PORT-AU-PRINCE — Armed men mounted further attacks in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region on Tuesday, days after a gang’s weekend assault in the area of Jean-Denis left some 70 people dead, according to human rights groups and local residents.

National police said it was conducting operations in several parts of Artibonite on Tuesday.

Residents of Jean-Denis counted 70 bodies on Sunday morning after an attack by the Gran Grif gang, the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) said in a report, matching the estimates of the Defense Plus rights group but far above official estimates, which put the death toll at around 16.

RNDDH said some 30 more people were wounded, and victims included infants, pregnant women, teenagers and an 80-year-old man.

Armed men withdrew from Jean-Denis on Monday, RNDDH said, but on Tuesday they repositioned themselves in nearby Pont Benoit and were attempting to launch another offensive in the town of Marchand Dessalines, some 19 kilometers (12 miles) north.

Videos shared on social media showed armed men reportedly belonging to the Kokorat San Ras gang, a close ally of the powerful Gran Grif, distributing cash to residents in Marchand Dessalines. Gran Grif has been designated a terrorist organization by the US and the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Residents told Reuters local self-defense brigades did not have the firepower to hold off the gangs, which would wait during the day when police were present but begin shooting and setting fire to buildings at night.

RNDDH, whose report followed interviews with local authorities, police and residents, said Gran Grif’s attack on Jean-Denis followed weeks of threats and residents did not flee because they believed the self-defense brigade would protect them.

The self-defense brigade however withdrew as they did not have the firepower to hold off the attack, RNDDH said.

The police response was limited, it noted, with armored vehicles that managed to reach the scene staying just a few hours before withdrawing and returning on Monday.

Local authorities told the rights group most of their armored vehicles were out of service, some because of battery issues that required help from mechanics based in Port-au-Prince, and that units belonging to the UN-backed security force had to await authorization from the capital before deploying.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime received a UN delegation with whom he discussed the arrival of an expanded mission of a so far only partially deployed security force, which has suffered from lack of equipment, troops and funds. — Reuters

A ROADSIDE explosion appears to have struck the convoy of two Indonesian peacekeepers killed in southern Lebanon, the UN peacekeeping chief said on Tuesday, citing initial findings of an investigation.

The two peacekeepers with the UNIFIL force were killed on Monday near Bani Hayyan in south Lebanon and two other soldiers were wounded. Another Indonesian soldier was killed overnight Sunday into Monday when a projectile exploded near one of the group’s positions.

“UNIFIL is conducting investigations to determine the circumstances of these reprehensible developments,” Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the head of UN peacekeeping, told a UN Security Council meeting on Lebanon, where a new war between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah erupted on March 2.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that its review of an incident involving UNIFL troops on Monday concluded that Israeli troops did not place an explosive device in the area and that no troops were present there.

It also called on the UNIFL to avoid a presence in combat zones where it has issued an evacuation warning for civilians.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, blamed the deaths of the three peacekeepers on Hezbollah. He charged that the group launches rockets from villages next to UN positions, “putting peacekeepers directly in the line of fire.”

Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Asked about Mr. Danon’s statement, UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said: “We invite them to share their evidence with our investigative team.”

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a briefing a “roadside bomb, most likely an IED,” or improvised explosive device, was to blame for the Bani Hayyan incident.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the killing of the peacekeepers, saying that such attacks were “grave violations of international humanitarian law … and may amount to war crimes.”

“There will need to be accountability,” he added in a statement.

Indonesia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms,” adding that they reflected the deteriorating security environment in the region. It said that ongoing Israeli military operations have placed UN peacekeepers in Lebanon at grave risk.

US envoy to the UN Mike Waltz told the Security Council meeting that since 1978, more than 300 UNIFIL peacekeepers had been killed, showing that the council “must think very carefully about the effectiveness of this effort.”

“We can help refocus international efforts on supporting Lebanese state institutions, reducing risk to peacekeepers, and pressing Hezbollah and Iran to cease their destabilizing activities,” he said.

In line with a Security Council decision, UNIFIL will cease operations at the end of 2026 and withdraw in 2027. As of March, UNIFIL had 7,505 peacekeepers from 47 nations. — Reuters

WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM/CAIRO — US President Donald Trump said the United States could end its military attacks on Iran within two to three weeks and Tehran did not have to make a deal as a prerequisite for the conflict to wind down.

The remarks underscored the shifting and at times contradictory statements from Washington about how the war, now in its fifth week, might end.

“We’ll be leaving very soon,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, saying the exit could take place “within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three.”

Asked if successful diplomacy with Iran was a prerequisite for the US to conclude what it has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury”, Mr. Trump said it was not.

“Iran doesn’t have to make a deal, no,” he said. “No, they don’t have to make a deal with me.”

The White House later said Mr. Trump would address the nation “to provide an important update on Iran” at 9 p.m. EDT on Wednesday (0100 GMT on Thursday).

Washington previously threatened to intensify military operations if Tehran did not accept a 15-point US ceasefire framework that had among its core demands that Iran commit not to pursue nuclear weapons, halt all uranium enrichment and fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Mr. Trump was willing to make a deal with Iran to end the war that has killed thousands, spread across the region, disrupted energy supplies, and threatened to send the global economy into a tailspin.

Talks were ongoing and gaining strength, Mr. Hegseth said, but the US was prepared to continue the war if Iran did not comply.

“We have more and more options, and they have less … in only one month we set the terms, the upcoming days will be decisive,” Mr. Hegseth said in Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he has been receiving direct messages from US special envoy Steve Witkoff but they do not constitute “negotiations”, Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV cited him as saying.

The messages include threats or exchanged views delivered through “friends,” he added.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday hit back with a new threat against US companies in the region starting on Wednesday.

It listed 18 businesses including Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel, IBM, Tesla, and Boeing that would be targeted from 8 p.m. Tehran time (1630 GMT).

When asked if he was concerned about threats to the companies, Mr. Trump said no. “They don’t have much left to threaten,” he said of Iran.

Mr. Trump earlier on Tuesday also criticized countries that have not helped the US war effort, such as Britain.

In a social media post, he said that in response to the global fuel shortage, these countries should buy energy from the US or find “some delayed courage, go to the strait and just TAKE IT”.

France and Italy have pushed back against some US-Israeli military operations, sources said, highlighting how divisions between NATO allies have been exposed by the war.

WAR CONTINUES TO RAGE
The war has also revived conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.

At least seven people were killed and 24 wounded in two Israeli strikes in the Beirut area, the Lebanese health ministry said on Wednesday, in attacks that hit vehicles in Beirut’s southern outskirts and in an area just south of the capital.

Israel’s military said on Wednesday it carried out two separate strikes targeting a senior Hezbollah commander and another senior member of the Iran-aligned group in the Beirut area. It did not identify them or say whether they had been killed.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah on the strikes.

With the conflict in the Middle East showing no sign of easing, Pakistan is seeking to mediate in the war.

The foreign ministers of China and Pakistan on Tuesday called for an immediate ceasefire, urging peace talks to be held as soon as possible after they met in Beijing.

Iran has remained defiant despite heavy US and Israeli attacks for the past month, as neighbors have been pulled into the conflict.

Syrian state television reported that explosions heard in Damascus were the result of Israeli air defenses intercepting Iranian missiles.

A weather station’s radar and building in the Iranian port of Bushehr were put out of service on Tuesday after being hit twice in US-Israeli attacks, a regional official told state media.

The Mobarakeh steel plant in the central city of Isfahan was attacked for the second time in a week, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, and parts of the Sefiddasht Steel Complex in the city of Borujen were targeted, according to the Fars news agency.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

Higher oil and fuel prices have started to weigh on US household finances and are a political headache for Mr. Trump and his Republican Party before the November midterm elections.

The US national average retail price of gasoline crossed $4 a gallon for the first time in over three years on Monday, data from price-tracking service GasBuddy showed.

Two-thirds of Americans believe the US should work to end its involvement in the Iran war quickly, even if that means not achieving the goals set out by the Trump administration, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found. — Reuters