Welcome to our rolling coverage of the Middle East conflict as the US Senate prepares to vote on forcing US President Donald Trump to limit further attacks on Iran.
Here is a recap of key events:
- The US-Iran war has widened sharply after a US submarine sank an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, killing at least 80 people, and NATO air defences destroyed an Iranian ballistic missile fired towards Turkey.
- The Pentagon boasted that “America is winning”, claiming Iran’s ballistic missile strikes were down 86 per cent from the first day of fighting.
- Israel continued its air offensive in Iran and deployed troops in Lebanon against Hezbollah.
- In response, Israel came under a co-ordinated missile assault launched simultaneously from Iran and Lebanon, marking a significant escalation in the regional conflict
- The first group of Australians stranded in the Middle East have landed in Sydney, marking the start of a complex return operation for the 115,000 travellers and expats.
- More than 20,000 of the more than 36,000 flights scheduled to or from the Middle East between Saturday’s start of the war and today have been cancelled.
- Read more on the US-Israel-Iran war:
Iranian military forces are trying to prove they can inflict more damage on the US despite the losses across Iran since Saturday.
In a video posted a few hours ago, the Iranian military shows how it is launching Shahed drones with rocket-fuelled boosters to hit targets around the Middle East.
The video was taken in darkness, and can’t be verified as a reliable guide to Iran’s military capacity, but it shows how the disposable rocket boosters get the Shaheds into the air at speed. Once in the air, the drone gets to its target with a rear propeller doing the work.
One expert source on these weapons, the Open Source Weapons Portal, estimates the Shahed-131 can fly up to 900 kilometres and the Shahed-136 has a range of at least 2,000 kilometres. It says they are guided with manually inputted geo-coordinates before diving onto their targets and exploding.
The video may be simply an effort to convince the world Iran still has an arsenal. The US is confident it is degrading Iran’s ability to strike targets. US commander Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said a few hours ago the Iranian were losing the capacity to attack with missiles.
“Iran’s theatre ballistic missile shots fired are down 86 per cent from the first day of fighting, with a 23 per cent decrease just in the last 24 hours,” Caine said at about 2am this morning.
Leavitt has said Trump’s decision to strike Iran was based on the “feeling” that “Iran was going to strike the United States and our assets in the region”.
Pressed by Independent journalist Andrew Feinberg to explain what “imminent threat” Iran posed that justified the US’s decision to attack Iran, Leavitt said: “You have had the president of the United States, the secretary of war, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the vice president of the United States, the secretary of state, and now I am here today to explain to you exactly what led the president to make the decision to launch Operation Epic Fury.”
She went on to tell reporters that Trump’s decision was made on “a feeling … based on fact”.
“The president had a feeling, again, based on fact, that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons,” Leavitt said.
The White House has again rejected the assertion that the US was responsible for a strike on a girls’ school in Iran that killed 165 people, most of them children.
Asked whether the US struck the elementary school, Leavitt said: “Not that we know of … and the Department of War is investigating this matter. And I would just tell you very strongly, the United States of America does not target civilians.
“I would caution you from pointing the finger at the United States of America when it comes to targeting civilians, because that’s not something that these armed forces would do.”
Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth said earlier this week that the circumstances around the strike were being investigated.
The strike, which happened during the first day of the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, is the single most deadly strike of the conflict so far.
During her press briefing, Leavitt claimed the US attacks on Iran were proof that US President Donald Trump “does not bluff”.
“The terrorists bet that President Trump would be like many of his predecessors, that he would just talk and he would refuse to enforce his clear red lines, but that has proven to be a catastrophic error in judgment,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House.
“When President Trump makes a threat – and I have reiterated that threat many times from this podium to all of you over the past year – President Trump does not bluff.”
NATO’s air defences intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran and heading toward Turkish airspace, the Turkish Defence Ministry confirmed.
It remains unclear whether the intended target was Turkey, a NATO member that borders Iran, but if so, it would mark a major escalation in the conflict.
The missile incident is the first time that Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest military, has been drawn into the conflict, but US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said there was no sense that it would trigger the Atlantic alliance’s collective-defence clause.
The intercept comes after a US torpedo sank an Iranian warship overnight. The White House released dramatic video footage of the strike.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has confirmed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tipped off US President Donald Trump that Iran’s top leaders would be meeting in the same place last Saturday, triggering the start of these strikes.
US news site Axios was the first to report on the phone call, which occurred last Monday.
Leavitt said the tip was important in the timing of the strikes, though she said Trump already had a “feeling” that Iran was going to strike US assets, and was preparing pre-emptive action.
Leavitt, the White House press secretary, is giving a fiery statement, declaring her boss is “finally the man of action” to stop Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
She insisted it was necessary to attack Iran, echoing Trump’s dialogue yesterday, who said “he had a feeling” Iran was going to attack first.
Leavitt is now taking questions from reporters.
The White House is giving its first press briefing on the war.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed prior presidents for their failure to do anything to stop the nuclear threat.
“After years of endless appeasement and empty statements, Donald Trump is finally the man of action,” she said.
He was “holding these monsters accountable”.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt gave a press briefing on the US-Israel war against Iran. You can watch a stream of that back below.
“We are only four days into this and the results have been incredible – historic, really,” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth boasted at today’s Pentagon briefing.
Speaking in sound bites, the former Fox News host declared: “They are toast – and they know it.”
“We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly how it should be.”
And this: “The Iranian air force is no more. The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated – pick your adjective. It is no more.”
He said the US and Israel would have control of Iranian airspace in the next two days.
“I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means,” he said.
“It means we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defence industrial base of the Iranian military.”
“We set the tone and tempo of this fight,” Hegseth said, painting a picture of a war choreographed entirely from Washington.
Iranian leaders, he claimed, are looking up at the skies “every minute of every day until we decide it’s over. Death and destruction all day long.”
“Iran’s capabilities are evaporating by the hour, Hegseth said, and the assault was “accelerating,” with more bombers on their way.
The defence secretary didn’t stop there, reiterating over and over that “America is winning.”
“While American strength grows fiercer, smarter and utterly dominant, more bombers and more fighters are arriving just today.”
He also noted that: “This is not a ‘mission accomplished’ situation, this is simply a reality check”, in reference to the infamous moment in 2003 when president George W. Bush gave a speech in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner and suggested that major combat in Iraq was over.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
