Unfazed and surprisingly alert: Imran Khan warns of threats to Pakistan’s democracy after release on bail
Imran Khan was very uncertain he’d make it out of the High Court on Friday night, even after he’d been bailed for two weeks.
His camp had heard rumours that he was about to be rearrested on another charge.
But he eventually did manage to get on the road, driving through the early hours of the morning to get back to Lahore.
We were making the same journey, the road littered with his supporters, some who stayed up ’til gone 3am to greet him. After days of witnessing rocks being thrown, tear gas fired, it felt like an incongruously upbeat moment.
Come morning, his slightly bleary eyed fans were gathered outside his compound. Some have set up camp there, selling food and flags.
We suddenly got a call from Mr Khan’s security team telling us he’d agreed to our interview request.
Minutes later, we were ushered through metal gates and down a long path. After multiple security checks, we sat outside expecting we’d soon be inside.
But, Pakistan’s former prime minister was busy holding meetings with his team.
They of course have a lot to discuss and no doubt a strategy to coordinate. And it’s a slimmed down team doing it because much of the PTI leadership have also been arrested.
Hours pass and we hear he is now about to address the nation. He is a highly effective communicator and appears hyper focused on deciding when and how to craft his message.
Minutes after he finishes his speech, we’re invited in. We’re told we can set-up our cameras in the room where he’d just spoken.
It’s made for TV – complete with broadcast lights – a relief to my cameraman Duncan Sharp who manages to rapidly set up for the interview.
Mr Khan appears chipper when we meet him – seemingly unfazed by the lack of sleep and looking surprisingly alert given he’d spent the week in detention and facing huge legal jeopardy.
Imran Khan
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Democracy he tells me is at an “all-time low”, the establishment are targeting him because they’re “petrified” of elections and the military orchestrated his “abduction”.
But there’s also a subtle shift in his tone. He doesn’t repeat the allegation that the army chief plotted to assassinate him, something he did just days before his arrest by Pakistani paramilitary.
I wonder if a deal has been done, some kind of compromise. What he wants above all else of course is an early election. But that is still up in the air and the threat of re-arrest is still very real.
Imran Khan leaves court after being released on bail for two weeks
Mr Khan faces more than 100 charges against him. He is free for now – well, until 17 May at least. He wants to get back to campaigning this week.
His challenge will be finding a way to inspire, and not incite – all while making sure his opponents don’t lock him up again.
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
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Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
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Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
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From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
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Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
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