Here is a brief recap of developments on the third day of US and Israel attacks on Iran, and of Tehran continuing retaliatory strikes against US allies across the Gulf after the killing of its supreme leader on Saturday.
At least 555 people have been killed in Iran by the Israel-US attacks across 131 cities since Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Donald Trump said the US military is continuing to carry out large-scale operations in Iran and said the campaign could continue for four to five weeks or more. The US president said his objectives in Iran include “destroying Iran’s missile capabilities” and “annihilating their navy”, as well as preventing them from ever having nuclear weapons; he said that Tehran “cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside their borders”. He also cited the apparent lack of progress in diplomatic negotiations as further justification for the strikes.
The US president earlier did not rule out the possibility of boots on the ground in Iran if necessary, in an interview with the New York Post. US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said there weren’t plans to have service members on the ground in Iran, but was also reluctant to say whether this was the administration’s lasting stance. “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he told a Pentagon press conference earlier.
Trump also told CNN that the “big wave” of strikes against Iran is yet to come. “We haven’t even started hitting them hard,” the US president said. “We’re knocking the crap out of them.”
Hegseth said earlier that the US “didn’t start this war but we’re finishing it”, while also claiming that the US’s goal was not regime change in Iran. Hegseth also indicated that the US did not plan to effect a democratic transition in Iran – and refused to establish a clear timeline for how long the US operation will continue.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 52 people in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry said, and wounded more than 150. Israel argued that its strikes were necessary after Tehran’s ally Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel.
US Central Command also confirmed that a fourth US service member has been killed.
A joint statement by Gulf states and the US condemned Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks” across the Middle East and warned that the strikes threatened regional stability. The statement said attacks had taken place in Bahrain, Iraq (including the Kurdistan region), Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The US’s allies in the Gulf states came under renewed attack from Iranian missiles and drones. There were loud blasts in Dubai and al-Samha, near Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, and in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Saudi Arabia shut its biggest oil refinery after drone strikes caused a fire.
Kuwait air defences mistakenly shot down three US F-15 fighter jets flying in Iran-related operations, the US Central Command (Centcom) said on Monday. All six crew members ejected safely, were safely recovered and in stable condition.
The mass evacuation of cities across the Middle East could be necessary if civil nuclear power stations are attacked, causing radiological release, said Rafael Grossi, the director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
