ISTANBUL – Iran still possesses sufficient military capability to strike Israel daily for two years, an adviser to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday.

“Our armed forces are at the height of their readiness,” Major General Ebrahim Jabbari told the semi-official Mehr news agency.

“Currently, the warehouses, underground missile bases, and facilities we have are so enormous that we have yet to demonstrate the majority of our defense capabilities and effective missiles,” he said.

“In case of a war with Israel and the US, our facilities will not run out even if we launch missiles at them every day for two years.”

Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made similar statements on Monday.

“The Zionists know that some of our forces, such as the Navy and the Quds Force, have not yet entered into battle, and even the army has not entered yet,” Safavi was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

“So far, we have produced several thousand missiles and drones, and their place is secure,” he added.

A conflict between Israel and Iran erupted on June 13, when Israel launched airstrikes on Iranian military, nuclear, and civilian sites, killing at least 935 people. The Iranian Health Ministry said 5,332 people were injured.

Tehran launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 3,400, according to figures released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The conflict ended with a US-sponsored ceasefire that took effect on June 24.

ANADOLU, 7.7.2025

MOSCOW, July 7 – Russian air defense downed 402 Ukrainian drones and seven guided aerial bombs over the past day, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday.

The ministry said that 91 drones were destroyed overnight, with most of them in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk and eight over the Moscow region.

Russia and Ukraine have intensified drone attacks recently. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia launched 101 drones overnight, adding that about 1,270 drones and 39 missiles were registered over the past week.

XINHUA

ABUJA, July 7 – At least 21 people died and three others were injured on Sunday after a truck and a bus collided head-on and went up in flames in Nigeria’s northern state of Kano.

The accident, which occurred along the Zaria-Kano highway in the Kasuwar Dogo area, was caused by the bus driver’s route violation, said Muhammed Bature, sector commander of Kano State Federal Road Safety Corps.

The crash triggered a fire that engulfed both vehicles, Bature said, noting that the injured were taken to a government hospital.

Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad road conditions and reckless driving.

XINHUA

CHENGDU, July 7 – Three people have died, and two others are missing following a mountain landslide on July 5 in Ya’an City, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, local authorities said on Monday.

The collapse took place at around 1:25 p.m. on a national highway in Chengxiang Town. Multiple vehicles were buried under the debris.

Local authorities promptly established an emergency response command center to coordinate rescue and relief operations.

As of 2:00 p.m. Monday, three vehicles and five people had been retrieved from the rubble and slurry. Two of the people escaped with minor injuries while three were pronounced dead at the scene despite the best efforts of the emergency team. Two people remain unaccounted for.

The rescue and relief operation is ongoing.

XINHUA

LAHORE – The owners of a pet lion that escaped from a farmhouse and injured a woman and her two children have been arrested in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, authorities said Sunday.

The arrest comes after dramatic video footage surfaced showing the lion leaping over a wall before attacking the victims in a residential area.

The woman and her 5- and 7-year-old children sustained injuries to their faces and arms on Wednesday night when the lion escaped from its cage, police official Faisal Kamran said.

According to a police report, the children’s father told police that the lion’s owners stood by and watched as the animal clawed at his family, making no effort to restrain it. The lion later returned to the owners’ farmhouse and was relocated to a wildlife park, police said.

Keeping exotic animals such as lions is considered a status symbol among some wealthy Pakistanis, despite the legal requirements and high fees associated with ownership.

AP

ISTANBUL – Five Turkish soldiers have died after exposure to methane gas on Sunday while searching a cave in northern Iraq for the remains of a fellow soldier killed by Kurdish militants in 2022, the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

Soldiers were searching a mountain cave when 19 of them were exposed to the gas, which is colorless, odorless, flammable and can cause asphyxiation in sufficient concentration.

“They were immediately transported to the hospital (but) despite all interventions, five heroic personnel were martyred,” the ministry said in a statement. “Rescue operations in the area continue.”

The ministry did not give a specific location for the incident other than the “Claw-Lock Operation region,” a reference to an operation launched against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in north Iraq in April 2022.

The Turkish unit affected by methane gas was searching for the remains of an infantry officer killed by “terrorist gunfire” during a search-and-clear operation in May 2022, the ministry said. For the last three years, teams have been hunting for his remains.

The cave was at an altitude of 852 meters (2,795 foot) and was known to have been used as a hospital by the PKK in the past, although it had since been cleared by Turkish soldiers.

AP

KARACHI, Pakistan – The death toll from a collapsed multistory residential building in Pakistan’s Karachi city rose to 27 on Sunday as a three-day rescue operation ended, officials said.

Rescuers pulled 11 more bodies from the rubble of the building that collapsed on Friday, according to Dr. Summayya Tariq, the Karachi police surgeon. Ten people were injured and one of them died at a hospital, she said.

Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the collapse.

Building collapses are common in Pakistan, where construction standards are often poorly enforced. Many structures are built with substandard materials, and safety regulations are often overlooked to reduce costs.

In June 2020, an apartment building collapsed in Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province, killing 22 people.

AP

GENEVA, July 6 – The Swiss embassy in Tehran reopened on Sunday after being temporarily closed on June 20 due to instability in Iran.

Ambassador Nadine Olivieri Lozano and a small team returned to Tehran on Saturday, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) said in a statement.

According to the FDFA, the decision to resume operations followed a comprehensive risk assessment.

The current conditions allow for a gradual resumption of embassy activities on site, the FDFA noted. However, consular services, including the issuing of visas, remain suspended for the time being.

Switzerland continues to closely monitor developments in the region and remains in regular contact with its international partners, the FDFA added.

XINHUA