All six crew members confirmed dead after US plane crash in Iraq; Iran’s supreme leader ‘likely disfigured’, Hegseth claims – Middle East crisis live

Sri Lanka on Friday repatriated the remains of 84 Iranian sailors who perished when their frigate was sunk nine days ago by a US submarine, local officials said.

The seamen were killed when the IRIS Dena was torpedoed on March 4 just off the coast of Sri Lanka, in an incident that extended the Middle East war to the Indian Ocean, AFP reported.

An Airbus A340 chartered by Iran “left a short while ago carrying the remains of the sailors,” an airport official at Mattala International Airport in the island’s south told AFP by telephone.

“The departure was delayed because 84 sealed boxes had to be loaded,” added the official who requested anonymity.

The destination of the flight was not disclosed.

A drone strike killed two members of an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group in northern Iraq on Friday, a senior official from the exiled party said, blaming the attack on Iran.

Since the start of the Middle East war, Iran has repeatedly struck positions belonging to Iranian Kurdish exiled groups in Iraq.

“A drone struck one of our positions at 4.40pm, killing two party members and wounding four others,” Mardin Zahidi, from the Khabat Organisation of Iranian Kurdistan, told AFP.

The attack occurred in the mountains of Bashiqa, in an area under Kurdish control, between the city of Mosul and the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Zahidi blamed the attack “on Iran and its militias”.

Turkey’s defence ministry on Friday said a ballistic missile from Iran had been shot down in Turkish airspace by Nato forces, the third such incident of the Middle East war.

“A ballistic munition launched from Iran and entering Turkish airspace was neutralised by Nato air and missile defence assets deployed in the eastern Mediterranean,” a ministry statement said.

Hours earlier, sirens sounded at Turkey’s southern Incirlik airbase, a key Nato facility where US troops are stationed located just outside the southern city of Adana, state news agency Anadolu reported.

Nato air defences shot down a first ballistic missile fired from Iran on 4 March, with a second intercepted on Monday.

On the main street of Metula on Thursday morning there was one thing everybody agreed on: the night had been “difficult”.

The sirens had fallen silent only a few hours earlier when military authorities were sure there would be no further waves of attacks with rockets and drones on targets across northern Israel launched by Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant Islamist movement, and its sponsor, Iran.

Yet any calm was fragile and partial.

Warplanes flew low over the small town, the northernmost community in Israel, and the loud percussive bang of interceptions of missiles came frequently. In the background was the thud and crack of what residents drinking coffee in the Bela cafe said was Israeli artillery firing not far away.

Pro-Israel Palestinian militia have launched repeated raids, clandestine assassination and abduction operations deep inside parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas in recent months, with new operations launched recently despite the outbreak of conflict with Iran.

The militia, which are all based in eastern parts of Gaza that are under Israeli control after a ceasefire came into effect in October, have received significant logistic support from Israel since last year but appear to have increased their firepower, allowing new and more aggressive attacks in recent weeks.

Israeli strikes in Gaza, which had averaged around 10 a day across the devastated territory over the last five months, have continued even as Israeli jets carry out bombing campaigns in Iran and Lebanon.

On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike and tank shelling killed ​six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, in separate attacks in Gaza City, the deadliest incidents ‌in Gaza since the US-Israeli offensive on Iran began, health officials said. At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes since the outbreak of war with Iran on 28 February, health officials say.

• All six crew members on board a US KC-135 military aerial refuelling plane that crashed in western Iraq yesterday have been confirmed dead, US Central Command said in an update Friday. USCentcom, who had earlier today said that only four of the six had died, again made clear that the crash was not caused by hostile fire or friendly fire.

• Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei is wounded and likely disfigured, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday, questioning Khamenei’s ability to govern after nearly two weeks of US and Israeli attacks on Iran. No images have been released of Khamenei since an Israeli strike at the start of the war that killed much of his family, including his father and wife.

• Donald Trump spoke with Fox News this morning, where he said that the US planned on hitting Iran “very hard” over the next week, according to Reuters who heard Trump’s comments. The comment echoed an earlier post he had on Truth Social on Friday, in which he said: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today” in reference to the Iranian regime. “They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them,” he wrote. “What a great honor it is to do so!”

• The Israeli military has launched a new campaign across Iran, the IDF said, with Iranian state TV reporting explosions heard across Tehran. The IDF said it has completed its most recent wave of strikes in Tehran, Shiraz and Ahvaz in Iran. The IDF had earlier issued evacuation warnings for parts of Tehran and Qazvin, which is located about 144 kilometres (89 miles) northwest of the capital.

• Air defences in the United Arab Emirates have intercepted 27 drones and seven ballistic missiles today, the UAE defence ministry said. Since the start of the conflict, UAE air defences have tallied 285 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1567 drones heading into their territory.

• Israel’s military said it struck the Zrarieh Bridge spanning the Litani River early on Friday, in what appears to be the first time Israel has acknowledged attacking civilian infrastructure in Lebanon since the conflict began. Reuters reports that Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Friday that the Lebanese government “will pay increasing costs through damage to infrastructure and loss of territory” until Hezbollah is disarmed.

• Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned that any new protests against the authorities would be met with a stronger response than in January, when several thousand people were killed.

• NATO air and missile defence assets have shot down an Iranian missile fired into Turkish airspace, Turkey’s ministry of defence said on Friday. “All necessary are being taken decisively and without hesitation against any threat directed at our country’s territory and airspace,” the ministry said in its statement.

• Two people were killed in Oman on Friday after air defences intercepted a drone over the Al Awahi industrial area, according to state media. The drone was one of two that were shot by air defences on Friday, but the second one did not cause any injuries.

• Explosions shook buildings in Dubai, reports said, and a large cloud of smoke hung over a central area of the financial hub after what authorities described as a fire in an industrial area.

• UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres landed in Beirut today for “a visit of solidarity with the people of Lebanon”. During a short news conference, he calledon Hezbollah and Israel to negotiate a ceasefire “to stop the war and pave the way to find a solution to allow Lebanon to become a country independent, with sovereignty and territorial integrity respected”, adding that this “is no longer the time of armed groups. This is a time of strong states.”

Images show a fireball erupting after an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building in the southern Lebanese village of Abbasiyyeh today.

It coems as UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called on Israel and Hezbollah to “stop the war” at the start of a visit to Beirut, saying it was “no longer the time of armed groups”.

The UN will launch an urgent humanitarian fundraiser today to assist the more than 800,000 people registered as displaced in Lebanon.

More than 1,000 cargo ships, mainly oil and gas tankers, have been blocked from transiting the strait of Hormuz by the Israeli-US war against Iran after Tehran closed the key maritime passage.

Officials in the Trump administration have suggested ways to get ships moving again, but amid continued Iranian strikes on tankers, and reports that Iran has started mining the narrow waterway, the proposed naval escorts have failed to materialise – even as energy prices have soared.

Israel has issued evacuation orders for much of southern Lebanon, instructing residents within 25 miles of the border between the two countries to head north. The order covers major Lebanese cities and dozens of villages.

The Guardian’s William Christou reports from Nabatieh, a city in south Lebanon hit by Israeli strikes.

Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian also attended the al-Quds Day march in Tehran on Friday, waving and smiling at the other demonstrators at the annual rally in support of Palestinian rights.

Iranian state media released photos of Iran’s senior leadership at the rally in an apparent show of strength. Earlier Friday, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said Iran’s leadership was “desperate and hiding”. “They’ve gone underground. Cowering. That’s what rats do,” Hegseth said.

All six crew members on board a US KC-135 military aerial refuelling plane that crashed in western Iraq yesterday have been confirmed dead, US Central Command said in an update Friday.

USCentcom, who had earlier today said that only four of the six had died, again made clear that the crash was not caused by hostile fire or friendly fire.

The identities of the members who died are being withheld their families can be notified, USCentcom said.

This plane was Ithe fourth US aircraft lost since the US and Israel began launching strikes against Iran on 28 February. Three US air force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down in a friendly fire incident by Kuwait air defences earlier this month. All crew members in those jets ejected safely.

Seven US troops have been killed in the conflict, while as many as 150 US troops have been wounded. The death toll in Iran is more than 1,300, according to the country’s UN ambassador.

Both Donald Trump and the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, have warned that the Iran war would probably claim more American lives before the conflict ends.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi posted video on X of Iranians reacting to an airstrike in Tehran during the annual al-Quds Day march for Palestinian rights.

He said their reaction – the video shows them yelling and gesturing defiantly toward the smoke rising in the distance rather than running away – is “nightmare for aggressors”.

“Iranians will ALWAYS stand firm and NEVER cower before cowardly attacks,” Araghchi said.

Oil tankers carrying Russian oil immediately rerouted to India when the US lifted sanctions, according to a senior risk analyst at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, the London-based shipping intelligence publisher.

“We instantaneously saw ships, shadow fleet tankers, sanctioned ones, nonsanctioned ones, making U turns, diverting course,” said senior risk analyst Bridget Diakun. “They were initially going towards Malaysia or to China, and they completely turned around and started heading for India. So India is at this point, able to outbid the buyers in China.”

Diakun said the lifting of sanctions is “a godsend for Russia’s shadow fleet”.

“They’re in a position where now Russia can make a lot of money because it’s given a pass,” Diakun said.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that the decision to lift sanctions against Russia was not going to help end the war in Ukraine, now in its fourth year, Reuters reports.

“This single easing by the US could provide Russia with around $10 billion for the war. It certainly does not help (to achieve) peace,” Zelenskyy, who is visiting Paris, said during a joint press conference with French president Emmanuel Macron.

Air defences in the United Arab Emirates have intercepted 27 drones and seven ballistic missiles today, the UAE defence ministry said.

Since the start of the conflict, UAE air defences have tallied 285 ballistic missiles, 15 cruise missiles and 1567 drones heading into their territory.

Israel’s military said it struck the Zrarieh Bridge spanning the Litani River early on Friday, in what appears to be the first time Israel has acknowledged attacking civilian infrastructure in Lebanon since the conflict began.

Reuters reports that Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Friday that the Lebanese government “will pay increasing costs through damage to infrastructure and loss of territory” until Hezbollah is disarmed.

“This is only the beginning,” Katz said.