The US military has hit more than 1,700 targets in Iran since it began its operations in the country on Saturday, according to an update from the US Central Command.
The targets hit include missile sites, navy ships, submarines and control centres, it said.
Centcom added that the US used aircraft – including multiple fighter jets – as well as missile systems and ships to carry out the attacks.
Centcom is prioritising “locations that pose an imminent threat”, it said.
Qatar’s security agencies said they have arrested two cells of operatives associated with the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the country, the state-run Qatar News Agency reports.
The opposition leader in the senate of Pakistan, Raja Nasir Abbas, demanded in parliament that the government of Pakistan withdraws from the Gaza Peace Board after the US-Israel strikes in Iran, resulting in massive pro-Iran protests across the country.
Protesters stormed the US consulate in Pakistan that resulted in the killing of more than 30 pro-Iran protesters.
Senator Abbas, referring to US president Donald Trump, said in parliament:
The person came to power in the US and he is creating instability across the world through the use of force. Pakistan should leave the Gaza Peace Board.
The opposition alliance, which includes former PM Imran Khan’s party, soon after the Israeli-US attack on Iran criticized the government for joining the board of peace without taking the parliament and public on board. The opposition alliance said the decision to join the Gaza Peace Board was taken in the ‘closed doors’ without the consultation and any debate.
Pakistan has been facing severe backlash on joining Trump’s constituted board of peace. The country’s former ambassador to the UN and the US, Maliha Lodhi, said on X:
Time for Pakistan to leave the Board of Peace which it should not have joined in the first place, set up and headed by a man who has launched attacks against 7 countries and whose admin is complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Last month, Pakistan’s prime minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the inaugural meeting of the Gaza board and hailed Trump as “man of peace”.
Rafael Grossi has said that there is no evidence that Iran is building a nuclear bomb but noted that Tehran’s refusal to grant International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors full access to facilities is “cause for serious concern”.
The IAEA director general wrote on social media:
I have been very clear and consistent in my reports on Iran’s nuclear programme: while there has been no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb, its large stockpile of near-weapons grade enriched uranium and refusal to grant my inspectors full access are cause for serious concern.
For these reasons my previous reports indicate that unless and until Iran assists the IAEA in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues, the agency will not be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful.
Qatar’s defense ministry has said that Iran launched two missiles towards its territory, with one targeting US-run Al Udeid air base with no reported human loss.
Here are some satellite images taken today showing significant damage at Iranian government and military buildings, as well as a hospital.
The Israel Defence Forces said it has destroyed approximately 300 missile launchers in Iran and struck several targets in Lebanon.
The IDF said in a statement: “In the past 24 hours, hundreds of fighter jets and aircraft have been striking hundreds of targets simultaneously in Iran and Lebanon,”, adding that 4,000 munitions have been deployed in Iran since the start of the operation over the weekend.
“As part of the defensive effort, the Israeli Air Force continues to conduct successive waves of strikes against the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile arrays and air defence systems,” the IDF said.
Thousands of mourners filled the streets of Minab, southern Iran, today during the mass funeral of victims of an airstrike on a girls’ elementary school – the worst mass casualty event since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
The attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh school during the US-Israeli bombing campaign killed up to 168 people, dozens of them children attending class on Saturday morning.
Three paramedics have been killed and six were wounded in Lebanon’s Tyre district as they were recovering victims after an airstrike, according to the World Health Organisation’s office in Lebanon.
The WHO said health workers “must never be targeted”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has given more details on a drone striking a car park adjacent to the U.S. consulate in Dubai.
He said: “As I came in, I also saw the media reports about Dubai’s consulate. The last update I had with seconds before getting before these cameras was that a drone unfortunately struck a parking lot adjacent to the to the Chancery building, and then set off a fire in that place.”
“All personnel are accounted for. As you’re aware, we began drawing down personnel from our diplomatic facilities in advance of this,” Rubio added.
He said: “But our embassies and our diplomatic facilities are under direct attack from a terroristic regime”.
The UAE’s foreign ministry said it has been exposed to over 1,000 attacks from Iran since it launched retaliatory strikes in the region in response to US-Israeli strikes.
It added it did not allow its territory to be used in any attack on Iran and it has not taken any decision to change its defensive stance towards the attacks, Reuters reports.
Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon told reporters the Lebanese government should act now against Hezbollah to prevent further escalation.
Danon added more than a year since the UN security council reaffirmed that Hezbollah must disarm and withdraw from south Lebanon, “it has done the exact opposite.”
He added: “We expect the Lebanese Government to restrain Hezbollah. Take control, act now to prevent further escalation.”
Authorities have put out a limited fire in the vicinity of the US consulate in Dubai due to a drone strike and no injuries were reported, Dubai’s media office said.
Smoke was seen rising from an area near the consulate, two witnesses told Reuters.
Donald Trump has said the US Navy will begin escorting tankers through the strait of Hormuz as soon as possible “if necessary”.
In a post on Truth Social, the US president also said he had ordered the United States Development Finance Corporation to provide insurance and guarantees for the financial security of all maritime trade, including oil tankers, traveling through the Gulf region.
Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical shipping routes, last night, and threatened to attack any ship that tries to pass through, causing oil prices to soar.
Sustained disruption of shipping traffic in the strait, through which roughly 15% of the world’s oil and 20% of its liquefied natural gas passes, poses significant risk to the global economy.
in Paris
The French president Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address to the nation that he has ordered the French aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, its air assets and its frigate escort to set sail for the Mediterranean.
He said France has defence agreements with Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE and must show solidarity, but he said any action by France was “strictly defensive”.
France must support its allies in the region and show it was a partner to be trusted, Macron said, adding that French anti-air systems and air radars had been deployed and would continue to be so.
France would also send defence systems to Cyprus and a frigate which would arrive off the coast of Cyprus tonight, the president said.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
