters quoted city mayor Vitali Klitschko as saying.

Part of the hospital's facade, windows and doors were damaged, officials said, adding that no patients or medics were injured.

A handout photo made available by the State Emergency Service (SES) shows Ukrainian rescuers working at the site of an overnight Russian attack on a residential area in Kyiv, Ukraine, 24 September 2026, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/STATE EMERGENCY SERVICE / HANDOUT

Authorities in the northwestern region of Rivne said infrastructure was damaged in overnight strikes that continued into Thursday morning, without providing further details. Volyn region bordering Poland also came under attack.

Insufficient pressure on Moscow ⁠was allowing ⁠it to launch repeated strikes, said Zelenskiy.

"Right now, the United States has the opportunity to respond strongly," he said. "We need ballistic interceptors to protect lives."

Russia's defense ministry said its forces hit Ukrainian defense facilities, logistics and telecoms centers, as well as vessels used by the military.

In the Black Sea port of Odesa, military administration head Serhiy Lysak said overnight Russian strikes damaged a medical facility and shattered windows in nearby houses and a school.

Moldova's President Maia Sandu said four Russian drones crossed into its airspace and at least one exploded, while Romania said a drone also crashed in its territory.

NATO alliance member Poland said it deployed aviation twice on Thursday due to Russian attacks on Ukraine.