Israeli and US strikes hit the Tehran building of a body tasked with electing Iran’s new supreme leader, local media reported, according to AFP. “The American-Zionist criminals attacked the Assembly of Experts building in Qom,” south of Tehran, according to the Tasnim news agency. Local media showed footage of the building severely damaged in the strikes.
Earlier a major fire broke out as smoke was seen billowing from the US Embassies in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh and Kuwait after Iranian drones struck the diplomatic missions on Tuesday while President Donald Trump warned that a “big wave” of attacks is coming against Iran.
According to the US State Department, the Embassy in Riyadh was hit by two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). “Embassy Riyadh has been struck by two UAVs that hit the roof and the perimeter of the chancery. Post is sheltering in place and reported no injuries." the State Department said.
The attack by two drones early Tuesday on the US embassy in Riyadh sparked a fire, a Saudi defence ministry spokesman said in a statement, while Iran pressed on with retaliatory strikes across the Gulf.
The growing war began on Saturday after joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran that Tehran said killed dozens of civilians and the country's supreme leader.
"The US Embassy in Riyadh was attacked by two drones, according to initial assessments. The attack resulted in a limited fire and minor material damage to the building," the statement said.
Two witnesses told AFP they saw fire engines around the embassy.
Earlier, witnesses said they had seen smoke over the building housing the US mission and heard loud explosions in the diplomatic quarter, home to foreign embassies in the Saudi capital.
A source close to the Saudi army, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, told AFP that Saudi air defences intercepted four drones targeting Riyadh's diplomatic quarter in the attack.
In the aftermath, the US embassy issued shelter in place notifications for Jeddah, Riyadh and Dhahran and limited non-essential travel to any military installations in the region.
Later on Tuesday, the Saudi defence ministry said it had intercepted more than half a dozen drones near capital Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj. "Eight drones were intercepted and destroyed near the cities of Riyadh and Al-Kharj," said defence ministry spokesman Major General Turki al-Malki on X.
The attacks in Saudi coincided with a wave of missiles and drones launched at Gulf states with the UAE defence ministry saying it was dealing with a barrage of ballistic missiles coming from Iran.
In Qatar, the military intercepted two ballistic missiles early Tuesday morning, the country's defence ministry said in a statement.
Iran's salvos have hit ports, airports, residential buildings and hotels along with military sites across the wealthy region of oil giants.
China FM tells Israel counterpart Beijing opposes strikes on Iran
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Israeli counterpart that Beijing was opposed to military strikes on Iran in a phone call on Tuesday, state media reported. "China opposes any military strikes launched by Israel and the United States against Iran," Wang told Gideon Saar, according to the Xinhua news agency.
"Force cannot truly solve problems -- instead, it will only bring new problems and severe after-effects."
Israeli military says Iranian missiles hit Tel Aviv area
Israel’s military has reported strikes in the Tel Aviv area from Iranian missiles, according to AFP. “Search and rescue forces, together with numerous emergency teams, are currently operating at the impact sites in central Israel,” the military said. “The circumstances of the impact are under review.”
Israel’s ambulance service said it was treating three people who were lightly injured. Israeli police said there were several impact areas involving munition fragments within the Tel Aviv district.
Iran ‘has not come to a halt’, says President Pezeshkian
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says that Iran has “not come to a halt” amid attacks by the US and Israel, and that political leadership is in touch with governors across the country.
“By delegating the necessary authorities to the provinces, decision-making is carried out swiftly and in proportion to local conditions,” the Iranian president has said on X.
UAE holiday rental cancellations climb steeply on Middle East tensions, data shows
Cancellations for vacation rentals in the UAE more than doubled on February 28 after conflict erupted between the US, Israel and Iran, Reuters reports, citing data firm AirDNA. On February 28, holiday rental cancellations in UAE rose to 8,450 units, compared with a nightly average of about 3,100 cancellations on the other days of the month.
Cancellation rate, which refers to the percentage of cancelled nights in proportion to the total nights booked, climbed to 43.8pc on the 28th, higher than 14.5pc on average recorded for the rest of February.
Most of the cancellations were for stays scheduled in March, AirDNA added.
On Monday smoke poured out of Kuwait City's US embassy, an AFP correspondent saw. Later, a Kuwait-based diplomat and a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the embassy had been damaged by several drones, while a second Kuwait-based diplomat said the building had been struck directly.
Fire blazes and black smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike hit Hezbollah affiliated Al-Manar TV station in Beirut.–AFP
Trump warns of longer war
US President Donald Trump warned that his attack on Iran could extend longer than a month, as the war spread Tuesday with Israel bombarding Lebanon and Tehran targeting US allies in the Gulf.
Shortly after the United States urged Americans to flee all Middle Eastern nations from Egypt eastward, smoke rose above the US embassy in Riyadh after it was hit by two drones, a Saudi defence spokesman said, although there were no immediate reports of injuries.
New powerful explosions also shook windows in Tehran as fighter jets flew over the Iranian capital, AFP journalists witnessed, as the Pentagon boasted that it had achieved air superiority over the country ruled since 1979 by Islamic clerics virulently opposed to the United States.
Trump said that the war, which began Saturday with a strike that killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was going "substantially" ahead of schedule but that the United States was equipped for a prolonged conflict.
"From the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that," Trump said at the White House.
He also for the first time laid out objectives -- destroying Iran's missiles, navy and nuclear programme and stopping its support for armed groups across the region. The goals notably did not include toppling the Islamic republic, even though on Saturday Trump had urged the people of Iran to rise up and overthrow their government.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio presented a strikingly new narrative of how the conflict started, saying that the United States, which built up its military to levels not seen since the 2003 Iraq invasion, attacked only after learning that ally Israel was set to strike Iran.
Iran had been ready to strike US forces in the region in response to Israel, so Trump decided to intervene "pre-emptively" alongside Israel, Rubio asserted.
"The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked -- and we believed they would be attacked -- that they would immediately come after us," Rubio told reporters before briefing lawmakers.
Rival Democrats voiced disbelief, with Senator Mark Warner saying it was "unchartered territory" for the United States to be triggered into action by Israel's perception of a threat.
Iran has responded to the attack by unleashing missiles and drones across the Middle East, threatening explicitly to drive up energy costs, which could wreak havoc on the global economy.
"We will burn any ship that tries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz," Revolutionary Guards General Sardar Jabbari said of the strategic waterway to the Gulf through which about 20 percent of global seaborne oil travels.
European natural gas prices surged more than 39 percent after Qatar's state-run energy firm said it had halted liquefied natural gas production following Iranian attacks.
Qatar, which had comparatively good relations with Iran before the war, said it shot down two Iranian bombers, the first time a Gulf Arab country has hit planes from their giant neighbour.
787 killed so far in Iran
The Iranian Red Crescent said Tuesday that more than 780 people have been killed nationwide since the United States and Israel started striking Iran.
AFP was not in a position to verify the toll given by the organisation.
"According to field reports from operational teams, unfortunately, 787 compatriots have been martyred in these attacks," the Red Crescent said on its website.
It said strikes since Saturday had hit 153 cities and more than 500 locations across Iran in more than 1,000 attacks.
30,000 displaced in Lebanon: UN
At least 30,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon due to the escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, the United Nations said Tuesday.
"As of yesterday, the conservative estimates suggest that nearly 30,000 people were hosted and registered at collective shelters. Many more slept in their cars on the side of roads," Babar Baloch, spokesman for the UN refugee agency, told a press conference in Geneva.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Tuesday he was "deeply shocked" by how the war in the Middle East is affecting civilians, with fear, panic and anxiety palpable across the region.
Turk "is deeply shocked by the impacts of the widespread hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure since the conflict erupted on Saturday with Israel and the United States of America's attacks on Iran, Iran's response against states across the region, as well as Hezbollah's subsequent entry into the conflict," his spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a press conference in Geneva.
Hezbollah targets 3 Israeli bases
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Tuesday said it targeted three Israeli military bases in response to the strikes on the group's strongholds in Lebanon, including the south Beirut suburbs.
"In response to the criminal Israeli aggression on dozens of Lebanese cities and towns", Hezbollah fighters targeted with drones the Ramat David air base and the Meron base in northern Israel with drone strikes, the Iran-backed group said in multiple statements.
They added that they also targeted a base in the occupied Golan Heights with a rocket barrage.
Iran nuclear site suffered 'recent damage': IAEA
The UN nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that a key Iranian nuclear site suffered "recent damage", a day after Iran said the underground uranium enrichment plant was attacked.
"Based on the latest available satellite imagery, IAEA can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran's underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant. No radiological consequence expected," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a post on X.
The UN agency said on Monday there was "no indication" any nuclear installations had been hit. Iran's ambassador to the IAEA said on Monday that Tehran had informed the agency that Natanz was attacked.
China urges safety in Hormuz Strait
China called on all sides in the Middle East war to maintain safety in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for oil and gas, and vowed measures to ensure its energy security.
Nearly a quarter of the world's seaborne oil supplies pass through the strait, as well as a significant amount of cargo.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards declared it closed on Saturday, prompting several international shipping groups to halt passage through the waterway.
"China urges all parties to immediately cease military operations, avoid further escalation of tensions, maintain the safety of shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, and prevent a greater impact on the global economy," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular news conference on Tuesday.
"Energy security is of great importance to the global economy... China will take necessary measures to ensure its energy security," she said.
China is the main buyer of Iranian oil, most of which passes through the strait.
Drones hit Amazon data centres
Tech giant Amazon said late Monday that two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates were "directly struck" by drones, disrupting cloud services in parts of the Middle East.
A facility in Bahrain was also damaged by "a drone strike in close proximity", the provider said in an update to its service updates dashboard.
A number of Gulf cities have been dealt collateral damage, hit by strikes and stray weaponry since the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, killing Iran's supreme leader and other top officials.
"Due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, both affected regions have experienced physical impacts to infrastructure as a result of drone strikes," Amazon said in the update.
"These strikes have caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage."
The company did not specify if any of its employees were injured in the drone strikes, and said they were working closely with local authorities while "prioritizing the safety of our personnel throughout our recovery efforts."
Amazon Web Services is the world's leading cloud computing provider, competing with rivals including Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud to offer infrastructure that underpins popular apps and websites, as well as powering generative AI.
It advised affected users to back up any critical data and switch to Amazon's servers in other parts of the world.
On Sunday, Amazon reported one of its UAE data centers were struck by "objects," without further specification, and warned users of unpredictable challenges.
Iran Guards target US air base in Bahrain
Iran's Revolutionary Guards targeted a United States air base in Bahrain, the Islamic republic's elite force said in a statement carried on Tuesday by the official IRNA news agency.
"The IRGC announced that... its naval forces carried out a large-scale drone and missile attack at dawn on the US air base in the Sheikh Isa area of Bahrain," IRNA posted on Telegram, using the acronym for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The force said in its statement that 20 drones and three missiles were launched, "destroying the base's main command headquarters," without providing evidence.
Tehran's latest claimed attack came after its military launched salvos across the Gulf region in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes on Iran that began on Saturday.
Four witnesses told AFP early Tuesday that explosions were also heard and clouds of smoke seen in Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh's diplomatic quarter, home to foreign embassies and diplomats' residences.
Iran army hits Israel, US base in Qatar
Iran's army said on Tuesday its forces launched attacks on Israel and a US military base in Qatar, as the war raged for a fourth day.
"The destructive combat drones of the army's ground, air, and naval forces... targeted the military areas of the Zionist regime in the occupied territories and the bases of American forces in Al-Udeid, Qatar," said the army in a statement carried by Shargh daily.
- Blasts in Jerusalem -
A series of overhead explosions were heard from Jerusalem on Tuesday, AFP journalists reported, after the Israeli military said it had detected fresh missiles launched from Iran and was "operating to intercept the threat".
- Explosions in Tehran -
Loud explosions rocked Iran's capital as the war entered its fourth day.
The blasts were heard in northern Tehran, but it was not immediately clear what was hit, AFP journalists said. Iranian media also reported explosions in Karaj city, outside of Tehran, as well as the central city of Isfahan.
The Israeli military said it had carried out air strikes on Iran's presidential office and the National Security Council building in Tehran.
- Drones in UAE, Oman, Iraq -
Debris from a drone interception caused a fire at an oil industry zone in the city of Fujairah on Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates, authorities said, adding operations had resumed once the fire was contained.
Drones also targeted an Omani port, hitting a fuel tank, state media reported, saying the damage had been contained "without any human casualties".
Also on Tuesday, drone strikes blamed on Iran hit a camp hosting Iranian Kurdish fighters and family members in northern Iraq, a local official and an exiled opposition group said.
- US embassy in Kuwait closed indefinitely -
The US embassy in Kuwait said it was closed until further notice, a day after an AFP correspondent saw smoke rising from the mission following Iranian attacks on the country.
- US doesn't rule out troops -
Trump warned that the United States had more firepower in store, saying, "The big wave hasn't even happened."
In an interview with the New York Post, Trump -- who campaigned on promises to end US involvement in wars -- refused to rule out deploying US ground troops to Iran "if they were necessary."
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also signaled Monday that deploying troops inside Iran had not been ruled out. In a combative public appearance, he rejected "stupid rules of engagement" that would constrain the United States and said, "We'll go as far as we need to go."
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, vowed that Iran would defend itself "regardless of the costs and will make the enemies sorry for their miscalculation."
Tehran had the air of a ghost town on Monday, and many residents seemed to have left. Some, suitcases and luggage in hand, were preparing to do the same, AFP journalists saw.
Many residents were torn between fear of the bombings and hope that the government's days might now be numbered.
"Every time we hear the noises, we get scared for just a second. But we experience some joy and excitement every time we hear a hit," a 45-year-old lawyer said in a voice message to Europe.
- Israel responds to latest missile strikes -
Just after midnight local time Tuesday, Israel's military said it was working to intercept a large wave of missiles launched from Iran targeting multiple locations, including Jerusalem.
"A short while ago, the IDF identified missiles launched from Iran toward the territory of the State of Israel. Defensive systems are operating to intercept the threat," the military said.
- Netanyahu: no 'endless war' -
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Fox News interview Monday that the US-Israeli operation against Iran would be "a quick and decisive action," later adding: "It may take some time, but it's not going to take years.
- New Israel strikes on Hezbollah -
Israel's military said Tuesday that it had launched strikes on Hezbollah targets including "command centres and weapons storage facilities" in Lebanon's capital Beirut, after warning it would press ahead with its campaign against the Iran-backed group.
The Lebanese militant group said just after midnight that its rocket and drone attack on Israel was a "defensive act" after more than a year of Israeli strikes despite a ceasefire.
- US warns citizens in Middle East to 'depart now' -
The US State Department urged Americans to leave much of the Middle East, including Egypt and Gulf states, due to the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The State Department "urges Americans to DEPART NOW from the countries below using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks," wrote Mora Namdar, the assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, in a social media post.
The countries or territories included in the warning were Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
- Iran state broadcaster headquarters 'struck and dismantled' -
Israel's military claimed it had "struck and dismantled" the headquarters of Iran's state radio and television broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), saying it had "called for the destruction of the State of Israel and for the use of nuclear weapons."
The IRIB wrote on Telegram there had been explosions near its headquarters in Tehran but that there was no disruption to its operations.
- NGO new Iran death toll -
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) on Tuesday said there were 101 casualties inside Iran on the third day of the war, including "85 civilian deaths and 11 military personnel killed."
- Iran 'will burn any ship' in Hormuz -
A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards threatened to "burn any ship" seeking to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, a vital route for oil and gas shipments.
"We will also attack oil pipelines and will not allow a single drop of oil to leave the region. Oil price will reach $200 in the coming days," General Sardar Jabbari said in a post on the Guards' Telegram channel.
- Israel was about to strike Iran, says Rubio -
The United States attacked Iran after learning that ally Israel was going to strike, which would have meant retaliation against US forces, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
"We knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties," Rubio told reporters.
- US says hit 1,250 targets so far -
The United States hit more than 1,250 targets in the first 48 hours of the war against Iran, the US military said.
Targets struck included command-and-control centers, ballistic missile sites, Iranian navy ships and submarines, and anti-ship missile sites, according to a fact sheet released by the US Central Command, which is responsible for American forces in the region.
Australia Middle East HQ hit
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said he could confirm reports that its military headquarters, the Al Minhad Air Base located just 24 kilometres (15 miles) south of Dubai in the UAE, had been hit over the weekend.
Six US soldiers killed
A total of six US military personnel have been killed since the start of the Iran war, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Monday, raising the death toll from four.
"US forces recently recovered the remains of two previously unaccounted for service members from a facility that was struck during Iran's initial attacks in the region," CENTCOM said in a post on X.
Israel’s evacuation warnings in Lebanon
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders for dozens of locations in Lebanon on Tuesday, including warning residents in two southern Beirut neighbourhoods to stay away from several buildings ahead of an imminent operation.
Israel's military on Monday vowed to intensify its attacks on the country and make Hezbollah pay a "heavy price" after rocket and drone fire from the Iran-backed militant group.
"Urgent warning to the residents of Lebanon, specifically in the villages which names are shown," said a statement by the military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee on Telegram, which listed 50 locations.
"For your safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately."
Most of the locations were across the south of Lebanon, which Israel regularly targets with the aim of hitting Hezbollah infrastructure.