Trump threatens to hit Iran ‘20 times harder’ if Strait of Hormuz closes

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The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said on Wednesday that it had received a report of an incident 25 nautical miles (46 km) northwest of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, with the master of a vessel reporting it sustaining damage from a suspected but unknown projectile.

The damage was currently unknown but under investigation and all crew members were safe, UKMTO added.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that at least two missiles targeted a United States base in Kuwait, according to Iranian news agencies Fars and Mehr.

"The American base in Arifjan was... hit by firing 2 missiles by the IRGC Ground Force missile unit," the Guards said, Fars and Mehr reported, referring to Camp Arifjan located south of Kuwait City.

Kuwaiti authorities have not yet commented on the reports.

Saudi Arabia's defence ministry said Wednesday that it intercepted two drones heading towards an oil field in the southeast of the country.

"Two drones heading towards the Shaybah oil field were intercepted and destroyed," the ministry said in a post on X.

A drone struck a major U.S. diplomatic facility in Iraq on Tuesday in suspected retaliation by pro-Tehran militias over the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Washington Post reported, citing an unidentified security official and an internal U.S. State Department alert.

The strike hit the diplomatic support center, a logistical hub for U.S. diplomats near Baghdad airport and Iraqi military bases, the Post reported.

It was not clear from the report whether there were any injuries. The White House, U.S. State Department and Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Read the full story here.

Member states of the International Energy Agency (IEA) met on Tuesday for crisis talks to assess security of supply and the potential release of emergency stocks as the Middle East war roils markets, the body's chief said.

In a statement following a Paris meeting of G7 energy ministers on the economic fallout of the conflict, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said he was "in close contact" with energy ministers from key energy producers and consumers regarding the situation.

"In oil markets, conditions have deteriorated in recent days. In addition to the challenges of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a substantial amount of oil production has been curtailed. This is creating significant and growing risks for the market," he said ahead of the meeting.

Read the full story here.

Iranian state media is saying that the current drone and missile barrage is targeting US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Iraqi Kurdistan.

None of these countries have reported ground impact.

The United Nations rights chief voiced alarm Tuesday at the Middle East conflict's deepening impact on civilians, warning of the dangers of the seeming "tit-for-tat dynamic" between the warring sides.

The United States and Israel began striking Iran on February 28, prompting waves of Iranian strikes across the Gulf.

With hostilities intensifying, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk deplored the extensive attacks in residential areas, on health facilities, schools, cultural property and water and energy infrastructure.

Read the full story here.

Air raid sirens are sounding in Bahrain, the country's interior ministry announced.

Amid the backdrop of military strikes in the Middle East, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is lobbying to maintain its position on the F1 calendar, according to a report Tuesday from RacingNews365.

F1 will need to decide soon whether to postpone or cancel outright, as the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grand Prix are scheduled for mid-April.

The United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran, and Iran responded in the following days.

Missiles have been levied at a US Navy installation in Bahrain as well as locations in Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

One related consequence of military action in the area is a heavy disruption in flight schedules.

F1 has said that it is closely monitoring the situation, with time available to make any decisions.

Should both races be canceled, F1 is expected to have to settle for a 22-race calendar in 2026.

A former holding company of US-sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler will pay $30 million to settle a Dutch corruption probe over mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

In 2018, Dutch investigators had launched a probe into whether Fleurette, a Netherlands-registered firm that served as the holding company for the Gertler group, and Swiss commodities giant Glencore paid bribes to secure copper and cobalt mining rights at below-market prices.

Read the full story here.

Hezbollah say they launched missiles at Israeli ground troops near Aitaroun in southern Lebanon.

According to Lebanese media, ongoing fighting in the border area is reported between Hezbollah and Israeli soldiers near Markaba.

The United Arab Emirates says its air defences are currently repelling "missile threats" in an unspecified area and urge the public to remain indoors.

The White House said Tuesday that President Donald Trump would not be "happy" if Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran during the Middle East war, but it held back any strong criticism for Moscow.

The Washington Post reported on Friday that Moscow had passed sensitive intelligence to Tehran, including the locations of US warships and aircraft in the region.

But Washington has taken a restrained tone in response so far, with Trump saying President Vladimir Putin wanted to be "helpful" on the Middle East in a call on Monday, even as Putin offered "unwavering support" to Iran's new supreme leader.

Read the full story here.

A Saudi official has said the country shot down five Iranian drones during attacks east of Al Kharj.

Iran's military claims to have targeted an oil depot in Haifa and the US Harir Air Base in Iraqi Kurdistan during recent long-range attacks.

A federal jury on Monday awarded $667,000 in damages to a group of Muslim men incarcerated in Missouri who were pepper-sprayed by state correctional officers while praying.

The lawsuit in eastern Missouri's U.S. District Court alleged that the men had been allowed to pray together many times in their prison housing unit after the chapel was locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The money will be distributed among eight men who were handcuffed, pepper-sprayed and placed in solitary confinement after praying in the housing area at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre on Feb. 28, 2021.

Read the full story here.

Israeli media is reporting no injuries or direct impacts from the latest wave of Iranian missile attacks, adding that several missiles were intercepted over the country.

A drone attack Tuesday on the Sudanese town of Dilling killed seven people, including three children, a medical source told AFP.

Several drones fell on the town in the South Kordofan region, according to residents. Thirteen injured were taken to the Dilling hospital, a source at the hospital said.

Sudan's regular army, which has been fighting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in the three-year civil war, retook Dilling in January after routing the RSF.

The pro-army foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned "systematic attacks" on civilian homes and infrastructure by the RSF in Dilling and the North Kordofan capital of El Obeid and Kosti in White Nile state.

After taking the key city of El-Fasher in Darfur amid bitter fighting, the RSF has been concentrating its attacks on the army in Kordofan.

Sudan's civil war has left tens of thousands dead and more than 11 million displaced.

Democratic U.S. senators expressed alarm on Tuesday about the Iran war, saying they were worried that President Donald Trump could deploy U.S. ground forces and noting the high risks given Russian support for Tehran's military.

"We know that Russia is already helping with intel, providing that to Iran, and that there's an axis with Russia and China, Iran and North Korea that puts at greater risk the United States and our national security," Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said on CNN.

Read the full story here.

Palestinian media says explosions were heard in the greater Jerusalem area amid a new wave of Iranian long-range attacks.

New Israeli airstrikes have been reported in the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon.

India ordered tighter controls over natural and cooking gas on Tuesday following import disruptions caused by the Middle East war, with restaurants warning it could spark widespread closures.

The world's most populous nation is the fourth largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyer, and second-largest buyer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), such as that used for cooking - much of which is sourced from the Middle East.

"The ongoing conflict in the Middle East has resulted in the disruption of liquefied natural gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz," the Ministry of Petroleum said in an order issued on Tuesday.

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The Iranian military has said that the current wave of missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and Iraq will last for at least three hours.

One of the world's largest refineries in the UAE was shut as a "precaution" after a drone attack nearby, a source said, while Saudi giant Aramco warned of the war's devastating impact on oil.

Aramco CEO and president Amin H. Nasser warned the war could have "catastrophic consequences" on oil markets, and called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz - which normally carries about 20 percent of global oil supplies but has been closed by the conflict.

Tehran appears to be attempting to knock major Gulf refineries offline as it tightens its chokehold on the strait in a quest to inflict maximum pain on the global economy.

Read the full story here.

Israel's military said Wednesday that it detected missiles heading towards the country from Iran and had activated air defences, as it pressed a "wave" of strikes against Iran and Lebanon.

"A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat," the military said on its official Telegram account.

Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister says the country has shot down a new ballistic missile over its Eastern province.

Qatar Airways will operate 29 flights to and from Doha on Thursday after "temporary authorisation from the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority", the company has announced.

"Following temporary authorisation from the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority allowing limited operating corridors, Qatar Airways plans to operate select flights in the coming days to support passengers affected by the disruption," the company said in a post on X late Tuesday.

The flights include departures to London, New York and Madrid, even as Iran continues its retaliatory strikes across the Gulf.

Two men accused of igniting homemade bombs at a chaotic anti-Islam protest outside the New York City mayor's mansion told police they were inspired by Islamic State group and were charged on Monday with federal terrorism-related crimes, according to court records.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, are accused of traveling from Pennsylvania with dangerous improvised explosive devices to Manhattan on Saturday, where a small group of far-right Christian activists had planned the anti-Muslim rally outside Gracie Mansion against Zohran Mamdani, New York City's first Muslim mayor.

Read the full story here.

Air defences have been activated over Erbil to counter a reported drone attack, according to eyewitness videos shared by Rudaw.

An Iranian official in the country's Qom province says three locations in the outskirts of Qom city were hit by American-Israeli missiles, without reporting injuries from the strikes, according to Tasnim news agency.

California-based Planet Labs has expanded restrictions on accessing its imagery of the Middle East to prevent adversaries from using it to attack the U.S. and its allies, a sign of how the expansion of commercial space business can impact conflicts.

Planet, which operates a large fleet of Earth-imaging satellites and sells frequently updated images to governments, companies and media, told customers on Monday that it was extending restrictions to a period of 14 days from a delay of four days imposed last week.

Read the full story here.

Live pictures show smoke rising over the skyline of Beirut following new Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital.

Britain has set out a new advisory definition of what it calls anti-Muslim hostility, a long-anticipated step in its plan to clarify how authorities should identify and address abuse targeting Muslims, which is at record levels.

The move follows years of political deadlock over how to define anti-Muslim hatred in a way that helps consistent application of the law, but does not shut down or criminalise open debate about Islamist extremism.

There were almost 4,500 hate crimes targeting Muslims in the year ending March 2025, accounting for nearly half of all religiously motivated offences in England and Wales. This data also includes people wrongly assumed to be Muslim.

Read the full story here.

G7 leaders will hold a video conference on Wednesday to discuss the economic consequences of the war in the Middle East, particularly the "energy situation", the French presidency said.

"This will be the first discussion on these issue between G7 members. Economic coordination is a key issue for an effective and useful response to the situation," the Elysee said. The meeting will start at 1400 GMT.

President Emmanuel Macron will chair the meeting, as France holds the G7 presidency this year.

Macron has already spoken this week about the possibility of G7 countries using their emergency oil reserves to counter any extreme rise in oil prices caused by the war that started on February 28.

Prices had risen to almost $120 a barrel on Monday before falling back below $90 on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump said the war was nearly finished. Talks between G7 energy ministers also reassured markets.

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said Tuesday that "everything necessary" will be done to keep inflation in check during the Middle East war, which has already pushed up oil prices.

"We will do everything necessary to keep inflation under control and ensure that the French and the Europeans do not experience inflation increases like those we saw in 2022 and 2023" partly caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Lagarde told the France 2 and France Inter broadcasters in an interview.

She did not respond when asked whether interest rates would rise, but acknowledged there was a lot of "uncertainty" surrounding events in the Middle East.

The ECB is to meet on March 19 to decide on rates, the day after the next US Federal Reserve meeting.

Lagarde said the situation now was "very different" to the last inflation crisis.

She argued that inflation was currently under control and that "growth is quite resistant" in the EU countries that use the euro currency.

"However, what is very different is that we have a degree of uncertainty and a degree of volatility that is absolutely astonishing, unparalleled to 2022," Lagarde said.

Oil prices came close to 120 dollars a barrel on Monday, up almost 30 percent, before falling back again to about $87.80 in late trading on Tuesday.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent oil prices close to their 2008 record highs, with the benchmark Brent touching 139.13 dollars a barrel.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they had targeted US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan in a fresh missile attack, Iranian media reported in the early hours of Wednesday.

In a statement carried by the Tasnim news agency, the Guards said "a mass" of ballistic missiles had been fired at the base of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and at three other facilities in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

The United States has issued a decision to label the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan a terrorist organisation.

The designation, which will be effective in a week, comes after the US in January made the same declaration for several other Brotherhood branches, including in its historic base of Egypt.

Read the full story here.

The Israeli military's Farsi account on X announced the start of a new "massive wave" of strikes in Tehran.

North Korea said on Wednesday it strongly denounces acts of aggression by the U.S. and Israel of "illegal" attacks against Iran, which are destroying peace and escalating instability worldwide, KCNA state news agency said on Wednesday.

Syria appointed a senior Kurdish military official as regional assistant defence minister on Tuesday, following a deal to integrate Kurd forces into the state.

"Sipan Hamo has been appointed Assistant Minister of Defence for the eastern region," a defence ministry official said in a statement.

Hamo, a leader of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, was among the figures who negotiated an integration deal with Damascus after clashes in January saw Kurds lose swathes of territory to government troops.

Read the full story here.

An influential Israeli rabbi from the occupied West Bank with links to the far-right on Monday publicly denounced settler attacks on Palestinians in a rare intervention after four Palestinians were killed.

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon wrote in an open letter addressed to local youth that "damage to property and, even more so, to any person, Jewish or non-Jewish, is an immoral act".

Palestinian authorities and the Israeli army on Sunday said three Palestinians were killed in a settler attack on their village in the West Bank.

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The Iranian ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday accused the Security Council of ignoring what he called a "war crime" after Iran said Israel killed four of its diplomats in a weekend strike on a Beirut hotel.

"The Council is turning a blind eye to this grave violation despite its primary responsibility under the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security," Amir Saeid Iravani told reporters in New York.

 Trump says US 'completely destroyed' 10 inactive mine-laying vessels after reports of Iran action in Strait of Hormuz.

Algeria's parliament on Monday approved an amended law criminalising French colonial rule, removing earlier provisions that called for official apologies and broad reparations from France after Senate demanded the changes.

The law, approved by the lower house in December, had declared France's colonisation of Algeria from 1830 to 1962 a crime and demanded an apology and reparations, with Paris calling it "hostile".

But in January the Senate said some articles of the text did not fully reflect the official approach set out by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who had said Algeria did not need financial reparations from France.

Read the full story here.

Iran's U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said on Tuesday that U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran have destroyed nearly 10,000 civilian sites, including 65 schools and educational institutions and almost 8,000 homes since the war began on February 28.

He also repeated a previous death toll that the strikes had killed more than 1,300 civilians. 

Israel's President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday did not offer a timetable on when the war with Iran could end, telling Germany's Bild newspaper: "We need to take a deep breath and get to the end result."

Herzog said the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran were changing the whole configuration of the Middle East. He defended strikes on Iranian oil sites as a way of taking away money from Tehran's "war machine". The interview was published as the U.S. and Israel pounded Iran with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.

Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, had earlier said his country was not planning for an endless war and was consulting with Washington about when to stop it.

“The Iranians are the ones spreading chaos and terror throughout the region and the world. So I think if we measure everything by a speedometer, we won’t get anywhere. We need to take a deep breath and get to the end result,” Herzog told Bild.

Eliminating the Iranian threat would "enable the entire system in the region to suddenly breathe again and develop further. That’s fantastic,” he added. 

The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The Navy's assessments spell continued disruption to Middle East oil exports and reflect a divergence from President Donald Trump’s statements that the U.S. is prepared to provide naval escorts whenever needed to restart regular shipments along the key waterway.

Shipping along the narrow strait has all but halted since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran more than a week ago, preventing exports of around a fifth of the world’s oil supply and sending global oil prices surging to highs not seen since 2022.

A senior official with Iran's Revolutionary Guards has said the Strait is closed and Iran will fire on any ship ​trying to pass, Iranian media reported last week. Several ships have already been hit.

The U.S. Navy has held regular briefings with shipping and oil industry counterparts and has said during those briefings it is unable to provide escorts for the time being, three shipping industry sources familiar with the matter said.

The sources, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the shipping industry has been making requests almost daily during the calls for naval escorts through the strait.

One of the sources said the Navy’s assessment during Tuesday’s briefing had not changed and that escorts would only be possible once the risk of attack was reduced.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A fresh wave of explosions have been heard in Tehran, according to local media.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday that Tehran expected him and the Security Council to take a stronger position condemning US and Israeli "aggression", the Tasnim news agency reported.

In a phone conversation, Araghchi noted the UN's role in maintaining peace and "emphasised the serious expectation of the Iranian government and people from the Secretary-General and the UN Security Council to adopt stronger and more responsible positions in explicitly condemning the aggression", Tasnim said.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday told Iran to remove any mines it may have placed in the Strait of Hormuz, warning that if Tehran did not it would face military consequences at a level not seen before.

Trump added that the United States had no reports of Iran placing any mines in the stretch of water.

Fresh Israeli strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs and south Lebanon on Tuesday after the Israeli army warned people to evacuate, with Lebanese authorities saying nearly 760,000 people had been registered as displaced.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.

Israel, which kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, has since launched new waves of attacks across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

Read the full story here.

British warplanes have begun "defensive air sorties" in support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and taken out drones elsewhere in the Middle East amid the ongoing war, the UK defence ministry said Monday.

The development came as Britain's response to the conflict was under criticism, including from the US president and the Cypriot government.

More US B-52 bombers landed at the UK air force base in Fairford, in southwestern England, on Monday, AFP witnessed, after a first one landed on Friday.

Read the full story here.

Iran is not seeking a ceasefire in the war against the United States and Israel, the powerful Iranian parliament speaker said on Tuesday, adding that the "aggressor" should be punished.

"Certainly we aren't seeking a ceasefire," Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former top commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and key figure after the killing of former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote in an English-language X post.

"We believe the aggressor must be punished and taught a lesson that will deter them from attacking Iran again," he added.

About 140 US troops have been wounded in the Iran war, including 8 severely and 108 who returned to duty, Pentagon says.

Israel will allocate a special budget of tens of billions of shekels for extra defence spending to finance the air war with Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Smotrich said the cabinet was meeting on Tuesday night to approve the special war budget. "This is not an expense, it's an investment," he said.

Netanyahu said that data show Israel's economy was very strong despite more than two years of wars.

Explosions were heard on Tuesday in Bahrain's capital Manama, two AFP journalists reported, as Iran continued its retaliatory strikes across the Gulf.

Bahrain has been targeted by waves of Iranian drones and missiles, which have so far killed two people in the country, according to authorities.

The war in the Middle East must not get in the way of negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told President Volodymyr Zelensky in a call Tuesday.

"The conflict in Iran must not obstruct the peace efforts for Ukraine," the Turkish leader said, according to a statement from his office.

"It would be beneficial to continue the negotiations without delay and to staunch Ukraine's wounds," Erdogan was quoted as saying.

Zelensky, on X, said that in the call Erdogan offered to have Turkey "host the next round of talks in a trilateral format", with Ukrainian, Russian and US delegations.

"We appreciate this initiative and hope it can produce results," the Ukrainian leader said.

According to the Turkish presidency, Erdogan spoke about the need for the conflict to recede from the Black Sea, the body of water shared by Ukraine, Russia and Turkey, the entrance to which is the Bosphorus Strait, which runs through Istanbul.

Russia and Ukraine have each attacked commercial ships carrying cargo for the other side in the Black Sea.

"Navigation safety in the Black Sea is of utmost importance to Turkey. A ceasefire protecting energy and port infrastructure can contribute to establishing trust between the parties, and Turkey will bring all its support to that," Erdogan was quoted as saying.

The United States has proposed another round of Russia-Ukraine talks next week, mediated by Washington, on ending four years of war, Zelensky told journalists on Tuesday, adding that it could take place in Switzerland or Turkey.

Syria said Iran-backed Hezbollah had fired artillery shells into its territory from Lebanon overnight, state media reported on Tuesday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement.

Syrian army officials said artillery shells fired from Lebanon landed near the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.

The army accused Hezbollah of targeting Syrian army positions, telling the news agency it observed Hezbollah reinforcements at the Syrian-Lebanese border.

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday told reporters that Americans will see oil and gas prices "drop rapidly" once the U.S. military's national security objectives are "fully achieved" in Iran.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tuesday that no US Navy vessel has "dared" approach the Strait of Hormuz, after a senior official in Washington said a warship had escorted a tanker through the strategic waterway.

"None of the US warships have dared to approach even the Sea of Oman, the Persian Gulf or the Strait of Hormuz during the war," Guards spokesman Ali Mohammad Naini said, calling the claim a "pure falsehood".

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright had initially said the navy had escorted an oil tanker through the strait, but the post was deleted minutes after it was published.

The United States has asked Israel to halt strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing three sources familiar with the matter.

Albania's parliament on Tuesday said it had been hit with a "sophisticated cyberattack", after Iran-linked hackers claimed to have stolen lawmakers' data.

A group called "Homeland Justice", which has previously been linked to Iran and claimed responsibility for past cyberattacks in Albania, announced the hack on Telegram.

"All conversations and correspondence of corrupt MPs from recent months are in the hands of Homeland Justice," the post said.

"We are much closer to you than you think."

Albania hosts several thousand members of the People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI or MEK), an organisation that Iran has denounced as "terrorist".

Experts have warned that as the war in the Middle East continues, highly capable hackers linked to Iran have broadened their activities.

In a statement, the Albanian parliament said its computer systems had been hit with a "sophisticated cyberattack aimed at deleting data and compromising several internal systems".

"It was found that information had been deleted from several accounts belonging to administration employees," it added, saying "the main working infrastructure" did not appear to be affected and that measures had been taken "to neutralise the attack".

The country's National Cyber Security Authority said it had teams investigating the attack.

"Further information will be made public after the technical assessment is completed," the authority's director, Saimir Kapllani, told AFP.

In June, Homeland Justice also attacked the information technology services of the Albanian capital, Tirana.

In 2022, Albania's IT services were also targeted, prompting the Balkan country to sever diplomatic ties with Iran.

Iran accused Israel on Tuesday of killing four of its diplomats in a weekend strike on a seafront hotel in Beirut, according to a letter addressed to the United Nations chief.

"In the early hours of Sunday, 8 March 2026, the Israeli regime carried out a deliberate terrorist attack against the Ramada Hotel in Beirut, which resulted in the assassination and martyrdom of four diplomats of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Tehran's permanent mission to the UN said.

The Israeli military had previously claimed responsibility for the attack.

It said it had "conducted a precise strike targeting key commanders" in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, its foreign operations arm.

Almost half of Iran's uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons-grade, was stored in a tunnel complex at Isfahan and is probably still there, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday.

The tunnel complex is the only target that appears not to have been badly damaged in attacks last June by Israel and the U.S. on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Diplomats have long said Isfahan has been used to store 60% uranium, which the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in a report to member states last month, without saying how much was there.

Read the full story here.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff said Tuesday that he will likely travel to Israel next week to coordinate on the two countries' war effort against Iran.

"We'll probably make that trip next week, but we're not sure about it as of now," he said in an interview with the financial news channel CNBC.

Witkoff had been scheduled to travel to Israel this week alongside Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, but the trip was cancelled, Witkoff confirmed.

US media have been reporting a rift emerging between Washington and Israel over the conduct of the war, particularly following Israeli strikes over the weekend that targeted fuel depots in Tehran.

Witkoff sought to downplay that.

"The visit that we were intending to do was less about smoothing out differences, because I don't really think there are many differences," Witkoff said.

"It was much more about coordination, understanding where they were, talking about all those different things that are important to talk about, you know, if there's a deal or if there's not a deal."

Asked whether the United States and Israel were on the same page regarding the objectives of the war, he replied: "I would say that, look, Israel is a one bomb country. One bomb takes them out and that's why it's so existential to Israel."

The special envoy again stressed that Iran was not negotiating in good faith and was not pursuing a nuclear deal, prompting Trump to order strikes.

The United States and Israel have launched a massive military campaign against Iran, which entered its eleventh day on Tuesday. Washington says the campaign is aimed at curbing nuclear and missile threats from Tehran.

Sudan's foreign ministry said Tuesday that the United States should designate the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces a "terrorist organisation", a day after Washington slapped the same designation on the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The US designation for the Brotherhood, which will come into effect next week, accused the Islamist group of receiving support from Iran.

Noting that decision, while stopping short of criticising it, Sudan's foreign ministry said "all groups that violate international humanitarian law and commit terrorism, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Sudan should be designated as terrorist groups".

The US, it added, should therefore "designate the RSF militia as a terrorist group, given its proven crimes and documented violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and terrorism".

Since 2023, the RSF - under paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo - has been at war with the regular army, under Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Burhan has a complex relationship with Islamists, relying on them for political support and fighters, but facing pressure from the US and his allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia to distance himself from them.

He has denied having Brotherhood members in his government.

The RSF has been widely accused of mass atrocities, and last month was found by a UN inquiry to have committed "acts of genocide" in Darfur.

Last year, the US issued a similar genocide determination.

The RSF has repeatedly characterised the war as a fight against Sudan's Islamists and the remnants of the ruling system of Islamist-military autocrat Omar al-Bashir, whom Daglo and Burhan helped oust in 2019.

The UAE, which denies evidence that it backs the RSF, has also portrayed the war in the same light and welcomed Monday's designation of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The U.S. military has not escorted any ships through the Strait of Hormuz so far, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, after U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted and deleted a tweet that had said the U.S. Navy had escorted an oil tanker through the strait.

Israel's cybersecurity directorate said it had identified "dozens of Iranian breaches into security cameras for espionage purposes" since the start of the war in the Middle East, urging the public to be vigilant.

"The directorate is working to alert hundreds of camera owners and calls on the public to change their passwords and update their software to prevent any security risk, whether national or personal," Cyber Israel wrote on X Monday.

Cyberattacks between Iran and Israel have been a frequent occurrence in recent years, as the two foes conducted a shadow war that culminated in open conflict last June and again on February 28.

Iran's intelligence ministry announced on Tuesday the arrests of 30 people accused of spying, including one foreigner, on the 11th day of the Middle East war.

The foreigner, whose nationality was not revealed, "was spying on behalf of two Persian Gulf countries in the name of the American-Zionist enemy" and was arrested in northeastern Iran, the ministry said in a statement published by the judiciary's Mizan Online news portal.

The individual is accused of "transmitting to the enemy information about the location and movements of police and army forces" and military installations, the ministry said, without revealing when the person was arrested.

Ukrainian military experts are due this week in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists on Tuesday, where they will share expertise on downing Iranian drones.

Ukraine has to fend off nightly barrages of Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones launched by Russia, an ally of Tehran, and says it has unmatchable expertise in how to thwart the attacks.

"The first three countries to which we sent them, according to our agreements, are Qatar, the Emirates, and Saudi Arabia," Zelensky said in an audio message sent to reporters.

"When it comes to shooting down massive Shahed attacks, only Ukrainian experience can really help with this today," he added, referring to the Iranian-designed drones that Russia uses.

Zelensky has called for US allies in the Gulf to give over much-needed air defence missiles in exchange for Ukrainian drone interceptors.

Iran launched a new salvo of missiles on Tuesday at Israeli cities including Tel Aviv and US targets in the region, the Revolutionary Guards said, as fighting between the foes showed no signs of letting up.

The latest salvo utilised "strategic" missiles, including some of the most powerful in Iran's arsenal, such as the Fattah, Emad and Khaibar missiles, the Guards said in their statement.

Israel is not seeking an endless war with Iran and will coordinate with the United States on when to end the fighting, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Tuesday, declining to publicly state a timeline for when the conflict could end.

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, now in its 11th day, has engulfed the Middle East, with Iranian strikes hitting neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, and Israel fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as striking Iran.

"We will continue until the minute that we and our partners think that is appropriate to stop," Saar told journalists in Jerusalem alongside his German counterpart.

"We are not looking for an endless war," he said.

"We want to remove, for the long-term, existential threats from Iran to Israel," Saar said in response to a question on what victory would look like to the government.

He described Iran's newly appointed supreme leader Mojtaba Khamanei - son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed by the Israeli military on the first day of the war - as an extremist.

Israel has said it aims to eliminate Iran's clerical rule by destroying its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow their rulers.

Saar said there was an opportunity to create conditions for Iranians to "regain their freedom," while acknowledging that it may not happen during the war and could come afterward.

"We must not miss this opportunity with partial results."

Canada is increasing security around U.S. and Israeli embassies and consulate buildings in Toronto and Ottawa after a shooting incident at the U.S. consulate in Toronto, a Canadian police official said on Tuesday.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police chief superintendent Chris Leather said the consulate shooting is being investigated as a "national security incident."

The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the "black rain" and toxic compounds in the air in Iran after strikes on oil facilities could cause respiratory problems, and it backed Iran’s advisory urging people to remain indoors.

The UN health agency, which has an office in Iran and works with authorities on health emergencies, said it has received multiple reports of oil-laden rain this week.

Tehran was choked in black smoke on Monday after an oil refinery was hit, in an escalation in strikes on Iran's domestic energy supplies as part of the US-Israeli campaign.

"The black rain and the acidic rain coming with it is indeed a danger for the population, respiratory mainly," WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding that Iran had advised people to stay indoors.

Asked whether the WHO backed that advice, he said: "Given what is at risk right now, the oil storage facilities, the refineries that have been struck, triggering fires, bringing serious air quality concerns, that is definitely a good idea."

He said the strikes had caused "the massive release of toxic hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides and nitrogen compounds, into the air". Scientists said inhaling or touching the smoke or particles could cause headaches, skin and eye irritation, and difficulty breathing.

Longer-term exposure to some of the compounds increases the risk of some cancers, they added.

Scientists said that the black rain was the result of a weather pattern coming into the area, bringing rain that combined with the particles in the air.

While Iran hits back against US and Israeli attacks with missiles and drones, it is also fighting a propaganda war with a Lego-style animation video complete with toy renditions of Donald Trump, bombs and warplanes.

Iran's state-run Revayat-e Fath institute released its video on state television following the February 28 US-Israeli attacks that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and triggered the Middle East war.

The two-minute video has since been shared on Meta-owned platforms and on X, garnering tens of thousands of likes and shares.

With no dialogue, it appears designed to have international reach in a war that has rattled energy and stock markets, and divided world public opinion.

The video kicks off with Lego-type depictions of US President Trump flanked by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and the devil himself, looking at an album titled the "Epstein file" (sic).

Enraged, Trump hits a red button to kick off the war, and sends a missile through the clouds that hits what looks like a classroom, with toys representing girls wearing pink headscarves as they listen to their smiling teacher.

After the teacher writes on the board the words "My homeland is my life", the screen goes dark. The next scene shows a pink backpack and a pair of pink shoes in the rubble of a strike.

An Iranian officer, also in Lego-inspired form, picks up the bag and weeps, before his sadness turns to rage.

Iran has accused the United States and Israel of conducting a deadly strike on a school in Minab in the south on the first day of the war.

With a nationalist score playing, the video later shows Iranian Revolutionary Guards retaliating by attacking US interests and Israel across the region.

The video ends with a message saying it was made in remembrance of students killed in the strike, "who were martyred at the hands of Zionist and American terrorists".

Denmark has temporarily closed its Teheran embassy due to safety concerns over the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Tuesday.

"The security situation is too tense for us to keep the embassy open," Rasmussen told reporters.

He added that Denmark's move was in line with that of several other European countries.

The Netherlands will temporarily move its embassy staff in Iran to Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said on Tuesday, citing safety concerns over the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

"Due to increasing risks to the safety of our staff, it has been decided to temporarily relocate the activities of the Dutch embassy in Iran to Baku, Azerbaijan," Berendsen wrote on X.

A strike hit Beirut's southern suburbs on Tuesday, state media reported, after the Israeli military renewed its warning for people to evacuate the area.

"Israeli warplanes launched a raid a short while ago on the southern suburbs, the first after the warning issued by the enemy," Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said.

According to AFP news agency, smoke was rising from the southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway, while the Israeli military said it began "striking Hezbollah infrastructure" in the area.

Abu Dhabi authorities are responding to a fire in the Ruwais Industrial Complex after a drone attack, the emirate's government media office said on Tuesday, adding there were no injuries.

The complex houses Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) facilities that can refine up to 922,000 barrels of oil per day and serves as the central hub for the emirate's downstream operations, including significant chemical, fertilizer, and industrial gas plants.

US and Israeli strikes have hit an airport in southern Iran, damaging part of the site as well as aircraft, local media reported on Tuesday.

"Following an American-Zionist attack on Kerman Airport, part of it was damaged and two old, out-of-service aircraft were hit," Iran's Tasnim news agency said, quoting a statement from the governor's office in the southern province of Kerman.

It is not clear whether there are any military facilities at or near the site.

On Monday the Israeli military said it had completed a "wave of strikes against six military airfields" in Iran, hitting planes and runways as well as defence and detection systems.

Iranian media reported on Friday that US and Israeli attacks had also hit Mehrabad airport in Tehran, with one outlet saying a fighter jet hangar was struck.

Earlier this week strikes hit another airport in the southeastern city of Bushehr, damaging aircraft and the terminal, according to Iranian media.

The top US general said on Tuesday that the United States was carrying out strikes against Iranian mine-laying vessels.

The war has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil and liquefied natural gas transport, leaving tankers unable to sail for more than a week and forcing producers to halt pumping as storage fills.

"(U.S. Central Command) continues today to hunt and strike mine-laying vessels and mine storage facilities," General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

Caine added that in the first 10 days of the campaign against Iran, the US had sunk or destroyed more than 50 naval ships.

US President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to escalate the war with Iran if it blocked oil shipments from the Middle East, even as he predicted a quick end to the conflict.

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News that it's possible he would be willing to talk with Iran but that it depends on the terms, the cable news network said on Tuesday.

Asked in an interview on Monday evening about the possibility of negotiations with Tehran, Trump told Fox he heard Tehran wanted to talk badly, according to the news network.

The Republican president also reiterated his unhappiness with Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, telling Fox: "I don’t believe he can live in peace."

Trump also echoed his comments at a press conference earlier on Monday, telling Fox the results of the U.S. military operation in Iran were "way beyond expectation." Trump added that he was surprised that Iran was striking Gulf countries with missiles and drones, according to the network.

A drone attack caused a fire in an industrial zone in the emirate of Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, UAE authorities said, in an area that houses oil and energy infrastructure.

"Authorities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi are responding to a fire at a facility within the Ruwais Industrial City, caused by a drone attack. No injuries have been reported so far," the Abu Dhabi media office said in a statement on X.

Authorities did not say whether any energy infrastructure had been hit.

Iran has pressed its attacks against Qatar's infrastructure, the Gulf state's foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday, over a week after Iranian drone strikes forced a halt to Qatari gas production.

"The targeting of civilian infrastructure continues... and we rebuke any justification that the Iranians are offering for these attacks," Qatar's foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said without specifying which civilian facilities had been targeted in Qatar.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had begun a new wave of strikes on Tehran, on the 11th day of the Middle East war.

"The [Israeli army] has begun a wave of strikes against Iranian terror regime targets in Tehran," the military said in a brief statement.

Israel's military said Tuesday it would soon strike Hezbollah infrastructure in the southern Lebanese cities of Tyre and Sidon, warning residents to move away from targeted buildings.

"Urgent warning to the residents of Tyre and Sidon. The IDF will soon attack military infrastructure belonging to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah," one of the military's Arabic-language spokesmen, Avichay Adraee, posted on X.

"We urge residents of the buildings marked in red on the two attached maps and the nearby buildings: you are located near buildings used by Hezbollah. For your safety, you must evacuate immediately and move at least 300 metres away," he added.

Chinese authorities and airlines have assisted over 10,000 Chinese citizens in returning from the Middle East, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after the war in the region forced airspace closures and grounded commercial flights.

Over 10,000 Chinese people have safely returned from countries including the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Saudi Arabia, Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry, said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

China's foreign ministry and civil aviation administration have guided domestic airlines to increase capacity to repatriate Chinese citizens stranded in the Middle East, Guo said.

More than 3,000 Chinese citizens had been evacuated from Iran, the foreign ministry said last week.

The war in the Middle East, which broke out after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, led to flight cancellations across the region.

Major Chinese airlines, including Air China and China Southern Airlines, resumed flights earlier this month between some Chinese cities and Gulf hubs such as Riyadh and Dubai.

China has condemned the US and Israeli strikes, repeatedly called for a ceasefire and sent an envoy to the Middle East for mediation. 

 Russia has so far been the only winner from the war in the Middle East as energy prices soar and attention for its war against Ukraine has faded, EU Council President Antonio Costa said on Tuesday.

"So far, there is only one winner in this war – Russia," Costa said in a speech to EU ambassadors in Brussels.

"It gains new resources to finance its war against Ukraine as energy prices rise. It profits from the diversion of military capabilities that could otherwise have been sent to support Ukraine. And it benefits from reduced attention to the Ukrainian front as the conflict in the Middle East takes centre stage."

Costa stressed the need for the EU to protect the international rules-based order, which he said was now being challenged by the United States, and for all parties in the Middle East to return to the negotiating table.

"Freedom and human rights cannot be achieved through bombs. Only international law upholds them," he said.

"We must avoid further escalation. Such a path threatens the Middle East, Europe, and beyond." 

Israeli warplanes carried out air raids on several villages in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil districts.

According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, an airstrike early this morning struck a residential building in the town of Breqa in the Nabatieh district, completely destroying it.

The agency also reported a series of airstrikes between midnight and the early morning hours targeting the towns of Harouf, where four people were injured, Kfarsir in the Nabatieh district, and Deir Antar and Shaqra in the Bint Jbeil district.

Israel is ahead of schedule in reaching its war objectives in Iran, such as weakening the authorities so that the Iranian people take control of their own fate, Israel's ambassador to France Joshua Zarka said on Tuesday.

In Lebanon, the Lebanese government has not been able to disarm Hezbollah yet, Zarka said in an interview with French TV station BFMTV, adding he is not aware of any decision from Israel to negotiate an end to the war with Beirut.

A drone crashed into a residential area in Az Zulfi, Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi Civil Defence on Tuesday.

In a statement, the country's civil defence said an unmanned aerial vehicle fell onto a residential site in the city of Az Zulfi, located in Riyadh Province in central Saudi Arabia.

The incident caused minor material damage but no injuries were reported.

Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday that talks with the United States were not on the agenda as their war entered its 11th day.

"I don't think talking with the Americans would be on our agenda anymore," Abbas Araghchi told PBS News, saying Tehran had a "very bitter experience" during previous negotiations with the US.

In the interview with PBS News, Araghchi insisted that Iran was acting in "self-defence".

"We are prepared, we have been prepared to continue attacking them with our missiles as long as needed and as long as it takes," he said.

Sirens sounded in Jerusalem on Tuesday after Israel's military warned of incoming missiles from Iran, according to news agency AFP.

The warning came as the US-Israeli war against Iran entered its 11th day, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Israel was "not done yet" with its military campaign.