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WASHINGTON — Key members of Congress are demanding a swift vote on a war powers resolution that would restrain President Donald Trump’s military attack on Iran unless the administration wins their approval for what they warn is a potentially illegal campaign that risks pulling the United States into a deeper Middle East conflict.

Both the House and Senate, where the president’s Republican Party has a slim majority, had already drafted such resolutions long before the strikes Saturday. Now they are ready to plunge into a rare war powers debate next week that will serve as a referendum on Trump’s decision to go it alone on military action without formal authorization from Congress.

“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), a leader in the bipartisan effort. He said the strikes on Iran were “a colossal mistake.”

In the House, Reps. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) are demanding Congress go on record with a public vote on their own bipartisan measure. “Congress must convene on Monday to vote,” Khanna said, “to stop this.”

Massie blasted Trump’s own presidential campaign slogan and said: “This is not ‘America First.’”

But most Republicans, particularly their leaders, welcomed Trump’s move against Iran. Many cited the longtime U.S. adversary’s nuclear programs and missile capabilities as requiring a military response.

“Well done, Mr. President,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). “As I watch and monitor this historic operation, I’m in awe of President Trump’s determination to be a man of peace but at the end of the day, evil’s worst nightmare.”

War powers debate tests Congress

The administration’s decision to launch, with Israel, what appears to be an open-ended joint military operation aimed at changing the government in Tehran is testing the Constitution’s separation of powers in deep and dramatic ways. Nearly two months earlier, Trump ordered U.S. strikes that toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

While presidents have the authority as the commander in chief to conduct certain strategic military operations on their own, the Constitution vests Congress with the power to wage war. Before the Iraq War began in March 2003, Republican President George W. Bush made a monthslong push to secure congressional authorization. No such vote was attempted on Iran, and an earlier Senate effort to halt Trump’s actions after last summer’s strike on Iran failed.

The congressional debate over war powers would mostly be symbolic. Even if a resolution were to pass the narrowly split Congress, Trump likely would veto it and Congress would not have the two-thirds majority needed to overturn that rejection. Congress has often failed to block other U.S. military actions, including in a Senate vote on Venezuela, but the roll calls stand as a public record.

Republican leaders back Trump’s action

The response by House Speaker Mike Johnson reflected the party’s long-standing views. Iran, he said, is facing “the severe consequences of its evil actions.”

Johnson (R., La.) said the leaders of the House and Senate and the respective intelligence committees had been briefed in detail earlier in the week that military action “may become necessary” to protect U.S. troops and citizens in Iran. He said he received updates from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and will stay in “close contact” with Trump and the Defense Department “as this operation proceeds.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) commended Trump “for taking action to thwart these threats.”

Thune said he looked forward to administration officials briefing all senators — a signal that lawmakers are seeking more answers to their questions about Trump’s plans ahead.

Democrats warn strikes are illegal

Many Democrats are calling the operation illegal, saying the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war. To them, the administration has failed to lay out its rationale or plan for the military strikes, and the aftermath.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the president has undertaken “illegal, regime-change war against Iran.”

“This is not making us safer & only damages the US & our interests,” Van Hollen (D., Md.) said in a social media post. “The Senate must immediately vote on the War Powers Resolution to stop it.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said while Iran is a “bad actor and must be aggressively confronted” for its human rights abuses and the threat it poses to the U.S. and allies, the administration ”must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.”

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, demanded that Congress be briefed immediately on the administration’s plans.

“Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon but the American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home,” he said.

BRUSSELS — How long will it last? Will it grow? What will it mean to us — and to global security overall? Those questions echoed across the Middle East and the planet Saturday as world leaders reacted warily to U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that sowed concerns of a broader conflict. The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting.

Perhaps cautious about upsetting already strained relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, many nations abstained from commenting directly or pointedly on the joint strikes but condemned Tehran’s retaliation. Similarly to Europeans, governments across the Middle East condemned Iran’s strikes on Arab neighbors while staying silent on the U.S. military action.

Other countries were more explicit: Australia and Canada expressed open support for the U.S. strikes, while Russia and China responded with direct criticism.

The U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on Iran on Saturday, and Trump called on the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny” by rising up against the Islamic theocracy that has ruled the nation since 1979. Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones toward Israel and U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

Some leaders urge resumption of talks

In a statement, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called on the U.S. and Iran to resume talks and said they favored a negotiated settlement. They said their countries didn’t take part in the strikes on Iran but are in close contact with the U.S., Israel, and partners in the region.

The three countries have led efforts to reach a negotiated solution over Iran’s nuclear program.

“We condemn Iranian attacks on countries in the region in the strongest terms. Iran must refrain from indiscriminate military strikes. We call for a resumption of negotiations and urge the Iranian leadership to seek a negotiated solution. Ultimately, the Iranian people must be allowed to determine their future,” they said.

Later, at an emergency security meeting, Macron said France was “neither warned nor involved” in the strikes. He called for intensified efforts for a negotiated solution, saying “no one can think that the questions of Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic activity, regional destabilization will be settled by strikes alone.”

The 22-nation Arab League called the Iranian attacks “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of countries that advocate for peace and strive for stability.” That coalition of nations has historically condemned both Israel and Iran for actions it says risk destabilizing the region.

Countries that maintain diplomatic ties with Israel — including Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates — denounced Iranian strikes targeting U.S. military bases in the region including in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Emirates.

Saudi Arabia said it “condemns and denounces in the strongest terms the treacherous Iranian aggression and the blatant violation of sovereignty.” Oman, which has been mediating the talks between Iran and the U.S., said in a statement that the U.S. action “constitutes a violation of the rules of international law and the principle of settling disputes through peaceful means, rather than through hostility and the shedding of blood.”

Careful wording is (mostly) the order of the day

Countries in Europe and the Middle East used careful wording, avoiding perceptions that they either support unilateral American action or are directly condemning the United States.

Others were more blunt. Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the strikes “a pre-planned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent U.N. member state.” The ministry accused Washington and Tel Aviv of “hiding behind” concerns about Iran’s nuclear program while actually pursuing regime change.

Similarly, China’s government said it was “highly concerned” about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and called for an immediate halt to the military action and a return to negotiations. “Iran’s sovereignty, security and territorial integrity should be respected,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his country supports the United States in its effort to stop Iran from obtaining an atomic bomb. He described Iran’s current leadership as a destabilizing force and noted two attacks on Australian soil that were blamed on Tehran. Last August, Australia cut off diplomatic relations with Iran and expelled its ambassador after accusing it of orchestrating two antisemitic attacks in the country.

Despite recent tensions with the U.S., Canada too expressed its support for the military action. “The Islamic Republic of Iran is the principal source of instability and terror throughout the Middle East,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said.

The United Nations chief condemned the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran and called for an immediate return to negotiations “to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink.”

Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday that everything must be done to prevent further escalation. “The alternative,” he warned, “is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.”

Guterres also condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, speaking to reporters before the meeting, said it was “hypocrisy” to condemn the airstrikes. He said Iran is responsible for the actions of its proxies in the Middle East and for its nuclear and missile programs, and Israel and the U.S. acted “to prevent an irreversible and immediate threat.”

Concerns expressed for ‘new, extensive’ war

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank said they were largely unfazed as war erupted Saturday, barely pausing as booms echoed across the sky from Israel’s Iron Dome intercepting missiles overhead.

Unlike Israel, Palestinian cities have no warning sirens or bomb shelters, despite the risk of falling debris or errant missiles. As people sheltered less than 10 miles away in Jerusalem, streets in Ramallah swarmed with shoppers browsing meat counters, vegetable stalls, and Ramadan sweets, some stopping to record the sounds of distant sirens and missile interceptions.

But as Israel closed checkpoints to the movement of people and goods on Saturday, gas stations saw longer-than-usual lines as residents filled spare canisters in case of supply disruptions.

Nervousness is perceptible across multiple countries as people fear a full-scale war engulfing the region. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he was concerned the failure of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran meant a “new, extensive war in the Middle East.”

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons condemned the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in harsher words. “These attacks are totally irresponsible and risk provoking further escalation as well as increasing the danger of nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons,” said its executive director, Melissa Parke.

EU leaders issued a joint statement Saturday calling for restraint and engaging in regional diplomacy in hopes of “ensuring nuclear safety.”

“We call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint, to protect civilians, and to fully respect international law,” the statement from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa said.

The Arab League, too, appealed to all international parties “to work towards de-escalation as soon as possible, to spare the region the scourge of instability and violence, and to return to dialogue.”

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan and Afghanistan exchanged cross-border attacks overnight in a dramatic escalation of tensions that led Pakistan’s defense minister to say on Friday that the two countries are in a state of “open war.”

Afghanistan launched an attack on Pakistan late Thursday, saying it was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday. Pakistan then carried out airstrikes in Kabul and two other Afghan provinces early Friday, saying it targeted military installations.

Tensions have been high for months. Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.

A Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting in October, but several rounds of peace talks in Turkey in November failed to produce a lasting agreement. The two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.

Qatar once again appears to be mediating. Its minister of state, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, spoke Friday with the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan in an effort to de-escalate tensions, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X.

Cross-border attack

Afghanistan’s attacks against Pakistani military targets was meant as “a message that our hands can reach their throats and that we will respond to every evil act of Pakistan,” Afghan government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said. “Pakistan has never sought to resolve problems through dialogue,” he said.

After the Afghan strikes, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif posted on X: “Our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”

Asif said Pakistan had hoped for peace in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2021 and expected the Taliban, which seized power in the country, to focus on the welfare of the Afghan people and regional stability.

Instead, he said the Taliban had turned Afghanistan “into a colony of India” — a reference to recently improving ties between India and Afghanistan, including offers of enhanced bilateral trade. Pakistan and neighboring India, both nuclear armed powers, have periodically engaged in wars, clashes and skirmishes since gaining independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

‘Exporting terrorism’

Asif also accused Afghanistan of “exporting terrorism,” an allegation Pakistan frequently levies at its neighbor as militant violence in the country surges. Specifically, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of supporting the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, as well as outlawed Baloch separatist groups.

Pakistan accuses the TTP, which is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, of operating from inside Afghanistan. Both the group and Kabul deny that charge.

“Pakistan’s internal conflict is a purely domestic issue and is not a new one,” Mujahid said Friday, noting the TTP had been active for nearly two decades.

Pakistan has also frequently accused neighboring India of backing the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban, allegations New Delhi denies.

Retaliatory strikes

Afghanistan said its attack Thursday was in retaliation for deadly Pakistani airstrikes on Afghan border areas Sunday.

The governments have issued sharply differing casualty claims.

Pakistan’s army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistani air and ground operations killed at least 274 members of Afghan forces and affiliated militants and wounded more than 400, while 12 Pakistani soldiers were killed and 27 others were wounded. One Pakistani soldier was missing in action.

Mujahid rejected the claims of the high number of Afghan casualties as “false.” He said that 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed with the bodies of 23 of them taken to Afghanistan. He also said “many” Pakistani soldiers were captured. Thirteen Afghan soldiers had been killed, he said, and another 22 wounded, while 13 civilians were also wounded.

Later on Friday, the Afghan government said that 19 civilians were killed and 26 others injured when Pakistan struck the provinces of Khost and Paktika in southeastern Afghanistan. Deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat accused Pakistan of having “deliberately targeted the residences of ordinary civilians” and said most of the dead and wounded were women and children.

The Afghan government had reported earlier that a religious school in Paktika province was bombed without providing details of casualties.

The claims of either side could not be independently verified.

Pakistan’s air force carried out airstrikes Friday night targeting military installations in Afghanistan’s Laghman province, two senior Pakistani security officials said. They said an arms depot and two key military installations were destroyed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistan’s anti-drone systems shot down several small drones over the northwestern cities of Abbottabad, Swabi, and Nowshera Friday. He said they appeared to be part of a failed attack by the Pakistani Taliban, and there were no casualties. Tarar claimed the drone attacks “once again exposed direct linkages between the Afghan Taliban regime and terrorism in Pakistan.”

International calls for restraint

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held separate phone calls with his Pakistani, Afghan, Qatari, and Saudi counterparts on Friday to discuss the conflict, a Turkish official said, without providing details on the talks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy.

In October, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia had facilitated talks between the sides.

On Friday, Mujahid said Afghanistan had “always emphasized a peaceful solution, and we still want to resolve the problem through dialogue.”

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged both sides to try to resolve their differences through diplomacy, and to protect civilians.

Russia called for an immediate halt to the fighting and for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, Russian diplomat Zamir Kabulov told news agency RIA Novosti. Kabulov, who is President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said that Moscow would consider mediating between the two countries if asked, according to RIA Novosti.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi urged Pakistan and Afghanistan to resolve their differences through dialogue during the holy month of Ramadan. He also said that Tehran was ready to assist in facilitating dialogue.

Refugees at the border

Pakistani authorities said that dozens of Afghan refugees in the Torkham border area had been relocated to safer places.

Pakistan launched a sweeping crackdown in October 2023 to expel migrants without documents, urging those in the country to leave of their own accord to avoid arrest and forcibly expelling others. Iran also began a crackdown on migrants at around the same time.

Since then, millions have crossed the border into Afghanistan, including people who were born in Pakistan decades ago and had built lives and created businesses there.

In 2025, 2.9 million people returned to Afghanistan, the U.N. refugee agency has said, with nearly 80,000 having returned so far this year.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced charges Friday against 30 more people who are accused of civil rights violations in a January protest inside a Minnesota church where a pastor works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Bondi said on social media that 25 people were in custody and more arrests would follow. The new indictment comes a month after independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort and prominent local activist Nekima Levy Armstrong were charged for their alleged roles in the protest at Cities Church in St. Paul.

Bondi accused the group of attacking a house of worship.

“If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you,” she wrote on social media.

In total, 39 people now face charges of conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom.

A livestreamed video posted on Facebook shows people interrupting services at Cities Church on Jan. 18 by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good,” a reference to the woman who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

The new defendants will have an initial court appearance and a magistrate judge will set conditions for their likely release. Lemon and Fort said they were at the church as journalists covering news. Levy Armstrong was the subject of a doctored photo posted by the White House showing her crying during her arrest. The three have pleaded not guilty.

Protesters descended on Cities Church after learning that one of the church’s pastors also serves as an ICE official. The protest drew swift condemnation from Trump administration officials and conservative leaders for disrupting a Sunday service.

The indictment says the “agitators” entered the church in a “coordinated takeover-style attack” and engaged in acts of intimidation and obstruction.

“Young children were left to wonder, as one child put it, if their parents were going to die,” the indictment says.

A lawyer for the church praised the Justice Department for charging more people.

“The First Amendment does not give anyone — regardless of profession, prominence, or politics — license to storm a church and intimidate, threaten, and terrorize families and children worshipping inside,” Doug Wardlow said in a statement.

The revised indictment adds new allegations when compared to the original filed in January.

It says two people “conducted reconnaissance” outside the church a day before the protest and recorded their visit on video, with one saying, “My thoughts are to be able to close up this whole alleyway right here.”

The court filing quotes one protester as chanting in the church, “This ain’t God’s house. This is the house of the devil.”

Levy Armstrong defended the protest shortly after it occurred. She said critics needed to “check their hearts” if they were more concerned about a disruption than the “atrocities that we are experiencing in our community.”

The protest came at a tense time in Minnesota, where the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers for Operation Metro Surge after a series of public fraud cases where the majority of defendants had Somali roots. Officers frequently deployed tear gas for crowd control in neighborhood clashes with residents, often detaining them along with immigrants.

Good, 37, was shot in Minneapolis. In another fatal shooting a week after the church protest, a federal officer killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti.

Nationwide demonstrations erupted in response, followed by a change in Operation Metro Surge’s leadership and the eventual wind-down of the immigration enforcement operation. Roughly 400 ICE officers and Homeland Security agents were expected to remain in Minneapolis by early March, down from roughly 3,000 at the peak, according to a court filing.

Since then, the Twin Cities have grappled with the impact to communities and the local economy. Minneapolis said it suffered an impact of $203 million due to the operation, with tens of thousands of residents in need of urgent relief assistance.

Separately, a woman who was at the church service has filed a lawsuit against some people who were charged, alleging emotional trauma and an inability to exercise her religion that day.