GENEVA (AP) — Police are investigating whether a bus fire in a town west of the Swiss capital that killed at least six people was started deliberately.
Police spokesperson Frédéric Papaux of Fribourg canton, or region, said an unspecified “voluntary act” could have caused the fire Tuesday evening in the town of Kerzers, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Bern.
Five people were also injured in the fire, which for locals echoed a New Year’s Eve fire in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana that killed 41 young people.
Christa Bielmann, representing the Fribourg police, told Swiss broadcaster SRF: “There is information circulating that a person poured flammable liquid over themselves on the bus and that this caused the fire. But this is part of the ongoing investigation and is being clarified.”
“It shocks and saddens me that once again people have lost their lives in a serious fire in Switzerland,” Swiss President Guy Parmelin wrote on X on Tuesday night. “The circumstances are being investigated. I offer my condolences to the families of those who died in Kerzers. And my thoughts are with the injured and the rescue workers.”
There were no indications that this was a terror attack, Martial Pugin, head of communications for the Fribourg cantonal police, told broadcaster RTS on Wednesday morning.
The regional transport bus is operated by PostBus, which is affiliated with the national postal service. Images from the scene on Swiss media showed flames tearing through the bus.
"We are deeply moved by this tragic news. Our thoughts are with the victims, the injured, and all their families,” PostBus said in a statement on its website.
“After rushing to the scene, rescue teams noted that the vehicle was totally engulfed in flames,” the regional government said in a statement.
Ambulance and helicopter teams ferried three people with severe injuries to hospitals, while two others were treated on site, police said.
Papaux said at least six people were killed. Police said the identification of the victims could take several days.
The burned-out vehicle was removed during the night and traffic returned to normal as of Wednesday morning.
Firefighters and police officers install barriers to secure the area where a postal bus caught fire in Kerzers, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, after several passengers were killed and others injured when a postal bus caught fire late Tuesday afternoon in the center of Kerzers, according to the Fribourg cantonal police. (Laurent Merlet/Keystone via AP)
Firemen gather next to the charred shell of a postal bus, not pictured, which caught fire killing several people and injuring others, in Kerzers, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Fire investigators examine the charred shell of a postal bus that caught fire in Kerzers, Switzerland, Tuesday, March 10, 2026, after several passengers were killed and others injured when a postal bus caught fire late Tuesday afternoon in the center of Kerzers, according to the Fribourg cantonal police. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Iran fired missiles and drones at targets across the Gulf including oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and a ship off the coast of the Emirates, while Israeli and the United States struck targets across the Islamic Republic. Saudi Arabia and other states said they intercepted multiple drone attacks.
Six members of the Iranian women’s soccer team will remain in Australia, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday, while one of the squad members who was previously granted asylum changed her mind and planned to return to Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in social media posts there were no reports of Iran planting explosives in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil is shipped. The U.S. said it took out more than a dozen minelaying Iranian vessels Tuesday to help prevent any attempt to close the waterway.
Iran's vow not to allow any oil through the strategic strait has led to market volatility and fears of shortages, especially in Asia, which is dependent on oil shipped from the region.
Israel struck a building in the center of the Lebanese capital Beirut as part of its campaign against Hezbollah. The Lebanese group has been carrying out attacks against Israel in support of Iran.
Here is the latest:
Another ship came under attack Wednesday in the Persian Gulf, the British military said.
A bulk carrier was hit by a projectile off a distance from the United Arab Emirates, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.
“There is no report of any environmental impact,” the center said. “The crew are reported safe and well.”
It was the third attack reported Wednesday.
Speculation over the health of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei grew Wednesday after the son of Iran’s president mentioned hearing news about him “being injured.”
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is the son of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mojtaba Khamenei long has been a secretive figure within Iran. His father and wife both were killed in an Israeli airstrike Feb. 28 that started the war.
Khamenei has not been seen since, nor has he given any statement since becoming supreme leader on Monday.
In an overnight post on the app Telegram, Yousef Pezeshkian, the son of President Masoud Pezeshkian, wrote: “I heard news about Mr. Mojtaba being injured. I asked friends who were in contact. They said, thank God, he is healthy and there is no problem.”
He did not elaborate.
The Iranian women’s soccer team is in a hotel in Malaysia awaiting travel arrangements to return home, officials said Wednesday.
Iran’s embassy in Malaysia confirmed the squad members landed in the capital Kuala Lumpur early Wednesday and are expected to depart when flights are available and Iran’s airspace reopens, according to the Bernama news agency.
“They want to return home,” the embassy told Bernama.
The Asian Football Confederation said the team is staying at a Kuala Lumpur hotel in the meantime and will receive support from the confederation until their travel arrangements are confirmed, a spokesperson said.
Six women from the Iranian squad will remain in Australia on humanitarian visas after accepting offers of asylum shortly before their scheduled return home.
Some tankers, believed linked to Iran, are continuing to get through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Some of the ships getting through are so-called “dark” transits, meaning they aren’t turning on their Automatic Identification System tracks, which show where vessels are.
Vessels carrying sanctioned Iranian crude often turn off their AIS trackers.
The security firm Neptune P2P Group said Wednesday that seven ships had passed through the strait since March 8. Of those, five were linked to Iranian-associated shipping, it said.
The commodity-tracking firm Kpler said Iran has restarted crude exports through its Jask oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman.
A tanker loaded roughly 2 million barrels at Jask on March 7, the firm said.
A projectile hit a cargo ship Wednesday in the Strait of Hormuz, setting the vessel ablaze after the United States targeted Iranian minelaying vessels that could target the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military, said the vessel had been hit just north of Oman in the strait.
It said the crew was evacuating the ship.
Iran did not immediately claim the attack though it has been targeting ships in and around the strait, disrupting a waterway that sees a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded pass through it.
The UKMTO earlier reported on another attack targeting a vessel off Ras al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar issued a warning to the public Wednesday morning of a possible Iranian attack.
An Associated Press journalist in Qatar heard explosions as air defenses intercepted incoming fire over Doha, the country’s capital.
Qatar says it won’t serve as a mediator for Iran as it remains under attack from Tehran.
Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, made the statement to the Qatari-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera in an interview aired Wednesday.
He noted both Qatar and Oman had been attacked even though they worked to “build bridges between Iran and the West.”
“We will not be able to fulfill that role under attack, and that’s something the Iranians need to understand,” al-Khulaifi said. "The regional countries are not an enemy of Iran, and the Iranians are not understanding that idea.”
Russia said its consulate in the Iranian city of Isfahan was damaged in airstrikes targeting the central Iranian city.
The state-run Tass news agency quoted Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova saying there were “no casualties or serious injuries” in the strike Sunday, which targeted the nearby governor’s office in the city.
“Windows were shattered in the office building and residential apartments, and several employees were thrown back by the blast wave. Fortunately, there were no casualties or serious injuries,” Zakharova said.
Videos circulating online and broadcast by local news channels from an apparent strike site in the densely populated Aicha Bakkar area of central Beirut show two floors of a multistory building engulfed in flames.
The strike came without warning. There were no immediate reports concerning who was targeted or the number and extent of casualties.
The structure that was hit is several buildings away from Dar al-Fatwa, the country’s highest Sunni Muslim religious authority.
The strike was in an area far from Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings earlier in the renewed conflict with Hezbollah.
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry said early Wednesday it destroyed five drones heading toward the kingdom’s vast Shaybah oil field in the Empty Quarter desert. It added that it intercepted and destroyed two drones in the Eastern Province.
Kuwait said it downed eight drones over the tiny, oil-rich nation.
Two more members of the Iranian women’s soccer team were granted asylum in Australia before their teammates departed the country, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Wednesday, but one of the women changed her mind and plant to return to Iran.
Six women from the Iranian squad will remain in Australia on humanitarian visas after accepting offers of asylum shortly before their scheduled return home, Burke said. The names and photographs of the team members initially granted asylum have been widely published, including by Burke, and it was not immediately clear which of the women reversed her decision.
The rest of the team’s departure from Sydney, Australia, happened late Tuesday during fraught and outraged protests at the delegation’s hotel and the airport. Iranian Australians sought to prevent the women from leaving the country, citing fears for their safety in Iran.
A projectile hit a container ship early Wednesday morning off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Strait of Hormuz, the British military said.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center issued the warning, saying the attack happened off Ras al-Khaimah, the UAE’s northernmost emirate on the strait.
The center said the “extent of the damage is currently unknown but under investigation by the crew.”
Ships have effectively halted movement through the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded passes.
A boy runs inside cement pipe turned into a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strike in Michmoret, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A man passes in front of a destroyed building that housed a branch of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, a non-bank financial institution run by Hezbollah, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Protesters wave Iranian flags and hold a portrait of the late Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei to support his selection as the new Iran's Supreme Leader in Baghdad, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
A displaced woman holds a child as another stands beside her between rows of tents at the Camille Chamoun Sports City Stadium, which has been turned into a shelter for people displaced by Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
