Chemical weapons watchdog reinstates Syria The world's chemical weapons watchdog reinstated Syria on Thursday, noting a "significant change in circumstances" since the fall of Bashar al-Assad and "concrete steps" to dismantle his deadly stockpile of banned substances. The new Syrian government has "committed to fulfilling Syria's obligation under the (Chemical Weapons) Convention and... since taken concrete steps to cooperate... to achieve this goal," the OPCW said in a statement. Agence France-Presse
'Obliterated entire families': Amnesty calls for investigating Israeli strikes in Lebanon as war crimes Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes in Lebanon by wiping out entire families and killing children. Lebanon
Iran to bury Khamenei in hometown as US ramps up strikes Iranians were preparing on Thursday to bury their slain leader Ali Khamenei in his hometown of Mashhad in northeast Iran, as new US strikes threatened to trigger a fresh escalation in the Middle East war. But the ceasefire looked increasingly threatened as US Central Command said it had carried out strikes to degrade the ability of Iranian forces "to threaten freedom of navigation" in the Strait of Hormuz -- a key bone of contention in US-Iran talks. Agence France-Presse
Iran plays with fire, but calculates Trump will hold back With its defiant strikes on ships, Iran is making a paradoxical and explosively high-risk calculation -- that it can boost its long-term deterrence through actions that invite new US attacks. "Iran's calculation is that calibrated, limited escalation can restore deterrence without crossing the threshold into all-out war." Agence France-Presse
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