Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the rising U.S. death toll in the Iran wasallegations of Pakistani forces targeting civilians in Afghanistanand the cost of U.S. tariffs for American households.
Ongoing Investigation
Six U.S. service members were killed when a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, U.S. Central Command confirmed on Friday. “The circumstances of the incident are under investigation,” Centcom wrote on X. “However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.” The incident involved two aircraft in “friendly airspace,” only one of which landed safely, and investigators suspect that a midair collision during a refueling mission was to blame.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the rising U.S. death toll in the Iran wasallegations of Pakistani forces targeting civilians in Afghanistanand the cost of U.S. tariffs for American households.
Ongoing Investigation
Six U.S. service members were killed when a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, U.S. Central Command confirmed on Friday. “The circumstances of the incident are under investigation,” Centcom wrote on X. “However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.” The incident involved two aircraft in “friendly airspace,” only one of which landed safely, and investigators suspect that a midair collision during a refueling mission was to blame.
This is the fourth manned U.S. aircraft that has crashed since Operation Epic Fury began in late February. The other three were U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighters that were shot down by Kuwaiti aircraft in a friendly fire incident earlier this month; all six crew members from those jets ejected safely. Thursday’s crash brings the total number of U.S. service members killed in the war to 13.
Despite the death toll, U.S. President Donald Trump maintained on Friday that Washington is winning the war. “We are totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise,” he wrote on Truth Social as U.S. and Israeli forces launched new waves of attacks across Iran. Trump told Fox News on Friday that Iran will be hit “very hard” in the coming days.
The Iranian regime has been “killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” Trump wrote. “What a great honor it is to do so.”
Yet Iranian assaults continue to block commercial ships from transiting the Strait of Hormuz, threatening energy supply chains and driving up oil prices. Several European countries, including France, have reportedly opened talks with Tehran to try to negotiate guaranteed safe passage for their vessels.
It remains to be seen whether Tehran will be amenable. However, Iran has allowed a Turkish-owned bulk carrier to exit the strait, Turkish Transportation Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu confirmed on Friday, making it one of the first ships to be granted leave.
Meanwhile, the United States issued a 30-day sanctions waiver on Thursday for countries seeking to purchase Russian crude as part of the Trump administration’s effort to bring down oil costs. The waiver only applies to supplies loaded on or before March 12 onto vessels that are currently stranded at sea. According to Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, the waiver will affect around 100 million barrels of Russian crude—or almost a day’s worth of global output.
“The temporary increase in oil prices is a short-term and temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long-term,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on X on Thursday. That same day, though, the International Energy Agency—which the United States is a member of—warned that the Iran war has caused the biggest disruption to global oil supplies in history. Crude costs eased early on Friday in response to the waiver announcement but ticked back up just hours later.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Civilian casualties. Afghanistan’s Taliban regime accused Pakistani forces on Friday of targeting residential homes in Kabul and other Afghan provinces. The United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan confirmed the strikes, saying at least four civilians were killed and 14 others injured in the Pul-e-Charkhi area. Pakistani forces also bombed private Afghan airline Kam Air’s fuel depot near Kandahar International Airport on Friday; according to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahidthat fuel depot was used to supply civilian Kam Air flights as well as U.N. aircraft.
Islamabad has denied targeting civilian populations or infrastructure. On Friday, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X that the strikes were part of an ongoing operation targeting suspected militant camps and “terrorist support infrastructure” in the provinces of Kabul, Paktia, and Kandahar.
Cross-border fighting broke out late last month, when Pakistan declared “open war” on Afghanistan for allegedly harboring the Pakistani Taliban. Although a U.N. Security Council report has found evidence of Kabul providing these militants with weapons, the Taliban regime denies hosting the group and has instead accused Islamabad of trying to deflect blame for its own domestic security issues. In just 15 days of fighting, the U.N. mission has recorded at least 75 civilian fatalities and 193 injuries on both sides.
The price of Trump’s tariffs. New U.S. duties that Trump is pursuing could cost American households an average of $2,512 in 2026, congressional Democrats warned in a new study shared with The Associated Press on Friday. That would be a 44 percent increase from what tariffs cost last year, and it comes at a time when the Iran war is raising global oil and gas prices amid already high costs of living.
The report was produced by the Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee. “As American families continue to struggle with high costs, the President keeps choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan, the top Democrat on the committee.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump overstepped his executive power when he used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs on Washington’s trading partners. Trump has since imposed new duties under a different authority: Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. And on Wednesday, the Trump administration announced new trade investigations under Section 301 of that law to determine whether 16 U.S. trading partners’ “acts, policies, and practices are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce.”
According to White House spokesperson Kush Desai, U.S. tariffs are necessary to “renegotiate broken trade deals, lower drug prices, and secure trillions in investments for the American people,” adding that the Democrats’ study was “phony.”
On the ballot. A record number of political parties in Haiti registered by Thursday’s deadline to participate in the country’s upcoming general election. Around 280 parties are expected to take part in the vote, to be held on Aug. 30 with a runoff scheduled for Dec. 6. This will be Port-au-Prince’s first democratic election since Jovenel Moïse won the presidency in 2016 with support from less than 10 percent of registered voters.
Currently, Haiti is governed by interim Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. Port-au-Prince’s transitional council, which has overseen Haiti’s government since the assassination of Moïse in July 2021, stepped down in early February, as ordered by law.
“Today, the country needs a new leader to allow the population to breathe,” said Abel Decollines, a member of the newly founded Collective of Haitian Actors for Development and Alternative Organization party.
However, rampant gang violence threatens the Caribbean nation’s democratic future. Armed criminal groups control roughly 90 percent of Port-au-Prince and continue to expand their influence beyond the capital. In recent years, gang violence has killed thousands of people, displaced more than 1 million others, and devastated the economy. Haitian forces have used lethal drone strikes to counter these groups, killing civilians in the crossfire, and a U.N.-backed task force has largely failed to quell the violence.
What in the World?
What did Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, call a “provocative and aggressive war rehearsal” on Tuesday?
A. Japanese naval exercises around Taiwan
B. U.S. threats against the Cuban government
C. U.S.-South Korea military drills
D. India positioning military units along the Pakistani border
Odds and Ends
Has Banksy finally been unmasked? According to an in-depth Reuters investigation published Friday, the famous anonymous graffiti artist appears to be Robin Gunningham, a man from Bristol, England, who later adopted the name David Jones. Looking at travel records, court documents, and other clues, reporters were able to link Gunningham to a Banksy mural of a man in a bathtub that appeared on a destroyed building in the Ukrainian village of Horenka in 2022.
Tens of thousands of installations, prints, and paintings are believed to be Banksy artworks, though the exact number is unknown. Banksy has not commented on the Reuters piece.
And the Answer Is…
C. U.S.-South Korea military drills
Meanwhile, North Korea is pursuing weapons that could destroy enemy satellites, and it appears to be motivated by Washington’s Golden Dome missile defense plans, Ankit Panda writes.
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