As widespread destruction across West Asia dominates headlines after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s assassination in a US and Israeli joint operation, a small Indian village has quietly become part of the global narrative.

Seventeen people were killed and 18 others injured in a devastating explosion that occurred early this morning at SBL Energy Limited – a mining and industrial explosives manufacturing company located in Raulgaon, in Katol near Nagpur, police said.

A president who returned to the White House on the promise of ending ‘Forever Wars’ – and wanted a Nobel Peace Prize, no less – now presides over the largest American military build-up in the region since the infamous Iraq war.