Thousands of US marines and sailors arrive in Middle East
Around 3,500 US marines and sailors arrived in the Middle East on Friday, US Central Command said today. Central Command oversees US military operations in the region.
The marines are from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, Central Command said. Those marines are highly-trained in a variety of operations, including storming beaches, parachuting onto islands or boarding ships for seizure operations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The New York Times reported that the group of marines and sailors may participate in efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz, which has been mostly closed by Iran due to the ongoing US-Israel war. Although it is still unclear what the marines and sailors will do in the region, it is speculated they may be tasked with raids of different islands located within the Strait.
US Central Command, the Department of Defense’s command overseeing the US’s war on Iran, said on Saturday that US forces have struck over 11,000 targets since the US began its bombing campaign.
In a post on the social media platform X, US Central Command also included information about the types of US assets participating in the US-Israel war on Iran that began in 28 February. It includes a series of air, sea and land assets, like fighter jets, bombers, aircraft carriers and missile systems.
The social media post also said that intelligence sites, control centers, missile sites and military support infrastructure have been targeted. However, on the day the bombing campaign began, the US bombed a school in Iran, killing at least 175 people, mostly children.
'More tragedy' as five separate attacks on southern Lebanon kill nine paramedics and wound seven others, WHO chief says
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organisation, has called for an end to attacks on medical staff after nine paramedics were killed in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
They were killed while working in the field in five separate attacks on Lebanese villages, Tedros said, bringing the number of health workers killed this month to 51. Seven medics were also reportedly wounded.
He wrote on X:
More tragedy in southern Lebanon today … March has been the second most deadly month for health workers in Lebanon since [the] WHO started monitoring attacks on health care in the country in October 2023.
More than 120 health workers have also been reportedly wounded since the escalation began in Lebanon on 2 March, overwhelmingly in the country’s south.
In Zoutar al-Sharqiya, five health workers were killed in a strike and two were injured, one critically. Two more health workers were killed and three wounded in Kfar Tibnit; one paramedic died in an attack at a health facility in Ghandouriyeh, while another was killed in a strike in Jezzine. Two were wounded in an attack on Kfar Dajjal.
He added:
Health workers are protected under international humanitarian law and should never be targeted.
The only way to end these tragedies is to end attacks on health care, NOW!
Four hospitals and 51 primary health care centres in Lebanon were currently closed, “significantly limiting access to essential care at a time when it is most needed”, he said.
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IDF says it has hit Iran's headquarters for naval weapons
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claims to have struck the headquarters of the Iranian regime’s Marine Industries Organization (MIO) in Tehran.
“This headquarters is responsible for the research, development, and production of a wide range of naval weaponry,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that the attack further damages Tehran’s “naval capabilities”, especially “its ability to produce advanced maritime weapons”.
The aerial strike was part of “a wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting infrastructure across Tehran overnight, the statement said, including sites used to produce and develop Iran’s weapons systems and air defence system.
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Lebanon says it is preparing to file complaint to UN security council over Israeli killings of journalists
Lebanon’s information minister, Paul Morcos, has said that his ministry and the foreign ministry are preparing to file a complaint to the UN security council over Israel’s targeting of journalists.
Earlier, we reported that Ali Shoeib, from the Hezbollah-owned al-Manar television station, and Fatima Ftouni and her brother and cameraman Mohammed Ftouni, from the pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in an Israeli strike targeting their car on a road leading to Jezzine in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government condemned the killings as a “blatant war crime”.
Morcos told a press conference earlier that “Lebanon will not treat such attacks as normal and is committed to national unity”.
Morcos also “called for reaffirming and enforcing international protections for journalists and warned against any attempt to weaken these safeguards”.
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At least 47 people have been killed in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry has said.
Officials in Beirut said 112 had also been wounded as Israel’s bombardment continues.
At least 1,189 people have now been killed and 3,427 wounded since Israel’s renewed offensive began on 2 March.
Second Houthi missile fired at Israel - report
Houthi forces launched a second missile towards Israel, hours after the first which saw them enter the war on Saturday, an Israeli security source has told CNN.
The close allies of Iran fired a cruise missile at Israel, the source said, adding that both missiles were intercepted and no injuries or damage was caused.
Announcing the initial attack, the Houthis said they had fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at “sensitive Israeli military sites” and that they would continue military operations until the “aggression” came to an end on all fronts.
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As of Saturday morning, about two dozen injuries to US service members have been reported following the Iranian strike on a Saudi airbase that houses US warplanes on Friday, and the New York Times hears that most of them are traumatic brain injuries.
The paper cites a US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, who cautioned that the numbers could go up as more troops come forward to report traumatic brain injury symptoms caused by the explosions.
At least two service members were seriously injured in the attack on the Prince Sultan airbase, and two aircraft significantly damaged, including a refuelling tanker, the NYT reports, citing multiple US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Estimates of the damage differed, and an earlier account given to the New York Times said both damaged aircraft were refuelling planes.
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The UAE has intercepted 20 ballistic missiles and 37 drones on Saturday, its defence ministry has said.
It added that the country’s air defences have now intercepted 398 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1,872 drones since the start of “the blatant Iranian aggression”.
The defence ministry said the attacks have led to 11 deaths, including three military personnel.
As we reported earlier, six people were injured after a missile was intercepted in the capital, Abu Dhabi.
US Central Command has dismissed claims by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that Iranian forces attacked several locations in Dubai hosting more than 500 US forces and caused “heavy losses”.
“No US personnel have been attacked in Dubai,” Centcom said in a post on X, accusing Tehran of “manufacturing lies”.
It comes after, as we reported earlier, Kyiv denied Iran’s claims to have targeted and destroyed a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in the UAE, calling it a “lie” and “disinformation”.
“This is a lie, we officially refute this information. The Iranian regime often conducts such disinformation operations – and in this it is no different from the Russians,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson, Georgiy Tykhym, said.
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Lebanon condemns ‘blatant war crime’ after Israel kills three journalists
Israel killed three journalists in south Lebanon today, firing several missiles from a drone at their car, their TV channels and authorities said, prompting condemnations from the Lebanese presidency who called the killings a “blatant war crime”.
Ali Shoeib, from Hezbollah-owned al-Manar TV, Fatima Ftouni and her brother and camerman Mohammed Ftouni from pro-Hezbollah outlet al-Mayadeen, were killed in the strike, their organisations and the Lebanese military confirmed.
Shoeib was a well-known war correspondent in Lebanon, where he reported for al-Manar for nearly three decades. Condolences were shared by journalists all over the country.
The Israeli military claimed the strike was targeting Shoeib, who it claimed was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan force – the most elite unit of the pro-Iran armed group which specialised in cross-border raids. It said that Shoeib’s contact with senior members of Hezbollah, and his work documenting the location of Israeli forces, was evidence he was a military member of the group. It made no comment on the killing of the other two journalists in the car.
Ftouni had also been reporting from the frontlines of the Israel-Hezbollah war in recent days. Her own family had been killed in Israeli strikes weeks earlier. Eighteen months earlier, her and her colleagues were struck by an Israeli bomb while they were sleeping in a hotel in south Lebanon; Ftouni survived but two of her colleagues did not.
The three journalists were struck as they were driving in Jizzine, a district in south Lebanon far away from the frontlines.
The Israeli military has made similar claims about several journalists it killed in Gaza, which it claimed also worked as Hamas operatives, including Anas al-Sharif, a correspondent for Al Jazeera. Israel has killed more than 220 journalists since 2023, including nine journalists during their work in Lebanon.
International law says that regardless of political affiliation, journalists are considered civilians and targeting them is a war crime. Eight out of the nine journalists killed by Israel in Lebanon during their work worked for Hezbollah-affiliated outlets, and analysts have suggested the killings come as a part of Israel’s strategy of attacking the civilian wings of the group.
Lebanon’s president Joseph Aoun put out a statement condemning the strike, saying:
Once again, the Israeli aggression violates the most basic rules of international law, international humanitarian law and the laws of war, by targeting journalists, who are ultimately civilians performing a professional duty.
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Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan airbase on Friday, injuring at least 15 troops, including five seriously, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing sources who were not authorised to speak publicly.
It is reported to be the second direct strike to hit the base during the conflict, after five US air force refuelling planes were struck and damaged in an attack earlier this month.
The entry of the Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous areas, poses a direct threat to the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, a second major choke point in the supply chain of energy supplies and other trade in and out of the Middle East.
With Iran’s near total closure of the Hormuz strait, the gateway to the Gulf, a shutdown of the Bab al-Mandab, located between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, would amplify the already grave impact of the war on the global economy, and could also reignite a Saudi-Yemen conflict, which caused huge humanitarian suffering for seven years before a 2022 truce.
Since the US-Israeli attack on Iran on 28 February, Saudi Arabia has been able to divert some of its oil exports by pipeline to the Red Sea. Saudi commentators have said that if this route was also threatened, Riyadh could also enter the war directly.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a research fellow in Middle East and north Africa programme at the Chatham House thinktank, said: “The decision by the Houthis to join the broader Middle East conflict marks a serious and deeply concerning escalation.
“The potential impact on key commercial maritime routes, especially in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, cannot be overstated,” he added. “At the same time, vital economic and military infrastructure across the Gulf region may become increasingly exposed.”
Read the full report here:
Here are some of the latest images from around the Middle East:
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The situation at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant continues to deteriorate and attacks pose a direct threat to nuclear safety, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said after another strike near the facility.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday that Iran had informed it of another strike in the vicinity of Bushehr, the third such incident in 10 days, with no damage to the operating reactor and no release of radiation reported.
The Russian foreign ministry on Saturday called for “unequivocal and firm condemnation” of the attack near Bushehr.
It said:
We hope that, by receiving timely and objective information directly from the Iranian authorities about what is happening on the ground, the Director General of the IAEA will be able to convey a simple message to the aggressors immediately and unequivocally: ‘It is time for you to stop."’
How likely is Trump to order boots on the ground?
Amid tentative White House efforts at diplomacy to end the war in Iran, US troops have also been arriving in the region to deliver what Donald Trump has hoped could be a knockout blow if he can’t negotiate a ceasefire with Tehran.
Thousands of US marines aboard navy amphibious ships from the 31st and 11th expeditionary units have been deployed to the Middle East from Asia. Another 2,000-odd paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are also being sent to the theatre – they are tasked with deploying worldwide within 18 hours of notification and execute parachute assaults, including against a “defended airfield” to prepare for further ground operations.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, repeated on Friday that the US believes it will be able to achieve its goals without boots on the ground, but when marines are in position next week, Trump could order an assault to either provide leverage to reopen the strait of Hormuz or to degrade Iran’s ability to keep the waterway closed by force. The lack of heavy armoured units, logistical depth and other elements needed for a protracted military conflict will limit the White House’s ability to escalate the conflict, however, potentially extending a stalemate that could be devastating to the international economy.
Read the full piece here:
One of the world’s largest shipping companies, Maersk, has suspended its operations at the port of Salalah in Oman after a drone attack.
In a statement on its website, the Danish company said:
In the early hours of Saturday 28 March 2026, a security incident occurred at the Port of Salalah in Oman. It is understood that the incident involved drone activity and explosions were also reported.
We are pleased to confirm that all Maersk crew are safe and accounted for and no Maersk vessels or cargo have been affected.
Following the incident in which a terminal crane sustained damage, the port was immediately evacuated and operations across the facility were temporarily suspended.
The Port of Salalah remains in full cooperation with relevant authorities and Maersk’s current estimate is that operations will be on hold for approximately 48 hours.
The official Oman News Agency reported this morning that the port was targeted by two drones, injuring one foreign worker and damaging one of the cranes.
This was followed by a statement from an Iran military spokesperson, claiming Iranian forces targeted a US “military support vessel” at a “considerable distance” from the Omani port. The statement added that Tehran respected “the national sovereignty of the brotherly and friendly country of Oman”.
Ukraine has denied Iran’s claim that it had targeted and destroyed a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in the UAE, calling it a “lie” and a “disinformation”.
“This is a lie, we officially refute this information. The Iranian regime often conducts such disinformation operations – and in this it is no different from the Russians,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson, Georgiy Tykhym, said, according to the AFP news agency.
Summary of developments so far
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have attacked Israel for the first time since the start of the Israel-US war on Iran, which enters a second month. The Houthis said the attack came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
Pakistan is preparing to host talks with officials from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt aimed at ending the war. Foreign ministers will attend the talks on Sunday in Islamabad. Pakistan did not say if officials from the US or Iran are involved.
Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said he has held “extensive discussions” with Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian. Discussing ongoing hostilities in the Middle East, Sharif said Pezeshkian was briefed on Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts to engage the US as well as Gulf and other Islamic nations during the conversation that lasted more than an hour.
Elsewhere in the region, drones struck the airport in Kuwait, damaging its radar, and the key port of Salalah in Oman. Kuwait did not say where the drones came from, while Iran acknowledged an attack near the Omani port, claiming to have targeted a US “military support vessel” there.
Authorities in Abu Dhabi said falling debris from a missile interception injured six people. The UAE’s defence ministry said its forces were intercepting missile and drone attacks from Iran.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country and the UAE have agreed to “cooperate in the field of security and defence”. During an unannounced visit to Abu Dhabi, Zelenskyy said he and the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, reviewed the security situation in the UAE, focusing on Iranian strikes and the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.
Israel carried out dawn airstrikes on several towns in southern Lebanon, state media reported, while Hezbollah announced attacks on Israeli forces. The Israeli military has issued a new order for people in several villages near the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon to flee the area and move north, as it escalates its efforts to uproot the Iran-backed militant group.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have confirmed that they launched an attack on Israel for the first time since the outbreak of the Israel-US war on Iran, marking their entry to the conflict just hours after Marco Rubio said the US expected to conclude military operations within “weeks, not months”.
While Israel was again hitting targets across Iran’s capital on Saturday, it identified what it said was a missile launched from Yemen. The Houthis said the attack came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
Houthi involvement in the war could risk broadening the conflict, given their ability to strike targets far beyond Yemen and disrupt shipping lanes around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, which they had done in support of Hamas in Gaza after the 7 October attacks on Israel.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, after meeting G7 foreign ministers in France, Rubio – the US secretary of state – said of Iran: “When we are done with them here in the next couple weeks, they will be weaker than they’ve been in recent history.”
Read the full report here:
Iran said it has targeted a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot in the UAE which it claimed was used to assist US forces, the AFP news agency reported.
In a statement to state media, Iran’s military central operational command Khatam Al-Anbiya said: “As the hideouts of American commanders and soldiers in Dubai were targeted … a Ukrainian anti-drone system depot that was located in Dubai to assist the US military … was targeted and destroyed.”
The statement came a short time after the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced his country and the UAE have agreed to “cooperate in the field of security and defence”. You can read an earlier post on that here.
There has been no immediate comment from the UAE on the purported attack in Dubai.
Here are some images on the newswires from across the Middle East as the US-Israeli war on Iran reaches the one-month mark.
The Israeli military has issued a new order for people in several villages near the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon to flee the area and move north.
In a post of X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, warned that seven villages need to “immediately evacuate and move north of the Zahrani river”.
Israel escalated its attacks against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and issued sweeping evacuation orders for areas south of Lebanon’s Litani River. In recent days, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed most of the bridges over the river, severing wide swathes of the country – including the port city of Tyre – from the rest of Lebanon.
Officials in Lebanon have said more than 1,100 people have been killed since the start of the war and more than a million have been displaced.
Iran claims to have targeted US military vessel near Oman port
Iran has claimed to have targeted a US “military support vessel” near Oman’s commercial port of Salalah, following an earlier statement by the Omani government that the port had come under attack.
“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,” Lt Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesperson for the Khatam-al Anbiya central headquarters, which coordinates the army and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said in a statement carried by state media.
The official Oman News Agency reported this morning that the port was targeted by two drones, injuring one foreign worker and damaging one of the cranes.
Oman has acted as mediator between the US and Iran in the three rounds of nuclear talks that took place in the weeks before the conflict began last month. Earlier this month, Oman said the US had “lost control of its own foreign policy” and accused Israel of persuading Donald Trump to go to war with Iran.
“As we previously announced, the national sovereignty of the brotherly and friendly country of Oman is respected by the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Zolfaghari added in the statement.
Pakistan PM and Iran president discuss hostilities in phone call
The Pakistani prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said he held a one-hour phone call with the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, as Islamabad prepares for talks with regional leaders.
In a post on X, Sharif said he expressed Pakistan’s solidarity with Iran and condemnation of Israeli attacks. He said he also thanked Pezeshkian “for his appreciation of Pakistan’s sincere efforts to advance peace and facilitate dialogue in the region”.
The Pakistani foreign ministry announced earlier today that the country’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, will meet with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt in Islamabad to hold “in-depth discussions on a range of issues, including efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region”.
The ministers, who are expected to begin the two-day talks tomorrow, will also meet with Sharif, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Islamabad has positioned itself as a potential venue for US-Iran negotiations, with officials confirming Pakistan delivered Washington’s 15-point ceasefire proposal to Tehran earlier this week.
Dar posted on X that he was “looking forward to welcoming my brother foreign ministers”.
Iran is said to be reviewing the US proposal, although one official has dismissed it as “one-sided and unfair”. Iranian media reported that Tehran has put forward its own five-point plan, with conditions including an end to the fighting and the assassination of its officials, guarantees that no other war is started against it, reparations for the current conflict, and Iranian control over the strait of Hormuz.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country and the UAE have agreed to cooperate on defence, as the Gulf nation faces continued attacks from Iran.
Zelenskyy said he met with Emirati president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and that the two leaders agreed to “cooperate in the field of security and defence”.
In a post on X, he said:
We discussed the security situation in the Emirates, Iranian strikes, and the blockade of the strait of Hormuz, which directly affects the global oil market. For all normal states, it is important to ensure stability and protect lives amid today’s threats. Ukraine has relevant expertise in this area – our cities, unfortunately, have been under daily attack for four years of full-scale war. Ukrainians have developed an appropriate protection system that delivers a significant interception rate against enemy drones and missiles. This systematic approach and integration of experience is exactly what we are offering to our partners.
The official Abu Dhabi Media Office has provided an update on the missile attack this morning in the UAE capital, saying six people were injured, increasing an earlier casualty toll of five.
Authorities said a missile interception led to debris falling near the Khalifa Economic Zone in Abu Dhabi, close to Khalifa Port.
In a statement, the media office said: “Authorities further confirmed an additional injury as a result of the incident, to a Pakistani national, bringing the total number of injured individuals to six, with injuries ranging from minor to moderate.”
It did not say where the attack was launched from, but the country’s defence ministry said earlier that its forces were intercepting missile and drone attacks from Iran.
‘It didn’t matter whose child I rescued’: parents of Iran school bombing victims describe their worst day
When Marzieh heard the first bang, an almighty crash that rattled the room, her first thought went to her youngest son, Mohammad. He must have got out on to the balcony and discovered a new game, she thought: using all of his small might to smash its sliding doors closed. Marzieh stood up from where she was working at her sewing machine, and shouted for him to stop.
“Mum, it wasn’t me,” he called back.
Then, the second crash sounded, the force of it making the entire house tremble. Could it be the neighbours, she wondered – construction work, renovations? But even as the thought occurred, she knew it wasn’t right: their nextdoor neighbours had all left for work that morning, and only she and Mohammad were at home.
Just a few minutes earlier, at 11.17am, Marzieh had received an abrupt phone call from Mrs Mohammadian, her eight-year-old daughter Zahra’s teacher. The primary school, a few blocks away, was closing early, she said – could the family pick Zahra up? But Mrs Mohammadian hadn’t said why, swiftly concluding the message to call the next parent on her list. Marzieh rang her husband at work, who sent his brother to pick up the girls – Zahra and her cousin were in the same class.
Now, standing in the house, Marzieh felt a strange, numb feeling settle in. She looked down, and noticed she was shaking. From the street outside she could hear voices, and so Marzieh gathered up Mohammad, rushing to find her chador (veil) to leave the house. As she opened the door, the acrid smell of smoke hit her. People ran back and forth down the road. She stopped someone to ask what was happening. “War has started,” they said.
Hours before the world learned that a US missile had hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school, parents were already searching the rubble for their sons and daughters. In this exclusive report, four families describe the events of 28 February:
A drone attack at Kuwait airport has caused “significant damage” to its radar system, the state-owned Kuwait News Agency (Kuna) reported.
Civil aviation authorities confirmed there were no injuries after the airport was “subjected to several drone attacks”, according to Kuna.
The airport has been targeted several times since the onset of the Iran war, most recently on Wednesday when a drone attack on a fuel depot at the site caused a massive fire. Kuwait has blamed Iran for the attacks.
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Israel carried out dawn airstrikes on several towns in southern Lebanon on Saturday, state media reported, while Hezbollah announced attacks on Israeli forces, including in Debel.
Lebanon’s state-run National news agency reported “a series of strikes” at dawn on the town of Majdal Selm, “successive strikes” on the towns of Kafra, Hanniyeh, Touline and Adloun, and several Israeli strikes on Nabatiyeh, hitting “residential and commercial buildings and a fuel station”.
The agency also reported strikes on border towns, particularly Taybeh, with “an attempt by enemy forces to advance toward the Litani area”.
Hezbollah said it had targeted gatherings of Israeli forces in Debel, a predominantly Christian border town where some people are still living.
Pakistan will host talks next week with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey on the war in the Middle East, a senior foreign ministry official told AFP on Saturday.
“We will host a quadrilateral meeting on Monday,” the official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the exact representation was not yet confirmed. They said delegations were expected to arrive in Pakistan by Sunday night.
Pakistan has emerged as a key facilitator between Iran and the US. Islamabad has longstanding links with Tehran and close contacts in the Gulf, while the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Amin Munir have struck up a personal rapport with US President Donald Trump.
The US 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 has 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.
Yemen’s Houthis confirm attack on Israel
Yemen’s Houthis say an attack on Israel on Saturday came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestinian territories.
The group said the attack was made with a barrage of missiles, adding that their operations would continue until the “aggression” on all fronts ends.
The entry into the war of the Houthis has called into question whether the rebel group, backed by Tehran, will again target commercial shipping travelling through the Red Sea corridor.
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Updating our earlier report about an Iranian attack on an airbase in Saudi Arabia, more than two dozen US troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on the Prince Sultan airbase in the past week, AP sources say.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at the base in a Friday attack that wounded at least 15 troops, including five seriously, according to the sources who were not authorized to comment publicly. US officials initially reported that at least 10 US troops were injured, including two seriously wounded. The base had come under attack twice earlier this week.
Sirens have been sounding in Bahrain through Saturday morning, with authorities warnings of potential attacks. The country’s interior ministry has urged people to head to the nearest safe location.
Earlier in the day, the ministry said civil defence officials had extinguished a fire at a facility that had been targeted by Iran.
Bahrain has so far seen two deaths since the war began, with the most recent drone strike hitting a residential building in the capital Manama, according to the interior ministry.
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A worker has been injured in a drone attack on Oman’s Salalah port while a crane suffered limited damage, Oman’s government said on Saturday.
Oman had served as a mediator between the US and Iran before the current war. But earlier this month, Oman’s foreign minister claimed the US had “lost control of its own foreign policy” and accused Israel of persuading Donald Trump’s administration to go to war with Iran.
You can read more of that background here in an earlier report by our correspondent Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Dubai.
The Guardian’s south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, is reporting that Gulf countries are worried about possible attacks by Iran-backed militias and proxy armed groups in the region. Any such attacks would further destabilise Gulf regimes and escalate the war in the Middle East.
Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have condemned Iranian attacks on their soil, including attacks carried out through Iranian proxies.
While on Wednesday, Kuwait said it had foiled a plot to kill state leaders, and arrested six suspects believed to be associated with Iran’s most powerful proxy group, Hezbollah.
Thailand reaches strait of Hormuz deal with Iran, PM says
Thailand has struck an agreement with Iran to allow Thai oil vessels safe passage through the strait of Hormuz, said Thai prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul.
“An agreement has been reached to allow Thai oil tankers to transit safely through the Strait of Hormuz,” he told a press conference on Saturday. He said the development would alleviate concerns over fuel imports.
Some more detail from our earlier report about the attacks on Abu Dhabi, early on Saturday.
Five people were injured as a result of debris falling from a ballistic missile interception, the emirate’s media office said.
A little more context on the Israeli army reporting a missile fired from Yemen.
If correct, that is the first time a missile has launched from Yemen since the war erupted. The launch comes hours after Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they were prepared to act if what the group called an escalation against Iran and the “axis of resistance” continued, but did not say what form any intervention would take.
An entry of the Houthis to the war would raise the prospects of a broader regional confrontation, particularly given the Houthis’ ability to strike targets far beyond Yemen and disrupt shipping lanes around the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea, which they had done in support of Hamas in Gaza after 7 October, 2023.
Iran’s Shi’ite allies in Lebanon and Iraq have already joined the war in the region triggered by US and Israeli strikes on Tehran four weeks ago.
Israel reports war's first missile attack from Yemen
The Israeli military claims it has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen, after Iran’s Houthi allies threatened to join the fighting.
A military statement said Israeli forces had “identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat”.
It was the first such statement mentioning a launch from Yemen during the war, which has entered its second month.
The statement, made early on Saturday, follows reports the previous day that Iran had attacked Tel Aviv with at least five rounds of missiles in about five hours, triggering air defence systems and warning sirens late on Friday and into Saturday.
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Reports are coming in that Abu Dhabi is dealing with two fires near Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi, or KEZAD, started by debris falling from the interception of a ballistic missile, authorities said early on Saturday.
The report comes as the United Arab Emirates is taking a tougher line against Tehran after being dragged into the conflict between Iran, and the US and Israel.
A simple ceasefire won’t be enough, according to the Emirati ambassador to Washington. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Yousef Al Otaiba wrote:
We need a conclusive outcome that addresses Iran’s full range of threats: nuclear capabilities, missiles, drones, terror proxies and blockades of international sea lanes.
We’ll tell you more as it comes to hand.
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Another strike reported in area of Iran nuclear power plant
The UN nuclear watchdog said it had been told by Iran of a new strike in the area of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, the third such incident in 10 days.
Tehran told the agency there was no damage to the operating reactor and no radiation release, and that the plant was functioning normally, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned that any strike damaging a reactor could trigger a major radiological incident, urging “maximum military restraint”.
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Our picture editor has curated some of the latest images from the war in the Middle East.
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At least 12 American soldiers injured in Iranian attack on US base in Saudi
An Iranian attack on a base in Saudi Arabia has wounded at least 12 American soldiers, two of them seriously, US media reported on Friday.
Iran has kept up retaliatory attacks on Gulf nations it accuses of serving as a launchpad for US strikes on it. The attack on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia included at least one missile and several drones, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified officials.
The soldiers were inside a building at the base when it was struck, the Journal reported. Several aerial refuelling planes also reportedly suffered damage in the attack.
Saudi Arabia has previously intercepted several missiles fired near the base.
Updated
Explosions reported in Syrian capital Damascus
Explosions have been heard in the Syrian capital Damascus and nearby areas as Israeli air defences intercepted Iranian missiles in Syrian airspace, Syrian state television reported early on Saturday.
Welcome summary
Hello and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the US-Israel war on Iran and the consequences for the region, the world and the global economy.
The US expects its military operations against Iran to conclude within weeks, not months, and Washington can meet all its objectives without using ground troops, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday.
Rubio told reporters after meeting G7 counterparts in France that Washington was “on or ahead of schedule in that operation, and expect to conclude it at the appropriate time here – a matter of weeks, not months”.
While he said the US could achieve its aims without ground troops, he acknowledged it was deploying some to the region “to give the president maximum optionality and maximum opportunity to adjust the contingencies, should they emerge”.
While the G7 met, Iran kept firing missiles at Israel and Gulf nations on Friday, including a strike at a military base in Saudi Arabia that US officials said wounded at least 10 US service members, two of them seriously.
The attack on Prince Sultan airbase also damaged several US refuelling aircraft, said two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters. One of the officials said two of the troops were seriously wounded. Israel, meanwhile, has warned it will expand its attacks on Iran.
Here are the latest developments:
Israel’s military says it has launched strikes on Iranian “regime targets” early on Saturday. An AFP journalist in Tehran reported hearing about 10 intense blasts. A brief military statement said Israeli forces were striking Iranian terror regime targets across Tehran, but did not elaborate on the attacks.
Elon Musk joined a phone call between Donald Trump and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Tuesday about the war in Iran, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing two US officials. It was unclear why Musk was on the call but a White House spokesperson said it was “productive”.
UAE’s defense ministry early on Saturday said it is was engaging with incoming missiles and drones from Iran, Reuters reports.
Donald Trump said the US does not “have to be there for Nato”. Speaking to an investment forum in Miami on Friday, the US president said he was upset that European Nato countries had declined to provide material support to the US in its war against Iran.
Trump later claimed that Iran was “on the run” and “wants to make a deal”, adding that Tehran had sent the US 10 oil ships as part of negotiations to “make up for” their denial that any formal talks were taking place. Tehran still maintains there haven’t been any formal talks with Washington – only an exchange of messages through mediators such as Pakistan.
Houthis in Yemen said their “finger is on the trigger” for military intervention if certain conditions are met. The Iran-aligned group said it would enter the conflict if new countries join the US and Israel in their war against Iran; the Red Sea is used to target Iran or any Muslim country; or the war continues to escalate against Iran and the countries of the “axis of resistance”.
The strait of Hormuz is “closed”, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said earlier, adding that they had turned back three ships trying to transit the strait. The route – critical for oil and gas shipping and for the global economy – is closed to vessels travelling to and from ports linked to its “enemies”, it said, warning of “harsh measures”.
