PRAGUE (AP) — Czech authorities said Friday they were investigating a fire at a warehouse of a company that makes drone technology as a suspected arson linked to terrorism.
The fire broke out in an industrial zone in the city of Pardubice, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Prague, causing no injuries, police said.
LPP Holding confirmed a fire in one of its buildings. It said it was cooperating with the investigation and declined further comment.
The company develops and makes products for civilian and military use, such as drone technologies used by Ukraine’s armed forces in the fight against the Russian invasion.
Interior Minister Lubomír Metnar said “the incident may be related to a terrorist attack.”
“At the moment, we don’t have information about a further danger,” he said.
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš called the news “very serious.” Top police officer Martin ondrášek said police assumed arson.
The fire was extinguished by firefighters and police said there was no danger to the public. It was not immediately clear what was inside the warehouse that was on fire.
LPP Holding had previously said it was planning to open a center to develop and produce drones and train personnel in cooperation with Israeli Elbit Systems, a military technology company.
Metnar said the Czech side will share details of the investigation with its foreign partners.
Emergency services attend the industrial storage hall after a fire in Pardubice, Czech Republic, Friday March 20, 2026. (Josef Vostarek/CTK via AP)
CAIRO (AP) — President Donald Trump warned that the United States will “obliterate” power plants in Iran if the Islamic Republic doesn’t fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iranian missiles struck two communities not far from Israel’s main nuclear research center late Saturday, leaving buildings shattered and dozens injured in the attacks.
The developments signaled the war was moving in a dangerous new direction at the start of its fourth week.
Trump, who issued the ultimatum in a social media post while he spent the weekend at his Florida home, said he’s giving Iran 48 hours to open the vital waterway or face a new round of attacks. He said the U.S. would destroy “various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”
Iran warned early Sunday that any strike on its energy facilities would prompt attacks on U.S. and Israeli energy and infrastructure assets — specifically information technology and desalination facilities — in the region, according to a statement citing an Iranian military spokesperson carried by state media and semiofficial outlets.
The Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe’s oceans, is a critical pathway for the world’s flow of oil. Attacks on commercial ships and threats of further strikes have stopped nearly all tankers from carrying oil, gas and other goods through the passage, leading to cuts in output from some of the world’s largest oil producers, because their crude has nowhere to go.
Israel’s military said it was not able to intercept missiles that hit the southern cities of Dimona and Arad, the largest near the center in Israel’s sparsely populated Negev desert. It was the first time Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s air defense systems in the area around the nuclear site.
“If the Israeli regime is unable to intercept missiles in the heavily protected Dimona area, it is, operationally, a sign of entering a new phase of the battle,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on X before word of the Arad strike spread.
Rescue workers said the direct hit in Arad caused widespread damage across at least 10 apartment buildings, three of them badly damaged and in danger of collapsing. At least 64 people were taken to hospitals.
Dimona is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the nuclear research center and Arad around 35 kilometers (22 miles) north.
Israel is believed to be the only Middle East nation with nuclear weapons, though its leaders refuse to confirm or deny their existence. The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on X it had not received reports of damage to the Israeli center or abnormal radiation levels.
The Iranian strikes in Israel came after Tehran’s main nuclear enrichment site at Natanz was hit earlier in the day.
Israel earlier Saturday denied responsibility for the strike on Natanz, nearly 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran. The Iranian judiciary’s official news agency, Mizan, said there was no leakage.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said the bulk of Iran’s estimated 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium is elsewhere, beneath the rubble at its Isfahan facility. It said on X it was looking into the strike.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the strike on Natanz, which was also hit in the first week of the war and in the 12-day war last June. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said such strikes posed a “real risk of catastrophic disaster throughout the Middle East.”
The U.S. and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs and its support for armed proxies. There have been no signs of an uprising, while internet restrictions limit information from Iran.
The war’s effects are felt far beyond the Middle East, raising food and fuel prices.
So far in Iran, the death toll in the war has surpassed 1,500, the state broadcaster reported Saturday, citing the health ministry. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed, along with well over a dozen civilians in Gulf nations.
And in Lebanon, Israeli strikes targeting the militant Hezbollah group, an Iranian ally, have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million, according to the Lebanese government.
Lawless reported from London and Lidman from Jerusalem. Associated Press writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
People follow a truck carrying the flag draped coffins of Gen. Ali Mohammad Naeini, a spokesperson for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of his comrades Amir Hossein Bidi , during their funeral procession in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Iranian worshippers perform Eid al-Fitr prayers marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan as one of them wears an Iranian flag at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli security forces and rescue teams work at the site struck by an Iranian missile in Arad, southern Israel, Sunday, March 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men watch as Israeli security forces and rescue teams operate at the site hit by an Iranian missile in Arad, southern Israel, Sunday, March 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
