Thousands of US marines arrive in Mideast as Israel, Iran trade strikes

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The Pentagon is preparing plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran - potentially including raids on Kharg Island and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz - though President Donald Trump has not yet approved any deployment, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Any ground operation would stop short of a full-scale invasion, instead involving raids by special operations forces and conventional infantry troops, the Post said, citing unnamed officials.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted on Friday the United States "can achieve all of our objectives without ground troops," but the Post said planning is advanced, with one official saying: "This is not last-minute planning."

Aluminium Bahrain, also known as Alba, confirmed early Sunday that its facilities were targeted in an Iranian attack a day earlier, Bahrain's state news agency reported.

Alba said two people were mildly injured in the attack, adding that it was assessing damage in the facilities. The confirmation comes after Iran's Revolutionary Guards said they targeted Alba and Emirates Global Aluminium in response to attacks on two Iranian steel plants. The IRGC said, without elaborating, that the two companies had ties to U.S. military and aeronautics firms.

Two Israeli air strikes on two checkpoints of the Hamas-led police force killed at least six Palestinians including a child, local health officials said, in Israel's latest violation of the five-month US-brokered ceasefire.

Medics said Israeli planes attacked two police checkpoints in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, killing three policemen and three civilians, including a girl, and wounding four others.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the recent strikes. The military has killed over 680 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire with Hamas came into effect in November, local health officials say.

Israel's military said Sunday it was intecepting a missile fired from Yemen, a day after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels entered the war.

Israel's military "has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defense systems are operating to intercept the threat," it said in a statement.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Sunday threatened to target US universities in the Middle East after saying US-Israeli strikes had destroyed two Iranian universities.

"If the US government wants its universities in the region to be free from retaliation... it must condemn the bombing of the universities in an official statement by 12 noon on Monday, March 30, Tehran time," said the statement published by Iranian media.

The statement added: "We advise all employees, professors, and students of American universities in the region and residents of their surrounding areas" stay a kilometre away from campuses.

Several US universities have campuses scattered throughout the Gulf region, such as Texas A&M University in Qatar and New York University in the United Arab Emirates.

Strikes overnight Friday to Saturday hit Tehran, including the university of science and technology in the northeast of the capital, damaging buildings but not causing any casualties, according to media reports.

The United States on Saturday condemned a drone attack on a residence of the leader of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, blaming Iranian militia proxies in Iraq.

"These actions by Iran and its proxies are a direct assault on Iraq's sovereignty, stability, and unity," a statement from State Department deputy spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

"We categorically reject the indiscriminate and cowardly terrorist acts that Iran and its terrorist proxies have unleashed in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region and throughout Iraq," he added.

The Iraqi government has promised to investigate Saturday's drone attack that targeted Barzani's second home.

Yemen's Houthi rebels announced a second missile attack targeting Israel on Saturday, after stepping into the Middle East war in support of their ally Iran earlier in the day.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement that the group fired "a barrage of cruise missiles and drones targeting several vital and military sites" in Israel, adding it "coincided with the military operations being carried out by" Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Syrian authorities said Saturday that they found and closed a tunnel between their country and Lebanon they believed was used for smuggling by "Lebanese militias".

In a statement to the official SANA news agency, a defence ministry official said the army "discovered a tunnel connecting Syrian and Lebanese territory near the village of Hosh al-Sayyid Ali, west of Homs".

"The tunnel was being used for smuggling by Lebanese militias and the relevant military authorities have closed it."

Lebanon's east, along the border with Syria, is a stronghold of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which is currently fighting a war against Israel.

Iran has agreed to allow an additional 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, with two ships permitted to transit daily, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Sunday. 

Hundreds of Israeli protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and some other cities on Saturday to protest the war in the Middle East, in unauthorised demonstrations that security forces sought to disperse.

Weekly protests against the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran on February 28 have been taking place in Tel Aviv and other major cities, initially drawing only a few dozen participants.

Numbers now appear to be rising, though far from the tens of thousands who filled Tel Aviv's streets last year to protest the war in Gaza.

AFP footage showed law enforcement officers removing demonstrators in Tel Aviv. Similar scenes were filmed by activists in the northern city of Haifa.

According to an AFP journalist, at least four people were detained.

Under wartime security guidelines, gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited in Israel, as the country faces daily barrages of missiles and rockets from Iran and Lebanon.

The Israeli police said the "illegal demonstration" in Tel Aviv was dispersed after a Home Front Command representative clarified that such a gathering was prohibited under emergency regulations.

Two drones targeting the US embassy in Baghdad were intercepted by air defences late Saturday, security officials said, the first such attack against the diplomatic mission in 10 days.

One official said the drones were shot down outside the Green Zone, which houses government institutions and diplomatic missions. A second official confirmed an attack by an "explosive" drone had been prevented.

The last such attack occurred on 18 March. The influential pro-Iranian armed group Kataeb Hezbollah subsequently said it would pause attacks on the US embassy, extending the five-day ceasefire twice.

A direct Iranian missile strike on a village in central Israel on Saturday wounded 11 people and left a massive crater, medics said, as the Middle East war entered its second month.

The missile hit a residential area in the village of Eshtaol, near Beit Shemesh, where nine people - including four minors - were killed in the early days of the war by a missile fired from Iran.

Several buildings were badly damaged in Saturday's strike, with metal wreckage and concrete debris scattered around, AFP footage showed. The blast also wrecked several cars and gouged a large crater at the impact site.

It was a "direct hit by an Iranian missile," Ohad Moyal, commander from the military's Home Front Command, told an AFP correspondent at the site of the strike. "Lots of buildings were hit," he added.

The amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli has arrived in the Middle East, US Central Command said Saturday, as speculation soars about the possible deployment of US ground troops in Iran.

The ship, which is usually based in Japan, arrived in the region on Friday, Centcom said in a post on X, noting that the vessel is the flagship for a contingent of "about 3,500" marines and sailors.

The group also includes "transport and strike fighter aircraft, as well as amphibious assault and tactical assets," it said.

The post features four images, including one showing several Seahawk helicopters on the ship's deck, as well as some Osprey aircraft, typically used for personnel transport.

Another picture shows an F-35 fighter jet.

The arrival of the Tripoli group comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that Washington could achieve its objectives in Iran without deploying ground forces.

But US President Donald Trump has been vague on the issue for weeks, and several US media outlets have reported that he is mulling the idea of soon sending at least 10,000 troops to the Middle East.

A strike on Iraq's northern Mosul city killed two police officers, the ministry of interior said, blaming the attack on the US and Israel.

The ministry said the "Zionist-American" attack also wounded five policemen, who were "targeted in the second strike while performing their humanitarian duty of rescuing their wounded colleagues" after the initial attack targeted a police station in the city centre.

The position is shared with the former paramilitary coalition the Popular Mobilisation Forces, a PMF official told AFP. The group is integrated into the army but still contains some pro-Iran factions.

Lebanese Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said Saturday that 51 medical workers had been killed by Israel since the start of the war with Hezbollah on 2 March.

Nassereddine said in a press conference that "the number of martyrs in the health sector... is 51 martyrs... including 46 paramedics and 5 health workers, including nine new paramedic martyrs today".

The minister said the nine medics killed in south Lebanon on Saturday included four from Hezbollah's Islamic Health Committee who were targeted by Israeli strikes while carrying out rescue missions, and five from the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement's Risala Scouts, who were also on duty.

Israeli strikes on health facilities in south Lebanon have killed nine paramedics and wounded seven others, the World Health Organisation said on Saturday.

The latest incidents struck medical teams in five separate villages, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a social media post.

He added that the repeated strikes have severely disrupted health services in southern Lebanon. Four hospitals and 51 primary healthcare centres are now closed, with several other facilities operating at reduced capacity, he said.

The Syrian army said on Saturday that it had repelled a drone attack from neighbouring Iraq that targeted a southern Syrian base which previously housed US forces, state media reported.

Syria's official news agency SANA quoted the army as saying that its units were able to "repel a drone attack on the al-Tanf military base in the south of the country".

"The drones were launched from Iraqi territory," it added.

A strike in northern Iraq's Kirkuk on Saturday killed three fighters from the Popular Mobilisation Forces and wounded four others, the ex-paramilitary coalition said, blaming the US and Israel for the attack.

The fighters from the alliance - also known as the Hashed al-Shaabi, now part of Iraq's regular armed forces - were "subjected to a treacherous Zionist-American" attack, according to a PMF statement.

Every effort must be made to avoid Iraq being sucked up into an escalation of the Middle East war, French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday after speaking with the head of the country's autonomous Kurdistan region.

"Everything must be done to avoid Iraq being drawn into the current escalation," Macron said on X after a deadly strike in northern Iraq against the former paramilitary group the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF).

The PMF - now part of Iraq's army but which includes some pro-Iran factions - said three of its fighters were killed in what it described as a US-Israeli attack.

(AFP)

A series of loud explosions on Saturday evening rattled the Iranian capital, an AFP journalist reported, as the war with Israel and the United States ground on.

The blasts were heard in central Tehran for several minutes, although it was not clear what was targeted.

The Israeli military said Saturday it had struck an industrial complex in Tehran used for the research and development of naval weapons.

"The [military] struck the headquarters of the Iranian terrorist regime's Marine Industries Organization," the military said, adding the strike was part of a wave of attacks conducted overnight from Friday to Saturday.

"This headquarters is responsible for the research, development, and production of a wide range of naval weaponry, including surface and sub-surface vessels, manned and unmanned equipment, as well as engines and weapons."

Qatar and Ukraine signed a defence agreement on Saturday including cooperation on countering threats from missiles and drones, the Gulf state's defence ministry said while Iran pressed an aerial campaign against its neighbours.

"The agreement includes collaboration in technological fields, development of joint investments and the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems," the ministry said in a statement during a visit to Qatar by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A strike in northern Iraq on Saturday killed one Iraqi fighter and wounded six more, a medical official said, in the latest attack on a former paramilitary coalition that is now part of the army but includes pro-Iran factions.

Since the Middle East war began on 28 February with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Iraq has been increasingly drawn into a conflict it had sought to avoid at all costs.

Pro-Iran Iraqi armed groups have carried out drone and rocket attacks against multiple US targets including the embassy in Baghdad.

Strikes have also targeted bases of the former paramilitary group the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which was integrated into the regular army but also contains some pro-Iran factions that have acted independently in the past. The PMF has blamed previous attacks on the US or Israel.

One PMF fighter was killed and six wounded after two missiles struck a base near Kirkuk city's international airport on Saturday, security and medical sources told AFP.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced the arrival of the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group alongside the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to its area of command after the unit was ordered to deploy to the area amid the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran.

U.S. Sailors and Marines aboard USS Tripoli (LHA 7) arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, March 27. The America-class amphibious assault ship serves as the flagship for the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group / 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit composed of about… pic.twitter.com/JFWiPBbkd2

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) March 28, 2026

The Lebanese army has said that a Lebanese soldier was killed in an Israeli strike in the town of Deir al-Zahrani.

Egypt will slow down large state projects that involve high fuel and diesel consumption for at least two months, while fuel allocations for all government vehicles will be cut by 30 percent, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said on Saturday.

Madbouly also said that both the public and the private sectors, with the exception of services and manufacturing sectors, will work remotely on every Sunday of April. The measure could be extended to an additional day per week or prolonged for further months if the war continues.

The move is part of broader measures to cope with the economic fallout from the Iran war, which has driven up energy costs and strained public finances.

Although Egypt is not directly involved in the conflict, it has been heavily affected, particularly in the energy sector, as it depends on imported fuel. Costs have ballooned with the disruption of oil and gas production and trade across the Middle East.

The government has already raised fuel prices and the price of public transport.

The firm Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) reported significant damage and multiple injuries on Saturday from an Iranian attack at a facility it operates.

In a statement, EGA said its "Al Taweelah site sustained significant damage during the Iranian missile and drone attacks at Khalifa Economic Zone Abu Dhabi", where authorities reported a fire earlier in the day caused by falling debris from an intercepted missile.

"A number of EGA employees were injured. None of the injuries are life threatening," the statement said.

Lebanese Health Minister Rakan Nassereddine said Saturday that 46 rescuers and five medical staff had been killed by Israel since the start of the war with Hezbollah on March 2.

Nassereddine said in a press conference that "the number of martyrs in the health sector... is 51 martyrs... including 46 paramedics and 5 health workers, including nine new paramedic martyrs today".

The minister said the nine medics killed in south Lebanon on Saturday included four from Hezbollah's Islamic Health Committee who were targeted by Israeli strikes while carrying out rescue missions, and five from the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement's Risala Scouts, who were also on duty.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had found and dismantled more than 120 unexploded cluster bombs, alleging they were dropped during US and Israeli attacks on a southern province.

"So far, 122 cluster bombs have been discovered and destroyed around Shiraz and in several towns,"the ISNA news agency quoted Jalal Yarmohammadi, deputy head of public relations for the Guards in Fars province, as saying.

It was not immediately clear when the bombs, which involve a single projectile that releases multiple bomblets, were dropped, though the statement said it was "several days ago".

Indonesia is in talks with Iran to secure safe passage for its tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, with Tehran responding favourably to Jakarta's diplomatic efforts, a foreign ministry spokesman said Saturday.

US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran's retaliatory response in the Gulf have sent global oil prices soaring, with Iran maintaining a hold on the vital waterway.

Indonesian tankers Pertamina Pride and Gamsunoro, owned by a subsidiary of state energy firm Pertamina, remain in the Gulf, a company spokesperson said.

The Indonesian government and its embassy in Tehran have held talks with the Iranian embassy in Jakarta and relevant parties in Tehran, which has responded positively to allow the ships to safely pass through the strait, foreign ministry spokesman Vahd Nabyl Achmad Mulachela said.

"The Iran embassy (in Jakarta) has conveyed the Iran government's favourable consideration regarding the safe passage of Pertamina Group's vessels in the Strait of Hormuz," he told AFP.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday hailed mediation efforts by Pakistan to stop the war with US and Israeli.

In a call with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Pezeshkian "thanked Pakistan for its mediation efforts to stop the aggression against the Islamic republic," according to the presidency.

The call took place as foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey prepared to meet in Islamabad for talks on the war in the Middle East.

Ukraine on Saturday said Iran was lying about having struck a depot housing Ukrainian anti-drone systems in the UAE, after Tehran said it destroyed a facility used to aid US forces.

Foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said "this is a lie, we officially refute this information", saying Tehran "often conducts such disinformation operations".

Ukraine has moved rapidly to provide anti-drone expertise, developed while fending off Iranian-designed drones launched by Russia, to the Gulf countries as they come under fire from Iran.

Tykhy was speaking after Iran's central military command Khatam Al-Anbiya said in a statement carried by state TV that it had destroyed a depot in the United Arab Emirates.

"As the hideouts of American commanders and soldiers in Dubai were targeted... a depot of Ukrainian anti-drone systems that was located in Dubai to assist the US military ... was targeted and destroyed," the statement said.

Two liquefied petroleum gas tankers, BW Elm and BW Tyr, are crossing the Strait of Hormuz bound for India, according to ship tracking data from LSEG and Kpler.

The US-Israeli war against Iran has all but halted shipping ​through the strait, but Iran said this week that "non-hostile vessels" may transit the waterway if ‌they coordinate with Iranian authorities.

The two India-flagged vessels have crossed the Gulf area and are in the eastern Strait of Hormuz, the data showed.

India is gradually moving its stranded LPG cargoes out from the strait, with four LPG tankers moved so far - Shivalik, Nanda Devi, Pine Gas, and Jag Vasant.

As of Friday, 20 Indian-flagged ships including five LPG carriers were stranded in the Gulf, Rajesh Kumar Sinha, special secretary in the federal shipping ministry, said.

AFP journalists reported two blasts heard over Jerusalem, after the Israeli military said it had detected incoming missiles launched from Iran.

The apparent attack came shortly after the Israeli military said it had completed a wave of strikes across the Iranian capital Tehran.

An Israeli strike on a media car in southern Lebanon killed at least two Lebanese broadcast journalists, Lebanon's Al Manar TV reported on Saturday.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports.

Danish shipping giant Maersk said operations had been temporarily halted at Oman's port of Salalah after a drone attack on Saturday injured one worker and damaged a crane.

Maersk, whose subsidiary APM Terminals runs the port, said "it was immediately evacuated and operations across the facility were temporarily suspended", predicting it would remain closed for 48 hours.

On Saturday, Iran said it had targeted a US logistics vessel "at a considerable distance from the port".

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier that has been part of Middle East war operations, arrived at the Croatian city of Split on Saturday, the US embassy said in a statement.

AFP journalists saw the vessel arriving on Saturday morning as it headed toward the port, with the embassy saying it was part of a "scheduled port visit and maintenance".

The carrier left a naval base in Crete earlier this week after returning to the base following a laundry fire onboard, which injured two crew members.

"During its visit the USS Gerald R Ford will host local officials and key leaders to recognise the strong and enduring alliance between the United States and Croatia," the embassy statement said.

The United States and Israel launched a massive air campaign against Iran in late February following a major US military buildup in the Middle East that included the Ford and another aircraft carrier, the Abraham Lincoln.

Iranian media said on Saturday that US-Israeli strikes hit multiple residential areas, killing more than a dozen people overnight.

Strikes on residential areas in Borujerd, a city in the western province of Lorestan, killed "seven and wounded 36 others," Fars news agency quoted provincial official Ghodratollah Valadi as saying.

Similar attacks on the northwestern city of Zanjan on Saturday killed at least five people and wounded seven others, according to ISNA, quoting the city's political deputy governor Ali Sadeghi.

AFP was not able to independently verify any of these tolls.

 Kuwait International Airport was targeted by multiple drone attacks that caused significant damage to its radar system but resulted in no casualties, state news agency KUNA said on Saturday, citing the country's Civil Aviation Authority.

Iran's military said Saturday that it had targeted a US logistics vessel near the Omani port of Salalah.

"A logistics vessel supporting the aggressive US army was targeted by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran at a considerable distance from the port of Salalah in Oman," Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for Iran's central military command said in a statement carried by state TV.

A drone attack on one of Oman's main ports wounded a foreign worker, the Gulf country's authorities said on Saturday.

Two drones hit the port of Salalah in the far south of Oman, a statement carried by the country's official news agency said, injuring the worker and causing "limited" damage to a crane.

A drone crashed inside Iraq's Majnoon oilfield in Basra province on Saturday morning but did not explode and caused no material damage or casualties, Iraq defense ministry said.

An explosion was heard on Saturday morning near the international airport of Erbil, a city in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, an AFP journalist reported, and a witness said they saw smoke.

Erbil is home to a major US consulate complex, while its airport houses military advisors attached to a US-led international anti-Islamic State coalition.

Regular drone attacks by pro-Iran armed groups are usually intercepted by air defences.

Production at a major steel factory in Iran has been halted following US-Israeli strikes, Iranian media said on Saturday.

Citing a statement by the Khuzestan Steel Company in Iran's southwest, Shargh daily said the plant's "production lines have been shut down" after several units and steelmaking facilities were hit by strikes on Friday.

The United States and Iraq will "intensify cooperation" to prevent pro-Iran attacks and ensure Iraqi territory is not used to launch assaults against US facilities, Washington's embassy in Baghdad said in a statement.

"The Iraqi and US sides decided to intensify cooperation to prevent terrorist attacks and ensure that Iraqi territory is not used as a launching point for any aggression against the Iraqi people, the Iraqi Security Forces, Iraqi strategic facilities and assets, as well as against US personnel, diplomatic missions, and the Global Coalition," the US embassy in Baghdad said in a statement posted on X on Friday.