The West Asia war entered a third week as the United States and Israel traded fire with Iran, with attacks on military, diplomatic and increasing attack on Gulf energy sites.
Triggered by the February 28 US-Israeli strikes, the conflict has spread across the region, roiling energy markets and pushing up oil prices as Tehran blockades the Strait of Hormuz, while Israel has intensified attacks on Lebanon with a ground invasion targeting Hezbollah.
TOP DEVELOPMENTS
Kharg island warning: The US 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.
UK clears US to use its bases: British ministers have agreed to allow the US military to use the UK's military bases in operations to prevent Iran attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Mojataba says enemy 'defeated': Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba 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.
More US troops in West Asia: The US is deploying additional 2,500 Marines to West Asia, US media reported, possibly signalling a coming ground operation three weeks into the US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
Trump calls NATO allies 'cowards': 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.
Iran military threats: Iran's military threatened to hunt down US and Israeli officials and army commanders even while they were on holiday or visiting entertainment centres.
US President Donald Trump on Friday ruled out reaching a ceasefire agreement with Iran, saying Washington has the upper hand in the three-week-old war.
"I don't want to do a ceasefire. You know you don't do a ceasefire when you're literally obliterating the other side," Trump told journalists at the White House.
Turkey on Friday lashed out at Israel for striking army camps in southern Syria, urging the international community to intervene.
"We view Israel's attack targeting military infrastructure in southern Syria as a dangerous escalation and strongly condemn it," a foreign ministry statement said, urging the international community "to stop the Israeli attacks."
Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for US Central Command, told The Associated Press that 232 service members have been injured in the Middle East. That’s 30 more than a previous military tally of roughly 200 from Monday.
Hawkins said 207 of the 232 injured have already returned to duty. The number of service members that are considered seriously wounded has remained at 10.
Since the war in Iran began, 13 US service members have been killed.
The US Department of the Treasury on Friday designated a network of 16 individuals and entities led by what it called is Hezbollah financier and former public investment official Alaa Hassan Hamieh.
The treasury said these individuals and companies — located in Lebanon, Syria, Poland, Slovenia, Qatar, and Canada — have been involved in numerous economic projects and are estimated to have enabled the diversion of over $100 million since 2020. This network represents a critical source of funding for Hezbollah, it said.
The US Department of State designated Hezbollah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2001, and three years earlier as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
British ministers have agreed to allow the US military to use the UK's bases in operations to prevent Iran attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
In a statement, No. 10 Downing Street said ministers met Friday afternoon and “confirmed that the agreement for the US to use UK bases in the collective self-defence of the region includes US defensive operations to degrade the missile sites and capabilities being used to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The statement follows US President Donald Trump’s labelling of NATO partners as “cowards” for not directly joining operations to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States could "take out" Iran's Kharg island whenever it wanted, the White House said Friday, after a report that President Donald Trump's administration was considering plans to occupy or blockade the oil hub.
Axios reported that Trump was mulling an operation against Kharg to pressure the Islamic republic to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial shipping lane that Tehran has largely blocked.
"The United States Military can take out Kharg Island at any time if the President gives the order," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly wrote in a statement to AFP when asked about the Axios report.
"Thanks to a detailed planning process, the entire administration is and was prepared for any potential action taken by the terrorist Iranian regime," added Kelly.
"President Trump knew full well that Iran would try to stop the freedom of navigation and free flow of energy, and he has already taken action to destroy over 40 minelaying vessels."
On Thursday the US leader called Kharg, which handles almost all of Iran's crude exports, the "little oil island that sits there, so totally unprotected" and said US strikes had "taken out everything but the pipes."
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei on Friday said Iran was defeating the enemies of the Islamic republic and had struck a "dizzying blow" in the war against the US and Israel, in a defiant written message to the nation for the Persian New Year, Nowruz.
The long statement, published on his Telegram channel and official Iranian media, was the latest such message from Khamenei after he succeeded his father Ali Khamenei who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the war on February 28.
"At the moment, due to the particular unity that has been created between you our compatriots -- despite all the differences in religious, intellectual, cultural and political origins -- the enemy has been defeated," said Khamenei.
He described the current war against Israel and the US as the third war that the Islamic republic has experienced over the last 12 months. By showing unity and resolve, Iranians had "dealt him (the enemy) a dizzying blow so that he now starts uttering contradictory words and nonsense," Khamenei said in the message which was also read out on Iranian state television.
He said Israel and the US had the "illusion" that if Ali Khamenei and other military leaders were killed, they would create "fear and despair" and "realise the dream of dominating Iran and then dividing it."
A blast left 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.
Police cordoned off the site in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City shortly after several loud blasts had rocked the centre of Jerusalem.
"We heard a huge boom and debris was thrown about 15 metres," Schimon Elkayam, 44, told AFP, holding fragments of stone in his hands and expressing concern that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities were now all being targeted.
The Israeli military wrote on X "the Old City in Jerusalem, right near the Temple Mount, was impacted by Iranian missile fragments."
Israeli Old City police commander Dvir Tamim said the blast was caused by a "missile impact and not interceptor fragments." He said a bomb squad was checking to verify "what kind of missile" it was.
A later statement from the Israeli police said that the "warhead that fell... contained dozens of kilogrammes of explosives."