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Fighting rages on Thai-Cambodian border despite Trump’s ceasefire claim

By The Associated Press

SURIN, Thailand (AP) — Fighting raged Saturday morning along the border of Thailand and Cambodia, even after U.S. President Donald Trump, acting as a mediator, declared that he had won agreement from both countries for a new ceasefire.

Thai officials said they did not agree to a ceasefire. Cambodia has not commented directly on Trump’s claim, but its defense ministry said Thai jets carried out airstrikes Saturday morning.

Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said Saturday that some of Trump’s remarks didn’t “reflect an accurate understanding of the situation.”

He said Trump’s characterization of a land mine explosion that wounded Thai soldiers as a “roadside accident” was inaccurate, and did not reflect Thailand’s position that it was a deliberate act of aggression.

Sihasak said that Trump’s willingness to credit what may be “information from sources that deliberately distorted the facts” instead of believing Thailand hurt the feelings of the Thai people “because we consider ourselves — we are proud, in fact — to be the oldest treaty ally of the United States in the region.”

The latest large-scale fighting was set off by a skirmish on Dec. 7 that wounded two Thai soldiers and derailed a ceasefire promoted by Trump that ended five days of earlier combat in July over longstanding territorial disputes.

The July ceasefire was brokered by Malaysia and pushed through by pressure from Trump, who threatened to withhold trade privileges unless Thailand and Cambodia agreed. It was formalized in more detail in October at a regional meeting in Malaysia that Trump attended.

Number of displaced from fighting tops half a million

More than two dozen people on both sides of the border have officially been reported killed in this past week’s fighting, while more than half a million have been displaced.

The Thai military acknowledged 15 of its troops died during the fighting, and estimated earlier this week that there have been 165 fatalities among Cambodian soldiers. Cambodia has not announced military casualties, but has said at least 11 civilians have been killed and more than six dozen wounded.

Trump, after speaking to Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, announced on Friday an agreement to restart the ceasefire.

“They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord made with me, and them, with the help of the Great Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post.

Trump’s claim came after midnight in Bangkok. Thai Prime Minister Anutin had, after his call with Trump, said he had explained Thailand’s reasons for fighting and said peace would depend on Cambodia ceasing its attacks first.

The Thai foreign ministry later explicitly disputed Trump’s claim that a ceasefire had been reached. Anutin’s busy day on Friday included dissolving Parliament, so new elections could be held early next year.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, in comments posted early Saturday morning, also made no mention of a ceasefire.

Leaders held Friday night phone talks with Trump

Hun Manet said he held phone conversations on Friday night with Trump, and a night earlier with Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, and thanked both “for their continuous efforts to achieve a long-lasting peace between Cambodia and Thailand.”

“Cambodia is ready to cooperate in any way that is needed,” Hun Manet wrote.

Anwar later posted on social media that he was urging the two sides to implement a ceasefire on Saturday night. Cambodia’s prime minister, also posting online, endorsed the initiative, which included having Malaysia and the United States help monitor it. However, Thai Prime Minister Anutin denied that his country was even in negotiations over the proposal.

Thailand has been carrying out airstrikes on what it says are strictly military targets, while Cambodia has been firing thousands of medium-range BM-21 rockets that have caused havoc but relatively few casualties.

BM-21 rocket launchers can fire up to 40 rockets at a time with a range of 30-40 kilometers (19-25 miles). These rockets cannot be precisely targeted and have landed largely in areas from where most people have already been evacuated.

However, the Thai army announced Saturday that BM-21 rockets had hit a civilian area in Sisaket province, seriously injuring two civilians who had heard warning sirens and had been running toward a bunker for safety.

Thailand’s navy was also reported by both sides’ militaries to have joined the fighting on Saturday morning, with a warship in the Gulf of Thailand shelling Cambodia’s southwestern province of Koh Kong. Each side said the other opened fire first.

——

Peck reported from Bangkok. Sopheng Cheang in Serei Saophoan, Cambodia, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

‘We will retaliate like an earthquake:’ How Iran could respond to Trump’s economic ‘D-Day’

By CNN
(CNN) — As Washington launches its latest plan to cripple Iran’s economy, the Islamic Republic has threatened a regional and global response designed to raise the stakes for the United States and the world.In a news conference on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US will target a complex network built by Iran over years to allow its entities to evade Washington’s wide-ranging sanctions. The move comes after six months of a war launched by the US and Israel that has since reached a stalemate amid a lack of diplomatic resolution.The sweeping secondary sanctions unveiled by Bessent include penalties for Iranian trade partners in sectors that the Islamic Republic uses to prop its economy, such as digital assets, technology and shipping. But the much-anticipated announcement of Trump’s “economic D-Day” measures left many underwhelmed after Washington decided to hold off on imposing major new measures, instead focusing largely on expanding and stepping up enforcement of existing sanctions, while warning that stricter penalties could follow for countries that did not cut ties.Instead of succumbing to the threats, Iran is touting its ability to inflict reciprocal pain, warning of expanded strikes on regional oil producers and European countries, and even teasing the weaponization of its nuclear program.“We’ve been playing chess for a long time…we’ve also learned to play poker,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters on Monday. “Now, for some time, we’ve been playing a combination of the two.”Here’s how Iran could respond to the US economic escalation:Driving the price of oil even higherFor months, Iran has blocked vessels from using the Strait of Hormuz, preventing regional countries from exporting oil and gas through a route that before the war accounted for a fifth of global supplies. Iran’s proxy in Yemen, the Houthi group, has recently opened a new front in the Red Sea, targeting Saudi oil exports and infrastructure.Now, the Islamic Republic’s top military officials are threatening to strike energy targets beyond the Strait of Hormuz, potentially hitting some of the emerging oil shipment routes that bypass the waterway.“If the economic war continues, not a single drop of oil will be exported, neither through the Strait of Hormuz nor from anywhere in the Persian Gulf,” Mohsen Rezaei, the leader of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X. “We will retaliate in an earthquake-like manner,” he said later in a televised interview.Any resulting attacks or disruption to shipping could drive global oil prices higher, likely raising gasoline prices at US pumps.Aided by the US Navy, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and UAE oil companies have started turning transponders off in their oil tankers to evade detection by Iranian authorities, and have been exporting oil with some success, although crossings are well below pre-war figures.Saudi Arabia has rerouted about 5 million barrels of oil per day through its East-West pipeline that allows it to export via the Red Sea instead of Hormuz. Middle Eastern oil producers have rerouted another 2 million barrels per day around the strait.Iran has signaled that it has those tankers in its crosshairs, publishing a list of 45 vessels it says are failing to comply with the rules it seeks to impose on Hormuz shipping, and warning that vessels violating its protocols will face restrictions on future passages, including “fines, detention, or confiscation.”Expanding the geographic scope of the warTehran could also target locations farther afield with its missiles.On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry pointed to US refueling aircraft leaving Bulgarian territory, warning that Tehran could target the European Union nation, which is also a NATO member.“Iran has the legitimate right to target the point of origin and source of any act of aggression,” Baghaei told reporters on Monday, adding that Tehran has “made clear that any action regarded as supporting US and Israeli military aggression against Iran constitutes, under international law, participation in an act of aggression.”Over the course of the war, Iran has struck 11 countries, mostly in the Gulf region. But it is also believed to have attacked a base used by British forces in Cyprus and has apparently demonstrated an ability to reach islands used by American forces deep in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles away.An attack on a US-allied EU nation and NATO member like Bulgaria would mark a significant escalation.“Iran will regard any country’s participation in or support for America’s economic war against the Iranian people as an act of war,” Rezaei said.Revising the nuclear doctrineIran has repeatedly maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it does not seek to build a bomb, despite claims by Israel and the US that have led to multiple attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.Following the US-Israeli killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who had banned nuclear weapons – the narrative among some official circles in Iran has gradually been shifting toward withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits members to never building a bomb.Around half a ton of highly enriched uranium – which can be used to build a weapon – remains buried inside Iran, with US intelligence assessing that Tehran has escalated efforts to seal off the cache.Iran’s parliament is debating a bill to withdraw from the NPT, according to Iranian lawmakers. On Sunday, Rezaei issued a rare statement touting the possibility of the country developing a nuclear weapon.“The whole world is saying, ‘So the NPT has no effect?’” he told the state broadcaster in an interview, adding, “when America is carrying out such a war, people ask: Why shouldn’t we pursue nuclear weapons ourselves?”Adaptation and deterrenceExperts say Washington’s collective measures of blockade, sanctions and military action are unlikely to lead to Iran abandoning its core negotiating positions of economic relief and acknowledgement of its control over the Strait of Hormuz.“Iran retains an ability to regionalize the costs imposed on it by threatening energy flows, infrastructure and regional commerce,” Sina Toossi, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., told CNN. “The more comprehensive Washington tries to make the economic blockade, the more countries it needs to cooperate, and potentially the more actors Tehran will pressure in response.”For now, Toossi said, Iran’s response will become a combination of economic adaptation and escalation deterrence.“Build alternative lifelines where possible, while making clear that an attempt at complete economic strangulation will not be cost-free for the region.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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