3h ago
08.00 GMT
Summary
As we
hand over the blog to our colleagues in London, here’s a quick summary of
today’s events as the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate and the
strikes show no sign of relenting.
Here is
what you need to know so far.
A fresh
wave of Iranian strikes hit the Gulf on Sunday, with Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait all reporting new attacks. Saudi
Arabia’s defence ministry reported intercepting 15 drones. In Bahrain, the
strikes did “material damage” to a crucial desalination plant .
Kuwait’s
national oil company announced a “precautionary” cut to its crude oil
production after the strikes. The military said fuel tanks at Kuwait’s
international airport were targeted in a drone attack and two firefighters were
killed.
Overnight
strikes by the US and Israel hit five oil sites around Tehran, according to an
Iran official. The official said that the five facilities “were damaged” but
the “fire was brought under control”.
Donald
Trump had said he is not interested in negotiating with Iran, raising the
possibility that the Iran war would only end once Tehran no longer has a
functioning military and its leadership is completely wiped out. But while
Trump claimed the US and Israel had “decimated” the Iranian regime, he offered
only a vague description of what he meant by Iran’s unconditional surrender.
Trump
left open the possibility of deploying American troops on the ground. The US
president addressed reporters hours after travelling to Dover air force base in
Delaware to attend the transfer of the bodies of six US service members killed
in the opening days of his war against Iran.
A
majority consensus has almost been reached by the clerical body that will
appoint the successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and become Iran’s next supreme
leader, according to reports. Israel’s military said it would continue to
pursue any successor to Khamenei.
Iranian
president Masoud Pezeshkian said his country “will be forced to respond” to any
attack or invasion attempt from a neighbouring country. His comments came after
a backlash by hardliners and within Iranian military ranks after the president
appeared to apologise to neighbouring Gulf countries attacked by Iran as they
targeted US military bases. Pezeshkian said his comments had been
“misinterpreted by the enemy”.
At least
16 were killed in Lebanon after Israeli renewed its assault on Beirut and
southern Lebanon. Four were killed in a blast on a hotel in Beirut and 12 were
killed in strikes on southern Lebanon as Israel said it was targeting “key
commanders” in the IGRC’s Quds Force foreign operations arm.
In a post
on social media, Trump renewed his criticism of the UK’s lack of immediate
support for US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and claimed Downing Street was now
“giving serious thought” to sending two aircraft carriers to the region.
“That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will
remember,” the US president wrote.
Trump has
warned in a Truth Social post that more Iranian officials will be targeted,
saying: “Today Iran will be hit very hard!”.
China’s
foreign minister says Iran war ‘should never have happened’. Wang warned that
the US-Israel push for regime change in Iran would “find no popular support”
and said “the world cannot return to the law of the jungle”.
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