Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his secret hideout these days, knows he is now a marked man. He will not be sitting on his veranda anytime soon. When discussing what the United States might do next to help the protesters in Iran, US President Trump has mentioned Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The former, Iran's all-important military strategist in the Middle East, was killed on 3 January 2020 in a drone strike just outside Baghdad's international airport on the president's order. The latter, who was the leader of IS, killed himself and two children by detonating a suicide vest on 27 October 2019 when US forces raided his hideout in northern Syria after the approval of the president.

The US administration's targeting of academic research and international students is a "great gift" to China in the race to compete on artificial intelligence, former OpenAI board member Helen Toner has said. The director of strategy at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) joined the board of OpenAI in 2021 after a career studying AI and the relationship between the United States and China. Toner, a 33-year-old University of Melbourne graduate, was on the board for two years until a falling out with founder Sam Altman in 2023. Altman was fired by the board over claims that he was not "consistently candid" in his communications and the board did not have confidence in Altman's ability to lead. The chaotic months that followed saw Altman fired and then re-hired with three members of the board, including Toner, ousted instead.

Iranian officials warned that Tehran would decisively respond to any U.S. attacks, as President Biden vowed unspecified action following the deaths of three American soldiers in Jordan. "We hear threats coming from American officials, we tell them that they have already tested us, and we now know one another, no threat will be left unanswered," Iranian Revolutionary Guards' chief Hossein Salami said on Wednesday, Reuters reported, citing the semi-official Tasnim news agency. "We are not after war, but we have no fear of war," Salami, who answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said at an event Wednesday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Another warning came from Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in New York. UNITED NATIONS SPOX INSISTS'UNRWA DOES NOT WORK WITH HAMAS' DESPITE CLAIMS EMPLOYEES PARTICIPATED IN OCT. 7 FILE - Iran's United Nations Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani addresses the U.N. General Assembly at U.N. headquarters on Feb. 23, 2023.

Pro-Iranian forces in Syria have said they have a "long arm" to respond to further United States air strikes on their positions, after tit-for-tat missile and drone attacks in Syria over the last 24 hours. The online statement, released late on Friday and signed by the Iranian Advisory Committee in Syria, said US air strikes had left several of their fighters dead and wounded, without specifying the fighters' nationality. "We have the capability to respond if our centres and forces in Syria are targeted," the statement said. On Friday night, two Syrian opposition activist groups reported a new wave of US air attacks on eastern Syria, which hit positions of Iran-backed militias, after rockets were fired at bases in Syria housing US troops. Several US officials, however, denied that attacks were launched late on Friday.

The location of the drone strike is in a heavily built-up part of Kabul called Khaje Bughra, near the airport. Relatives and neighbours in the area have disputed the justification for the strike, telling journalists that US intelligence was wrong, and that there was no Islamic State presence in the area.