Here are the latest developments in the Middle East war:
The United States could “take out” Iran’s Kharg island whenever it wanted, the White House said after a report that President Donald Trump’s administration was considering plans to occupy or blockade the oil hub.
The United States is deploying additional Marines to the Middle East, US media reported, possibly signalling a coming ground operation three weeks into the US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
The Wall Street Journal said Washington is deploying between 2,200 and 2,500 Marines from the California-based USS Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
CNN meanwhile said thousands of Marines and sailors were expected to deploy to the Middle East. Both publications cited anonymous US officials.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said Tehran and allied forces in the region were “in no way” behind attacks on Oman and Turkey during the war, instead blaming “deception by the Zionist enemy”, referring to Israel.
Khamenei said the enemies of the Islamic republic were being defeated in the war against the US and Israel in a written message for the Persian New Year, Nowruz.
“At the moment, due to the particular unity that has been created between you our compatriots... the enemy has been defeated,” said Khamenei.
He is yet to appear in public after being named to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the war.
NATO’s mission in Iraq has been fully relocated to Europe, the alliance said, with the last personnel from the non-combat force of several hundred departing the country.
AFP journalists reported hearing several blasts in Tehran.
The blasts, which came as Iranians celebrated Nowruz, came from the eastern and northern parts of the capital, the journalists said.
Drone attacks hit Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, causing several fires but no casualties, state media said, citing the national oil company.
Hezbollah said it has targeted Israeli soldiers in six south Lebanon villages, in a series of statements, as Israeli ground forces attempt to push into southern Lebanon.
The pro-Iran armed group said it targeted a “gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers” in each of the six border villages, and a Merkava tank, as its war with Israel neared the three-week mark.
Britain’s foreign minister Yvette Cooper warned her Iranian counterpart in a phone call “against targeting UK bases, territory or interests directly”, a foreign office statement said.
This came after an Iranian foreign ministry statement which said top diplomat Abbas Araghchi told Cooper in the call on Thursday that any US use of British bases would be seen as “participation in aggression” against the Islamic republic.
A blast blew a crater in a hillside just inside Jerusalem’s Old City on Friday, spraying debris across a road, after a warning of incoming missiles fired from Iran.
AFP journalists at the scene saw the damage just a few hundred metres from Jerusalem’s revered holy sites of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
President Donald Trump branded the United States’ NATO allies “cowards” for not heeding his demand for military assistance against Iran to control the Hormuz Strait shipping route.
“COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!” he posted on his Truth Social platform.
Iran’s military threatened to hunt down US and Israeli officials and army commanders even while they were on holiday or visiting entertainment centres.
“We are watching your cowardly officials and commanders, pilots and wicked soldiers,” armed forces spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi said, quoted by state TV.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on a visit to Israel that Iran must make “major concessions” as part of any long-term political solution to the Middle East war.
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