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Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera
Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera
Bogota, Colombia: Laura Espinel would not have been able to fulfill her dream of becoming an artist without the “zero tuition” programme launched in 2023 by Gustavo Petro’s administration.
The programme covers up to 100 percent of tuition costs at the country’s public universities and is primarily aimed at young people from middle- and lower-income families. Since its launch, according to official data, it has benefitted 870,000 students at 64 public institutions.
“Without zero tuition, I might not have been able to study, because when I started school, my financial situation was quite precarious; I didn’t have the resources to pay for a semester, not even at a public university,” said Espinel. Without the tuition waiver, Laura could pay around $400 per year, and at a private university, it would be at least $3,000.
The “zero tuition” programme is one of the numerous social policies promoted by Colombia’s first left-wing government, that of Gustavo Petro, which is coming to an end after four years.
On May 31, Colombia will elect a new president. The main candidates are two political opposites. Ivan Cepeda, a veteran left-wing congressman and member of the same party as Petro, wants to continue most of his policies, both social and economic.
He supports continuing the transition to renewable energy and injecting capital into the Colombian countryside and small farmers so that it becomes a pillar of the country’s economy, creating more jobs, increasing food production, and contributing to a commercial transition plan that aims to gradually shift capital towards the agricultural sector rather than extractive industries.
At the other end of the spectrum is Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right “outsider” lawyer seeking to emulate El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, primarily in his controversial security proposals, including building mega-prisons. His main economic platform focuses on reducing government spending as much as possible and lowering taxes for large corporations.
Both face a huge challenge: a net debt equivalent to 58.5 percent of GDP which comes with high-interest payments and limits the government’s spending ability.
Petro spent much of his time in office trying to get Congress to approve many of his ambitious proposals: peace talks with illegal armed groups; pension reform to expand coverage and strengthen public pension funds; and a financing law that sought to make the rich pay more taxes by imposing a wealth tax.
As neither the tax reform nor the changes to the personal wealth tax were enacted, the government implemented portions of the tax reform, including a temporary wealth tax, both for individuals and businesses.
But his most significant achievement came from the labour reform approved in last June, which raised the minimum wage by 23 percent, much higher than the usual increases which ranged from 5 percent to 10 percent. The same law stipulates that overtime be better paid and starts at 7pm, two hours earlier than previously. In Colombia, the legal workday is eight hours.
Javier Beltran is a small-scale baker who owns a shop in a central area of Bogota. He has only one employee and pays her all social benefits. The minimum wage increase took him by surprise.
“The numbers didn’t add up for me, but I understand it was the right thing to do,” he told Al Jazeera.
Beltran sought to cut costs so he could pay what the law requires. Other business owners in the neighbourhood reduced their number of employees.
With the approval of the labour reform, unemployment was expected to rise as many employers were unable to adapt. However, unemployment has been falling in Colombia: it reached 10.9 percent in January — the lowest rate in 25 years — and down from 11.2 percent in 2022 when Petro came into office.
But some economists say increased purchasing power among workers from wage rises stimulates the economy, especially as the pay rise outpaced inflation.
Others attribute this decline in the unemployment rate to a rise in informal jobs and the expansion of government bureaucracy, which grew from 48,000 people in 2022 to 64,000 in 2024. Similarly, six out of ten new jobs at the beginning of 2026 were informal, mainly in retail, agriculture, construction and transportation, according to data collected by a local media outlet.
Mauricio Salazar, an economist at the Fiscal Observatory at Javeriana University in Colombia, adds that this is also part of a regional trend.
“Unemployment figures across Latin America have been declining, but the country has not seen a significant drop compared to other countries in the region, and this trend is linked to the post [COVID-19] pandemic recovery,” when there was a massive surge in layoffs, Salazar said.
All of these social measures have led to increased public spending, a key challenge for the next government.
To be able to fund his proposals, Petro aimed to raise 26 trillion pesos ($2.5bn) through several measures, including a budget plan which, among other steps, would have raised taxes on the rich. But all were rejected by Congress.
Salazar says that the state of the economy left behind by Petro is cause for concern.
“This administration has increased the debt by 400 trillion pesos ($109bn). So the key question is, beyond its focus on equity, what was its strategy for growing the economy and attracting more investment? Because whatever it was, the data shows it isn’t working. The government has been relying on increased debt,” he said.
Some economists blame the heightened debt on the pandemic during which governments the world over undertook social spending to help cover the sudden, and prolonged, loss of income as businesses shut down overnight.
Some argue that Petro inherited hefty levels of debt to begin with – it stood at least at 57 percent of GDP under his predecessor, Ivan Duque.
They blame Congress for failing to pass a value added tax that would have helped government finances by taxing petroleum-based liquid fuels, online gambling and businesses associated with churches.
“Petro sought to promote an economic model in which the recovery of workers’ share of national income demonstrates that an unequal economy is less prosperous. Colombian society is calling for increased spending, but the country’s elite—particularly in the oil and mining sectors—were very effective in blocking the promise of tax justice in Congress,” said Simon Gomez, an economist at King’s College London, who has launched an economic think tank to support Petro’s economic policies.
One of Petro’s main campaigns was to promote energy transition, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. He suspended the signing of new contracts for coal, oil and gas exploration and distributed land to small farmers—in some cases, land purchased from large landowners, and in others, land that had been owned by the state and confiscated during the worst periods of the internal armed conflict at the beginning of the 2000s.
But hydrocarbons represent more than 40 percent of Colombia’s total exports and are not easily replaceable. The next president will have to find new ways to generate revenue or revive these economic activities.
The right-wing candidate, de la Espriella, has already announced that, if elected, he will authorise development such as fracking to increase oil and gas reserves.
Cepeda, on the other hand, would focus on non-conventional renewable energy, such as solar and wind, and strengthening the rural economy, financing it with the increased oil revenues from Ecopetrol, the state-owned multi-energy company and one of the region’s leading oil companies.
Since the peace agreement signed by the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, the country enjoyed several years of peace, but the conflict has gradually returned and new illegal groups have emerged, creating a climate of violence, particularly in rural areas and small cities.
In January, Ecuador cited that security concern for unilaterally imposing a 30 percent tariff on imports from its northern neighbour, Colombia. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said that Petro was not cooperating on security matters along the 586km shared border. The measure was eventually raised to 100 percent.
In a tit-for-tat response, Colombia responded with the same level of tariffs on imports from Ecuador.
Ecuador is the sixth-largest destination for Colombian exports, while Colombia ranks as Ecuador’s second or third-largest trading partner.
Since February, when the tariffs came into place, it is estimated that around 5,000 jobs have been lost in the border region with at least 2,700 companies affected in Colombia and another 2,000 in Ecuador.
Businesses in Colombia’s auto sector, which exports to Ecuador, have been one of the hardest hit. Ecuador’s seafood industry, one of its main exports to Colombia, has also been affected.
In early May, the Andean Community (CAN) – a subregional integration mechanism – intervened and declared those measures illegal. The organisation set a 10-day deadline, which was to expire on May 21, for the tariffs to be removed. Ecuador refused.
Guillaume Long, a former Ecuadorian foreign minister, believes the decision by Noboa was arbitrary and politically motivated, and that it has ended up severely affecting the people of both countries.
“Noboa said he made that decision because Petro was not cooperating on border security. But that is not justification for imposing tariffs. In 2015–2016, the last time Ecuador imposed tariffs, it was because Colombia had devalued its currency. According to the law, a time limit for the measure must be established. In this case, it is not properly justified, nor is there a time limit, and there is no differentiation between products—in other words, it is all arbitrary,” he said.
This diplomatic battle is exacerbating investor mistrust in Colombia, which has already been on the decline due to the rise in violence and will add to the list of challenges for the incoming president.
On Sunday, Laura, Javier, and their only employee, Johana, will vote for Cepeda. But the owners of other small shops next to their store visited by Al Jazeera will vote for any candidate who opposes Petro.
The Guatemalan government has denied reports that it agreed to allow the United States to carry out strikes against drug traffickers in the Central American country, while confirming that it has sought security cooperation with Washington.
“There is no agreement authorising foreign military operations by any country within national territory,” the government of President Bernardo Arevalo said in a statement on Thursday.
The denial appears to be in response to a New York Times report published earlier in the day that cited two unidentified sources as saying that Arevalo had agreed to US military action in his country.
The Guatemalan statement was accompanied by a note from a letter by the country’s defence minister, Henry Saenz, to his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, dated May 28.
The note says that Guatemala “desires to lead, with US assistance, active military operations” against drug groups identified as “designated terrorist organisations” (DTOs) by Washington.
“In accordance with existing bilateral agreements and arrangements, such combined Guatemala-led operations would further bilateral interests in defeating DTOs and advancing regional and hemispheric security,” Saenz wrote.



But the Guatemalan government stressed that the call for assistance from Washington was not an invitation for US attacks in the country.
“This request falls within the framework of existing bilateral agreements on this matter and strictly adheres to the provisions of the Constitution and applicable laws regarding cooperation agreements on civil or military security,” it said.
Under President Donald Trump, the US has shown a willingness to use force in Latin America.
Since last year, the US has been carrying out air strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 194 people, in a campaign that rights advocates have said amounts to extrajudicial killings.
In January, the US also abducted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, whom it accused of drug trafficking.
Maduro was replaced by his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, who has improved relations with Washington and allowed greater foreign involvement in the country’s oil sector. The US continues to exert control over Venezuela’s oil exports.
Many countries in Central and South America have struggled to contain gang violence related to the drug trade.
In January, Guatemala’s Arevalo declared a state of emergency after suspected gang members killed at least 10 police officers.
But Latin American leaders have been wary of accepting US military intervention in their countries, while inviting intelligence and security cooperation.
Arevalo was elected in 2023 as an anticorruption campaigner.
A United States judge has declined to immediately block President Donald Trump’s executive order tightening rules on mail-in voting.
But the judge — Carl Nichols in the District of Columbia — has left open the possibility for Democrats to challenge the measure again as the administration moves to implement it.
Nichols, a Trump appointee, ruled on Thursday against a request by Democrats and civil rights groups seeking to halt the executive order. The challengers argued the measure would likely be unconstitutional because the authority to set election rules rests with states and Congress, not the president.
In his ruling, Nichols, however, agreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the case was premature because the order has not yet been enforced.
He added that the administration is still developing the rules and procedures needed to enforce the measure, making any potential harms too speculative for immediate court intervention.
While the judge acknowledged that future actions by federal agencies could still face legal challenges, he concluded that the case was not yet ready for judicial review.
“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote.
“Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”
The ruling comes as Trump’s Republican Party faces a tight battle to maintain control of both chambers of Congress in the November midterm elections.
Trump’s executive order calls on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to compile and transmit lists of confirmed US citizens eligible to vote in each state. It also requires the United States Postal Service (USPS) to send mail-in ballots only to voters included on state-specific absentee and mail-in voting lists.
Voting rights groups have warned that the measures could rely on outdated or inaccurate federal citizenship databases and place excessive responsibility on the USPS, which does not directly administer elections.
Mail-in voting has expanded across the US, in states that lean both Republican and Democratic.
The adoption of vote-by-mail services has grown since the COVID-19 pandemic, when many US voters isolated to avoid spreading the virus, and it remains a popular form of voting.
In the 2024 election, roughly one-third of all ballots were cast by mail. Eight states currently conduct elections almost entirely by post and report some of the country’s strongest election-integrity metrics.
Trump, however, has sought to frame mail-in voting as a system that perpetuates electoral fraud, though there is little evidence to back up this assertion.
By issuing an executive order to restrict mail-in ballots, Democrats and civil rights groups argued that Trump violated the US Constitution, which gives states the authority to determine the “times, places and manner” of elections.
They also maintain that only Congress can impose new federal restrictions on how elections are conducted.
Their lawsuit, filed in the Washington, DC, district court system, has also raised questions about Trump’s motives for issuing the executive order.
Changes so close to the November elections could create confusion and disruption, they warn.
The directive to use DHS and Social Security Administration data to create “state citizenship lists” could also improperly exclude legally registered voters because the databases may contain errors or outdated information, according to the lawsuit.
Separately, a coalition of Democratic-led states has filed a similar complaint in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts. US District Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, is scheduled to hear arguments in that case on June 2.
Another executive order issued by Trump last year required voters to prove US citizenship and barred states from counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
That order has already been blocked by three federal judges. The administration is appealing those rulings.
For years, Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud.
He has pledged sweeping reforms to the US voting system, spurring fears among critics that democratic rights might be curtailed.
The European Union has sanctioned four entities and three individuals it says are “extremist Israeli settlers” responsible for “serious” human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The EU said they had violated a range of rights, including the rights to physical and mental integrity, privacy and family life, freedom of religion and education.
The announcement on Thursday is part of an EU sanctions package agreed earlier this month to punish Israeli settlers and Hamas leaders.
The sanctions include the Nachala Settlement Movement and its director, Daniella Weiss. The EU says the group “encourages and facilitates coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians”.
Israeli NGO Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch, are also on the sanctions list for lobbying “for the demolition of Palestinian property” in order to expand Israel’s control over the entirety of the West Bank, plus the demolition of an EU-funded Palestinian primary school.
Also sanctioned is the Hashomer Yosh NGO and its president, Avichai Suissa for supporting “at least 28 violent outposts and settlements”. It also recruits armed volunteers and provides guards who engage in violent attacks, the EU added.
The Amana cooperative association of the settler movement Gush Emunim was also sanctioned, the EU stating it had likewise “played a key role in initiating, financing, and facilitating at least 30 violent outposts and settlements”.



With Thursday’s additions, the EU said it now sanctions 136 persons and 41 entities from a range of countries under its Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime.
The regime was created in 2020, and applies to acts such as genocide, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations or abuses.
The measures targeting Israeli settlers because of violence against Palestinians were long-awaited, having been blocked by the self-styled illiberal government of Hungary’s former premier Viktor Orban.
However, the appointment of new Prime Minister Peter Magyar saw the veto quickly lifted earlier this month.
Israel earlier condemned the sanctions, asserting that Jews have the right to settle in the occupied West Bank, despite that being in violation of international law.
In 2025, the expansion of Israeli settlements reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking data.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the West Bank has been gripped by almost daily violence involving Israeli troops and settlers. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, according to the UN.



The administration of United States President Donald Trump has filed lawsuits against four Democrat-leaning states for refusing to issue confidential licence plates for vehicles carrying federal immigration agents.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice announced the complaint on its website, accusing Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington of defying the federal government’s demands.
Undercover licence plates, it argued, were necessary for the “operational effectiveness and safety” of agents “who have faced a wave of targeted harassment”.
But officials in the states have pushed back, arguing that agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should not be allowed to carry out their activities in secret, without proper oversight.
The clash comes as Trump carries out a mass deportation campaign that critics have accused of human rights violations, including unwarranted violence, illegal arrests and denial of due process rights.
The Trump administration, however, has used concerns about ICE safety to crack down on efforts to identify agents.
Over the last year, for instance, the administration has pressured tech companies like Apple and Google to remove apps that tracked ICE agents, citing the risk of violence.
It has also dismissed a list of requested reforms from congressional Democrats, which called on ICE agents to be readily identifiable, stop racial profiling and abide by use-of-force standards.
The question of how to hold ICE accountable remains a politically divisive one. Trump officials have gone so far as to imply ICE could be immune from prosecution.
After an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, Vice President JD Vance initially told reporters, “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job,” though he later walked back that statement.
Confidential licence plates are one tactic the federal government uses to shield its agents from public identification.
Licence plate numbers are generally kept in databases accessible by state and federal officials. But a private licence plate obscures the owner of a given vehicle.
Several of the states the Trump administration sued on Thursday have argued that ICE agents are largely pursuing civil infractions, not criminal investigations, and are therefore not entitled to such protections.
Watchdog groups have also largely opposed such identity-masking, arguing that it allows ICE agents to commit violence without accountability.
On Thursday morning, in a news conference, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey addressed the lawsuit by describing incidents where ICE has overstepped its authority, including by arresting US citizens and lawful residents.
“Last night, Donald Trump and the US Department of Justice filed a complaint suing our Registry of Motor Vehicles,” Healey said. “They want us to give ICE confidential licence plates so they can operate in secret in Massachusetts — in secret, even from our law enforcement.”
She then proceeded to draw a line between ICE’s actions and those of other federal law enforcement agencies.
“We support law enforcement doing legitimate law enforcement work. That’s not what we’re seeing from ICE,” Healey continued.
“So we’re not going to help them operate in secret as they take people off our streets without cause. We’re not going to allow them to make our streets and our communities and our neighbourhoods and our state less safe.”
Separately, in Oregon, officials have explained to the Trump administration that the state has temporarily paused all registration for federal vehicles, while a legal evaluation is under way.
“The DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] pause is not intended to place federal law enforcement officers at risk or undermine ongoing criminal investigations,” Amy Joyce, an official with Oregon’s Department of Transportation, wrote in an open letter.
“The pause is necessary to ensure issuance of vehicle registrations and license plates to federal agencies fully complies with Oregon law.”
Oregon has so-called sanctuary laws that prohibit state agencies from collaborating on federal immigration enforcement, even if indirectly. A judicial warrant is needed for state participation.
In her letter, Joyce added that “the prospect of litigation in this area is real”, pointing to lawsuits the state has faced in the past.
She also underscored that giving federal vehicles undercover plates is discretionary, and that Oregon is not required to distribute them. Federal vehicles can still operate on Oregon roads without a state licence plate.
But in issuing its lawsuits on Thursday, the Trump administration is likely to tee up a legal battle over the division of state and federal powers.
Officials with the Department of Justice have argued that not assigning ICE agents confidential licence plates is not only illegal, but violates the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
That law gives federal law precedence over any state law that might conflict with its mandate.
But it is unclear whether such an argument will ultimately prevail in court. States are generally in charge of their own motor vehicle departments, while the federal government has the power to distribute its own plates for official use.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, however, has argued that, by denying local licence plates, the states in question are illegally restricting the activities of the federal government.
“By denying undercover license plates to DHS [Department of Homeland Security] components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” Blanche said in a statement.
“These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities.”
The lawsuits themselves make the case that federal plates would compromise immigration agents during their undercover operations.
“Such law enforcement operations require federal law enforcement officers to blend into the environment to avoid premature detection that could undermine the mission and place them at risk,” the lawsuit against Massachusetts reads.
“If agents are forced to use a single traceable public plate, enforcement targets may be able to track and evade enforcement.”
But in response to that suit, Governor Healey said the issue ultimately comes down to whether federal agents will “respect the rule of law here in Massachusetts”.
A man stabbed and wounded three people in what authorities have described as an “act of terror” at a train station in the Swiss city of Winterthur.
The attack took place shortly before 8:30am (06:00 GMT) on Thursday. The suspect – who was arrested five minutes after emergency services were alerted – is a 31-year-old Swiss-Turkish dual national who lives in Winterthur, regional police chief Marius Weyermann said.
He had come to the authorities’ attention in 2015 for distributing propaganda of the ISIL (ISIS) group, Weyermann added. In recent days, he was taken to a psychiatric facility after calling the police emergency number and making “confused comments”, but he left on Wednesday after a doctor determined that he wasn’t dangerous.
Three Swiss men, ages 28, 43 and 52, were wounded in Thursday’s attack.
The first two were discharged or were about to be released from hospitals by mid-afternoon, Weyermann said. The oldest was still hospitalised after an operation on a thigh injury.
Weyermann said investigators believe the man acted alone.
Mario Fehr, the Zurich region’s top security official, described the attack as “an evil act of terror”.
He said the suspect was born in Switzerland and gained Swiss citizenship in 2009 and apparently had spent much of the last two years in Turkiye.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin said he was “shocked by the terrorist attack … This deeply affects me”.
“I wish the three injured a swift and full recovery. And I thank the emergency services for their work.”
Reacting to the attack, Switzerland’s Islamic Central Council (IZR) said in a statement that it “strongly condemns this cowardly and barbaric act”.
ISIL, it added, “is not an Islamic movement, but a perverse terrorist sect whose sole aim is to sow discord, murder innocent people and damage the reputation of Muslims worldwide”.
Winterthur has about 123,000 residents and is located in northeastern Switzerland, near the country’s biggest city, Zurich.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed the Israeli army to expand its control of the Gaza Strip to 70 percent, according to remarks aired by Israeli media.
“At this point, we are fully in control of 60 percent of the territory of the Gaza Strip … and my directive is to get to … 70 percent,” Netanyahu said in footage recorded by Channel 12 and aired on Thursday.
When someone in the audience shouted that Israel should take the entire besieged enclave, the prime minister said “we are going in order”, according to The Times of Israel. “First 70 percent,” he said without disputing that a complete takeover could take place. “We’ll start with that.”
The Israeli army had in mid-March quietly sent maps to aid organisations showing it had already expanded its control to about 11 percent beyond the so-called “Yellow Line” demarcating areas of the enclave occupied by Israeli troops. That line was agreed in a United States-brokered “ceasefire” in October 2025. That meant it controlled 64 percent of the Palestinian territory, instead of 53 percent.
Due to the Israeli army occupation, Palestinians cannot access about two-thirds of Gaza. A further seizure of the territory would force two million of them, already living in disastrous conditions, into an even smaller territory after enduring two years of genocidal war.
Despite the nominal truce reached last year, Israeli bombing in Gaza continues with near-daily attacks. An Al Jazeera tally from October to April counted at least 2,400 Israeli violations. Earlier on Thursday, health authorities said an Israeli air raid killed at least 10 people, including four children, and wounded 20 others.
According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) latest report, the humanitarian situation for civilians in Gaza remains critical, with displaced families living in overcrowded tents, schools or damaged structures. Clean water is scarce, and poor waste collection is increasing health risks, including the spread of rats and insects. Many neighbourhoods across Gaza are also still dangerous, with frequent air strikes, shelling and shootings happening in or near residential areas, the report said.
Last week, the high representative overseeing the US-founded Board of Peace for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, warned that the deteriorating status quo in the enclave risks becoming “permanent”.  Speaking to the UN Security Council, he urged the international body to use “every means at its disposal” to press Hamas to disarm and to push Israel to uphold its commitment under the October ceasefire, pointing to its continued killings and restrictions on humanitarian flow.
The war that Israel launched following the October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel by Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups has killed more than 72,775 Palestinians. The Israeli military continues to maintain a strict security regime, and many hundreds more have been killed in the past seven months. Conflict monitors warn that since the US-Israel war on Iran started in February, Israeli bombardment of Gaza has accelerated.



The United States has enough munitions for any plausible scenario in the Iran war, but rebuilding its depleted inventories will “take years”, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Restoring pre-war stockpiles of four critical munitions heavily used by US forces during nearly 40 days of joint fighting with Israel against Iran would take at least two years – and in some cases more than three – the Washington-based think tank said on Wednesday.
While US officials publicly project confidence in weapons stockpiles, analysts have said that dwindling munition supplies may be shaping Washington’s calculations over whether to resume the war on Iran.
“Campaigns against Iran and its proxies – and, for Patriot interceptors, aid to Ukraine – have made the problem more acute,” said the CSIS report.
“Alongside replenishing its own stocks, the United States also has to fulfil orders from allies and partners.”
A finding by the think tank last month said that the four key munitions that had been depleted to more than half their pre-war inventory levels included the Land Attack Missile (TLAM), the Terminal High Altitude Area Defences (THAAD) interceptors, Patriot missiles, and the SM-3 and SM-6 ship-based surface-to-air missiles.
The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) and Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) will take several months to a year to replace, CSIS said. The pre-war PrSM inventory was low because the system had just begun production, while JASSM, though heavily used in the Iran war, will see large deliveries from recent procurements, it added.



“Decisions on how to allocate new production have already created bilateral friction, and this friction will continue for the next few years as demand outpaces supply,” the report warned.
The main problem is not funding but production time, limited manufacturing capacity and long procurement lead times, with CSIS noting that past procurement levels were relatively low for many systems, slowing replacement efforts despite recent increases in defence spending.
“There will be a window of vulnerability for several years until inventories return to their previous levels and another several years before they get to the levels that war planners desire,” said CSIS.
US combat experience in recent conflicts may still help preserve deterrence against China during the replenishment period, it added.
Emerging evidence of depleting stockpiles of weapons has surfaced in recent weeks.
The Washington Post revealed earlier this month that the US used more of its advanced missile-defence interceptors to defend Israel than even Israel itself during the 40 days of the Iran war.
The US Navy last week paused $14bn in weapons sales to Taiwan that Congress has approved but President Donald Trump needs to sign off on. The navy’s secretary stating that it needs munitions for the Iran war.
Omar Ashour, a professor of security and military studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, previously told Al Jazeera that while the Iran war did not empty the US arsenal of weapons, it burned through some of the most important and strategically valuable layers of it.
“It’s not tactical exhaustion, it’s just a strategic inventory shock if you wish, because that depletion will affect other theatres [of war],” Ashour said.
CSIS said last month that while the US has enough missiles to continue fighting the Iran war, the risk “which will persist for many years, lies in future wars”.



The United States and Iran have reached a preliminary memorandum of understanding (MOU) to extend the ceasefire between the two countries for 60 days and start negotiations for permanently ending the war, according to officials.
The US sources told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the framework still needs President Donald Trump’s final approval. If finalised, the agreement would be a major breakthrough after weeks of stalled diplomacy.
But details of the tentative deal remain obscure. It is also unclear whether the 60-day extension represents a deadline for the negotiations. The ongoing truce is already open-ended.
The MOU would come after sporadic skirmishes between the US and Iran in the Gulf that threatened to unravel the truce. The two sides traded limited attacks earlier on Thursday.
Axios first reported the preliminary deal earlier on Thursday. The White House confirmed the report to Al Jazeera.
According to Axios, the deal stipulates that vessel traffic would be “unrestricted” in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the US would lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports.
Tehran has been claiming sovereignty over the strategic waterway, saying that the strait must be managed jointly by Iran and Oman because it goes through the two countries’ territorial waters.
But the US has rejected any form of Iranian control, including a tolling system, in the Hormuz Strait.
Earlier on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also threatened Oman — a close ally of Washington — with sanctions if it facilitates the imposition of fees on ships going through the strait.
Bessent later declined to confirm details of the reported deal, and he suggested that there can be no agreement that does not meet Trump’s red lines.
“It’s always a mistake to get out ahead of the president, so it is all going to be the president’s decision,” Bessent told reporters.
He added that Trump has made his three conditions for Iran clear: re-opening Hormuz, giving up the stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and ending the nuclear programme.



Tasnim, Iran’s semi-official news agency, cited a source close to the negotiations as denying claims of US officials of an imminent agreement.
“If the text is indeed finalised, Iran will announce the matter to the Pakistani mediator and to the people. And until then, any narrative from Western sources about the finalisation of the matter is not valid,” it said.
In addition to an agreement about the waterway, the reported memorandum also requires that Iran commit to not pursuing a nuclear weapon.
But Tehran has already made that commitment publicly numerous times. Slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US and Israel on the first day of the war, February 28, had issued a religious decree against weapons of mass destruction.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated on Thursday that his country is “not looking for nuclear weapons”.
“We do not engage in diplomacy with humiliation,” he was quoted as saying by Iran’s ISNA news agency.
While the reported deal could resolve the Hormuz issue, other sticking points, including the continuation of US sanctions and the future of Iran’s uranium stockpile, would need to be addressed in further talks.
Iran has insisted on its right to enrich uranium domestically, which is not prohibited under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). But Trump has stressed that the country’s entire nuclear programme must be dismantled.
The US is also seeking limits on Iran’s missile and drone production, but Tehran has ruled out negotiations over its defence policies.
Another issue is the raging war in Lebanon, where Israel has intensified its attacks, killing dozens of people over the past weeks and issuing forced displacement orders for two of the largest cities in the south of the country.
The Iran-allied group Hezbollah has also stepped up its drone launches against invading Israeli forces.
Israel bombed Beirut on Thursday for the first time in three weeks — the second attack on the Lebanese capital since the “ceasefire” reached in April.
Iran has previously said that any truce must include Lebanon.
Separately, the Lebanese government has been holding direct talks with Israel to end the war. The US has previously said that Lebanon was not part of the April truce while separately backing and hosting the Lebanon-Israel talks.
United States news channel CNN has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in New York federal court, alleging the AI search engine provider is unlawfully distributing its copyrighted content, marking the latest legal tussle between the AI firm and a news publisher.
The complaint, filed on Thursday, said that Perplexity unlawfully copied thousands of CNN stories, videos and images to power its products and distribute “identical or substantially similar” competing content.
“You can’t copyright facts,” Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said in response to the lawsuit.
CNN is asking for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a court order blocking Perplexity from violating its intellectual property rights.
“CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” the Warner Bros-owned news company said in a statement.
“By exploiting CNN’s reporting in this manner, Perplexity violates the protections afforded by copyright law and undermines the economic incentives that make original newsgathering possible,” CNN said in the complaint.
Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, news publishers and writers have worried about their content being repurposed to appear in the results of a chatbot query, triggering battles over copyright, compensation and ownership.
CNN’s lawsuit is one of dozens of high-stakes US cases brought by copyright owners, including news outlets, authors and publishers, against tech companies over alleged misuse of their work to train large language models. Anthropic was the first AI company to settle one of these cases last year, agreeing to pay $1.5bn to resolve a class action lawsuit from a group of authors.
The CNN suit is the latest in a series of legal challenges brought against Perplexity, which uses AI to scour websites and answer users’ queries, alleging the company has infringed copyrights and unlawfully scraped data to train its technology.
Perplexity is also facing lawsuits from The New York Times, Reddit and Dow Jones, among others.
Several news firms have now signed licensing deals and partnerships with Big Tech and generative AI companies to ensure that their models have access to verified sources of news, while also compensating publishers and linking back to original articles.

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