Archive January 31, 2026

An explosion that killed two people and damaged a residential building in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas was likely caused by a gas leak, according to local officials and state media.

The blast took place on Saturday amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States and wounded at least 13 others, the officials said.

“The initial cause of the building accident in Bandar Abbas was a gas leak and build-up, leading to an explosion,” fire chief Mohammad Amin Lyaghat said in comments broadcast on state television.

“My colleagues will give more details in the next few hours,” he said.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency reported that two people were killed in the blast, citing Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, the head of crisis management in Hormozgan province, where Bandar Abbas is located.

Another 13 people were undergoing treatment, it said.

State television said the explosion occurred at an eight-storey building, “destroying two floors, several vehicles, and shops” in the area.

Images carried by Press TV showed the building’s facade blown out, exposing parts of its interior, with debris scattered around.

After rumours circulated online about the Bandar Abbas explosion, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denied that any of the buildings belonging to its naval forces in the province had been targeted, according to a statement carried by the Fars news agency.

Local newspaper Sobh-e Sahel showed footage of a man in a green security force uniform being carried out on a stretcher in a neck brace, and Tasnim later reported that one officer was injured after being called to the scene to help citizens.

The explosion took place amid fears of a military confrontation between Iran and the US, with President Donald Trump threatening to attack Tehran over a recent crackdown on antigovernment protests and Washington’s push to curtail the Iranian nuclear programme.

Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, said on X on Saturday that work on a framework for negotiations with the US was progressing, ​downplaying what he described as an “atmosphere created by artificial media warfare”.

Trump, meanwhile, said he believed Iran wanted to make a deal rather than face military action.

“[Iran is] talking to us, and we’ll see if we can do something; otherwise, we’ll see what happens … we have a big fleet heading out there,” he told Fox News. “They are negotiating,” he added.

Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman that handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.

The port suffered a big explosion in April of last year that killed dozens of people and injured more than 1,000 others.

Separately on Saturday, four people were killed in a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to the state-run Tehran Times.

Paul George of the Philadelphia 76ers has been suspended 25 games for violating the terms of the NBA’s Anti-Drug Program, the league has announced.

The NBA did not disclose the nature of the violation or the substance that was involved. The 25-game suspension, by terms of the agreement between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association, indicates that this was a first violation by George.

The suspension will cost George – a nine-time All-Star – roughly $11.7m of his $51.7m salary, or about $469,691.72 for each of the 25 games missed.

George is expected to be eligible to return on March 25, when Philadelphia plays host to Chicago. The 76ers will have 10 games remaining in the regular season at that point.

Philadelphia entered Saturday at 26-21, sixth in the Eastern Conference. The 76ers are 16-11 when George plays, 10-10 when he does not.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in Milan to protest the deployment of ICE agents during the upcoming Winter Olympics, unbothered by the fact that agents would be stationed in a control room and not operating on the streets.

The protest in Piazza XXV Aprile, a square named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in 1945, drew people from the left-leaning Democratic Party, the CGIL trade union confederation and the ANPI organisations that protect the memory of Italy’s partisan resistance during World War II, along with many other people.

Organisers handed out plastic whistles, which participants blew as music blared from a van. The protest was as much against the news that agents from a division of ICE would participate in security for the US delegation as against what many saw as creeping fascism in the United States.

“No thank you, from Minnesota to the world, at the side of anyone who fights for human rights,’’ read one banner. “Never again means never again for anyone,’’ read another, and “Ice only in Spritz,’’ a reference to a popular aperitif, read yet another.

News of the deployment of ICE agents has provoked a backlash in Italy. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala has said they were not welcome. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi has been called to Parliament to testify about the deployment this week.

Protester Silvana Grassi held a sign that read “Ice = Gestapo.” She said the scenes of ICE agents in Minneapolis shooting and killing protesters and detaining children were deeply upsetting.

“It makes me want to cry to think of it,’’ Grassi said. “It’s too terrible. How did they elect such a terrible, evil man?’’

The ICE agents to be deployed to Milan are not from the same unit as the immigration agents cracking down in Minnesota and other US cities.

Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.

“Even if it’s not the same ones, we don’t want them here,’’ Grassi said.

Paolo Bortoletto, also holding a banner, was aware that the officers would have an investigative and not a street role.

Still, he said, “We don’t want them in our country. We are a peaceful country. We don’t want fascists. It’s their ideas that bother us.”